A Most Engaging Studio Silent Movie Project!

I have every reason to believe that PLPS (Penny Lazarus Piano Studio) was the first piano teaching studio to create silent movie projects for students. Our Silent Movie work with ideas of creating Cue Sheets, exploring the history of silent movies, and using student literature and historic silent movie music to create soundtracks was first published in Clavier Companion in November/December 2012. This was preceded by presentations in Chicago at NCKP, the National Conference in Keyboard Pedagogy. It’s wonderful to see how much compiling music for silent movies is now a popular piano student project across the country.

This year my studio is using our music to bring attention to environmental concerns such as global warming and climate change. With this in mind, I turned to the silent movie Koyaanisqatsi, with a soundtrack scored by minimalist composer Phillip Glass. After watching this movie in the studio, we turned off the original soundtrack and now my students have compiled their own, using music such as Interstellar, Connor Chee, Zelda, Lord of the Rings, Vangelis, Heller, Burgmuller, Simon and Garfunkle, George Gershwin, historic protest songs and the Great American Song Book. The students are very much engaged and playing beautifully. Our project will be performed at our local movie theatre, The Screening Room, thanks to owners Becca, Ben, and student Oscar Fundis.