Sergio Leone had the music written before shooting C'era una volta il West in 1968 and played it on set through loudspeakers, so the actors moved to it; several scenes were cut to the length of the cues rather than the other way round. Morricone gave each of the four principals a sound — a wordless soprano for the woman arriving from New Orleans, a harmonica for the man who carries one instead of a name, a banjo for the killer, an electric guitar for the bandit. The film failed in America in a shortened cut.