The challenge: to get in front of an audience and disappear. It's an act that silent-film organist Blaine Gale said he works hardest at while he pulls out all the stops, causing the Organ Loft's Mighty Wurlitzer theater organ to bring the classics —and we're talking classics — to life.
Blaine Gale plays a five-manual, 32-rank organ, equipped with much more than just pipes, through the hundreds of silent films the Organ Loft shows during its seasons, at 3331 S. Edison St.,
The retired Air Force Reserve lieutenant colonel and Job Service employee said that music has always been a part of his life. He took to learning music by ear just as much as by sight. That makes his skills perfect for what he does. Gale never plays the same score twice, he said.
For him, drawing attention to himself is exactly what he does not want to do. The whole idea is to let the organ music meld into the visual experience of the movie.
That's harder than it looks.
Gale tailors each performance to its audience — an audience that can be very different one night from the next. "It's a conversation using the language of music," Gale said. "The ... accompanist has the job of stating with the language of music the emotion, the mood, the content of the meaning of what is being depicted on the screen."
He uses, more or less, a loose structure to work from and plays off the reaction of the audience throughout the performance. He also must be able to interpret the film to give it the right sound.
Though Gale doesn't use a set score, he still must prepare. He studies the movie beforehand, memorizing the events of the movie so he can create the correct mood with the organ. He also must know when to use one of the myriad sound effects the organ creates.
The Organ Loft's Wurlitzer theater organ is the largest of its kind in Utah. It allows Gale to make some pretty interesting sounds right from the organ's horseshoe console. It has all the bells and train whistles, drums, maracas and more to cover for the actions within the hundreds of silent films — ranging from 1894 to 1936 — the Organ Loft shows. The "sound literally hugs them," Gale said. That's because the organ's instruments, other than the pipes, surround the audience.
In the era of high-tech movie sound quality, studying silent films as an art may seem unusual. But art is just what silent films and the music accompanying them are, said brothers Hunter and Richard Hale, curators of and masterminds behind the technicalities of digitization and production of the silent films.
The Hales have been working with film since they were children, making their first film, four minutes of "The Adventures of Trixie" (their dog), in 1949.
Hunter Hale said silent films are just as interesting as those with sound. "We find that 90 years later people can still laugh at the same things that were so popular back in 1917, and that's a pretty amazing experience. They continue to live. They're not just something for a museum."
Larry Bray, nephew of Organ Loft founder Lawrence Bray, owns and operates the Organ Loft which, aside from showing silent films, draws most of its business from private parties and receptions. Bray took over the business from his uncle who died in 1982.
Visit www.organloftslc.com for more information.
E-mail: bcaballero@desnews.com