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Kendra Leonard deposited Women’s Compiled Scores in Early Film Music in the group
Women in Film History International on Humanities Commons 5 days, 1 hour ago
In this essay I address an area of cinematic musical development where the importance of women’s contributions has gone un(der) noticed: the compiled score, a film score created for early film primarily from pre-existing pieces, in both its written and recorded varieties. I examine written and recorded compiled scores created by Hazel Burnett, Alice Smythe Burton Jay, and Carrie Hetherington. All three were music directors at some of the largest motion picture houses in the United States between 1908 and 1927, but despite their contributions to cinema music, they are today unknown. Jay and Hethering-ton were also entrepreneurs whose desire for better musical accompaniment for motion pictures eventually led them from compiling written scores to developing the technology and processes necessary for creating recorded compilations for automated instruments for use in the early cinema.