SEATTLE — Since 1998, Seattle’s historic Paramount Theatre has given moviegoers a chance to step back in time during their popular series, Silent Movie Mondays.
"The Paramount opened March 1, 1928, with the screening of a silent film called, 'Feel My Pulse'. So, the Paramount was quite literally built for showing silent films," said MacKenzie Mercer with Seattle Theatre Group. "This is our chance annually to return it to its original, opulent majestic movie house."
But long before patrons take their seats, the movie's soundtrack is still being scored.
The first time Tacoma’s Tedde Gibson heard an organ was as a kid at the music-themed restaurant chain, Pizza and Pipes.
"I was fascinated by the sound and what they could do with it. And so that was that was my first time saying, Okay, I wonder if I could do something like that?" said Gibson. "To me the organ is the ultimate gadget. It's the ultimate control where a musician can take this massive machine, mold it musically, and make it do what it needs to do."
Before movies had sound, organs were staples in theaters all over Seattle. Today, the Paramount's mighty Wurlitzer is one of a handful remaining in the country that's still in its original venue.
"When the theater was built, this is what the audience would have heard, was this exact sound - everything is acoustic," Gibson said.
While Gibson makes the music, volunteers like Phil Hargiss make sure it can be heard.
"I'm a member of the Puget Sound chapter of the American Theater Organ Society and volunteers like me from that organization have been taking care oh, 50 or 60 years," Hargiss said.
Though almost a century has passed since everything was installed, the dedicated team of volunteers has it sounding better than ever.
"My reward, for working on this organ is getting to hear how it sounds in that room out there. There's just nothing else like it," Hargiss said.
For most in attendance, this will be their first time seeing the film. But Gibson has seen it a bit more.
"I'll watch the film 10, 20, 30 times over," Gibson said.
"When you're watching a silent film, you forget the organist is even there. That is the whole goal of the silent film accompanist is that you forget that they are there because you're so entranced with what's going on. And the music is a part of the characters," said Gibson. "I try to take the audience to that experience of this is what it was back in the 20s and the teens, you went to an experience, that's what it was all about."
An experience Tedde Gibson hopes others will get a chance to see and hear.
"As long as I'm physically able, I'm more than happy to continue to do it," Gibson said.
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