Tutor profile: Pedro B.

What differentiates Mozart from other composers?

Every composer has a specific way or ways of composing. Mozart was known for being able to write very fast and to write complete musical works "in his head", writing them down later, as he explains in several letters to his father Leopold. His precociousness, also fostered by his father, is another trait: he started composing since he was at least five or six, and could also play the harpsichord and the violin from even younger (his father also successfully fostered Mozart's sister Maria Anna "Nannerl" as a singer and harpsichordist/pianist, but discouraged her from pursuing music professionally when she became older). Mozart's style is often described as "witty", "bubbly", or even "crisp". With notable exceptions, it tends to be lively, well-defined and incorporative of other musical trends of his and his immediate predecessor's time (including the music of CPE and JC Bach). It makes frequent use of appoggiaturas, long notes/chords which resolve to very short ones, asymmetrical phrases, "varied repetition", obvious dynamic contrasts and I-V-V-I call-and response phrasing. Mozart is also known for his large and consistent output in many formats, (forty one symphonies, twenty seven piano concertos and twenty two operas among others), as well as for a distinct unity of style in all of them (this alone is usually considered a mark of a consummate composer). He is also known as an occasional musical jokester for pieces such as the "Table Duet" and some scatological canons.

What would old classical musicians such as Bach, Beethoven, or Mozart think of ragtime music or ragtime composers such as Scott Joplin? https://www.quora.com/What-would-old-classical-musicians-such-as-Bach-Beethoven-or-Mozart-think-of-ragtime-music-or-ragtime-composers-such-as-Scott-Joplin/answer/Pedro-Jos%C3%A9-Bern%C3%A1rdez-Sarr%C3%ADa?__filter__=all&__nsrc__=1&__sncid__=4777059448&__snid3__=7702536053

They would probably find it interesting and eccentric, and play around with in the same way they played with musical styles of other countries. Many foreign 20th Century composers took the same approach; Satie, Stravinsky, Milhaud and Debussy wrote rags with their own twists; Brahms also reportedly enjoyed similar American music, though that was near the end of his life (which was around the ragtime was coming about).

How was music added to movies during the Silent Film Era?

At first, theaters would hire a pianist, organist and, in some cases, a live house band that would play following along with the movie. The music could be improvised or played from special books that collected pieces appropriate to a variety of scenes and emotions. As movies gained in popularity, some filmmakers started hiring composers to write music specifically for their movies. This music would be sent out along with reels of the movie, for the theater musicians to play. Eventually, as technology improved, the film score was recorded and synchronized to the picture as a separate reel or track. The first picture to premiere this technology in its final form was Warner Bros' The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson; this film also signaled the end of the Silent Film Era.