Like the rest of the members of the Blue Grassy Knoll troupe, violinist Steph O’Hara had only a superficial knowledge of the films of Buster Keaton before the band performed its first scoring of a Keaton film.
Like the rest of the members of the Blue Grassy Knoll troupe, violinist Steph O’Hara had only a superficial knowledge of the films of Buster Keaton before the band performed its first scoring of a Keaton film.
A friend of the band was studying cinema, and suggested Blue Grassy Knoll – at the time experimenting with live scoring of stag films, complete with costumes – compose and perform original scores for a Keaton film. “Because they’re silent films, they fall into that old, slightly romantic category,” O’Hara says. “They’re pure entertainment – there’s no sitting back and contemplating.”
Almost fifteen years later, and Blue Grassy Knoll has established an international reputation for its Keaton scores, travelling and performing in the United States, Europe and China. O’Hara says Keaton’s films have a particular sense of timing that makes them an ideal subject for live soundtrack. “The big attraction is his timing,” O’Hara says. “That comes from Keaton’s vaudeville and circus background. We realised pretty early on when we were doing the film soundtracks that we just had to play the film – we’d get a cue from him. The film stays the same every time, so we know when he’s walking, and we can work out the tempo of the music,” O’Hara says.
Keaton’s vaudeville timing provides the basis for a sense of rhythm that Blue Grassy Knoll effectively mimics in its live performance. “Doing the scores to Keaton’s films exposed us to the rhythm that’s in his films,” O’Hara says. “In the new film that we’re scoring he’s dancing with himself – it’s perfectly synchronised. To get that correct requires everything to be in time,” he says.
After touring and performing extensively through the late 1990s and early 2000s, Blue Grassy Knoll have scaled back their performances to the odd local and international film appearance. Blue Grassy Knoll is returning to the stage in April, performing scores to The Boat and The Playhouse. The Boat has been a rare subject of performance, and hasn’t been performed for a couple of years; the latter hasn’t been performed live before now. “We’re right in the middle of scoring The Playhouse,” O’Hara says. “When we do a film we usually sit down together in a room and just watch the film, we talk and laugh and throw out silly ideas,” he says. “We talk about what the film is about, and how the music can determine how the scenes are played out.”
For a score that’s been previously performed, Blue Grassy Knoll adhere to a basic structure, but leaving plenty of opportunities open for improvisation. “The scores are structured, but there’s lots of improvisation,” O’Hara says. “The films can be quite long, and the timing can shift quite a lot. The big thing for us is to change the tempo of the music at the right time. We need to have the transitions right to get to the next piece. The more we play a score, the more that settles down,” O’Hara says.
Blue Grassy Knoll has grown to appreciate and respect Keaton’s reputation as a film-maker and cinematic performer. “I didn’t realise just how important Keaton was,” O’Hara says. “He did his own stunts, and he was also inventing double exposure, which no-one else had done before.” The band has found itself performing to audiences littered with aficionados of Keaton’s films, many of whom assume the members of Blue Grassy Knoll are as immersed in Keaton cinematic trivia as they are. “A couple of times we’ve played in big film festivals, and people come up afterwards and they want to chat. It can be embarrassing because they assume they we know everything about him,” O’Hara laughs. “Often they really love the music – I don’t remember anyone objecting to what we’ve done with the score. Because there’s no original score, we’re not treading on the original music,” O’Hara says.
Occasionally there’s an aspect of Keaton’s films that is out-of-kilter with contemporary political correctness and the band is forced to grapple with whether to include a particular scene. “We’ve had a couple of issues with context and political correctness,” O’Hara says. “We’ve had to scratch our heads and say that’s not acceptable, and you have to decide what to do – do you cut it out or leave it in?”
The mention of political correctness provides a neat segue to my final question – does Blue Grassy Knoll see itself returning to performing scores to stag films? O’Hara laughs at the prospect. “We’re getting a bit on these days,” he laughs. “Turning up at the pub at 10 o’clock with bondage gear – I’m not sure if people want to see middle aged men like that!”
Blue Grassy Knoll will perform Three Short Comedies featuring Buster Keaton’s The Playhouse, One Week and The Boat as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival at The Melbourne Recital Centre’s Elisabeth Murdoch Hall on Friday April 8 at 7.30pm and Saturday April 9 at 11am. Tickets are $45 A Reserver ($40 Concession) and $38 B Reserve ($33 Concession) and family tickets are $110 for April 9 only. Buy tickets online at www.melbournerecital.com.au.
