Schertzinger studied music at the University of Brussels. He continued to distinguish himself as a concert violinist, and then as a symphony conductor. He also worked as a songwriter, adding three songs with lyrics by producer Oliver Morosco to L. Frank Baum and Louis F. Gottschalk's musical, "The Tik-Tok Man of Oz" (1914). His first brush with the film industry came in 1916, when Thomas Ince commissioned him to compose the orchestral accompaniment for his great silent film "Civilization". Remaining under Ince's employment, Schertzinger became principal director of the popular Charles Ray films, establishing a rapport with the mercurial Ray that few of the star's other collaborators would ever achieve.