The single man orchestra, the player of the upright piano, need not make so many preparatory gestures. He may with impunity, if he be of an inventive turn of mind, or if his memory be good, improvise his score as the picture unreels itself for the first time before what may very well be his astonished vision; and, after that, he may vary his accompaniment, as the shows of the day progress, improving it here or there, or not, as the case may be, keeping generally as near to his original performance as possible. Of course he puts a good deal of reliance on rum-ti-tum shivery passages (known to orchestra leaders as “_agits_”--an abbreviation of _agitato_; a page or two of them is distributed to every member of a moving picture band) to accompany moments of excitement. This music you will remember if you have ever attended a performance of a Lincoln J. Carter melodrama in which a train was wrecked, or a hero rescued from the teeth of a saw, or a heroine pursued by bloodhounds. (Those were the good old days!) Recently I heard a pianist in a moving picture house on Fourteenth Street in New York eke out a half-hour with similar poundings on two or three well used chords (well used even in the time of Hadyn). The scenes represented the whole of a two-act opera, and the ambitious pianist was trying to give his audience the effect of singers (principals and chorus) and orchestra with his three chords. (Shades of Arnold Schoenberg!) A certain periodical devoted to the interests of the moving picture trade, conducts a department as first aid to the musical conductors and pianists who figure at these shows. In a recent number the editor of this department gives it as his solemn opinion that musicians who read fiction are the best equipped for picture playing. Then, with an almost tragic parenthesis, he continues, “Reading fiction is the last diversion that the average musician will follow. He feels that all the necessary romance is to be found in his music.” Facts are dead, says this editor in substance, but fiction is living and should make you weep. When you cry, all that remains for you to do is to think of a tune which will synchronize with the cause of your tears; this will serve you later when a similar scene occurs in a film drama.