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Accustomed though we are to speaking of the films made before 1927 assilent, the film has never been, in the full senseof the word, silent. From the very beginning, music was regarded asan indispensable accompaniment; when the Lumiere films were shown at the firstpublic film exhibition in the United States in February 1896, theywere accompanied by piano improvisations on popular tunes. At first, the music played bore nospecial relationship to the films; an accompaniment of any kind wassufficient. Within a very short time, however, the incongruityof playing lively music to a solemn film became apparent, and filmpianists began to take some care in matching their pieces to the mood ofthe film. As movietheaters grew in number and importance, a violinist, and perhaps a cellist,would be added to the pianist in certain cases, and in thelarger movie theaters small orchestras were formed. For a number of yearsthe selection of music for each film program rested entirely in the handsof the conductor or leader of the orchestra, and very often the principal qualification for holding such a position was not skill or taste so muchas the ownership of a large personal library of musicalpieces. Since the conductor seldom saw the films until the night beforethey were to be shown , the musical arrangement was normally improvised in the greatesthurry. To helpmeet this difficulty, film distributing companies started the practice of publishing suggestions for musical accompaniments. In 1909, forexample, the Edison Company began issuing with their films suchindications of mood as pleasant, sad,lively. The suggestions became more explicit, and so emerged themusical cue sheet containing indications of mood, the titles of suitablepieces of music, and precise directions to show where one piece led intothe next.Certain films had music especially composed for them. The mostfamous of these early special scores was that composed and arrangedfor D. W. Griffiths film Birth of a Nation, which was released in 1915. | 
