Title: Popular Music in 1900
1Popular Music in 1900
2Minstrelsy
- The Minstrel Show
- Featured mainly white performers who artificially
blackened their skin and carried out parodies of
African American music, dance, dress, and dialect
3Minstrelsy
- From the 1840s through the 1880s, the predominant
genre in the United States - An important influence on the mainstream of
American popular song - Minstrel troupes toured the United States
constantly, helping create a national popular
culture.
4The Birth of Tin Pan Alley
- By the end of the nineteenth century, the
American music publishing business had become
centered in New York City. - After 1885, the established publishers were being
challenged by smaller companies specializing in
the more exciting popular songs performed in
dance halls, beer gardens, and theaters.
5The Birth of Tin Pan Alley
- These new publishing firmsmany of them founded
by Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europehad
offices in a section of lower Manhattan, a dense
hive of small rooms with pianos where composers
and song pluggers produced and promoted popular
songs. - This stretch of 28th Street became known as Tin
Pan Alley, a term that evoked the clanging sound
of many pianos simultaneously playing songs in a
variety of keys and tempos.
6Vaudeville
- Theatrical form descended from music hall shows
and minstrelsy - By the turn of the century, it had become the
most important medium for popularizing Tin Pan
Alley songs. - Vaudeville shows typically consisted of a series
of performances presented one after the other
without any overarching story line.
7The Birth of Tin Pan Alley
- The 1890s saw the rise of the modern American
music business. - Sheet music sold for between twenty-five and
sixty cents. - The wholesale value of printed music in the
United States more than tripled between 1890 and
1909.
8After the Ball
- Harris paid a well-known singer in a traveling
theater production to incorporate After the
Ball into his performance. - It soon became the most popular part of the play,
and audiences requested that it be repeated
several times during each performance. - Harris published the song himself and was soon
clearing around twenty-five thousand dollars a
month. - After the Ball was performed by John Philip
Sousas band at the Worlds Columbian Exposition
in Chicago (1893).
9Ragtime Music
- Emerged in the 1880s
- Its popularity peaked in the decade after the
turn of the century. - Ragtime initially was a piano music but gradually
came to identify any syncopated music. - The term ragtime was used to describe any music
that contained syncopation.
10Ragtime Music
- The word derives from the African American term
to rag, meaning to enliven a piece of music by
shifting melodic accents onto the offbeats (a
technique known as syncopation). - It began as an obscure folk-dance music played up
and down the Mississippi valley during last
quarter of the nineteenth century. - Ragtime energized popular music in America by
adding rhythmic vitality (syncopation) to the
music.
11The Banjo
- A stringed instrument developed by slave
musicians from African prototypes during the
early colonial period. - The basic patterns of ragtime music were
transferred from the banjo.
12Ragtime Songs
- Coon song
- Popular among white audiences from the 1890s
until World War I - Usually accompanied by a simplified version of
the syncopated rhythms of ragtime piano music
13All Coons Look Alike to Me
- The first piece of sheet music to bear the term
rag - Composed by the African American songwriter
Ernest Hogan - Published (complete with racist caricatures on
the cover) in 1896
14Ragtime Songs
- The growing market for ragtime songs at the turn
of the century suggests a continuation of the
white fascination with African American music
first seen in minstrelsy. - Most popular ragtime songs were vigorous
march-style songs with a few irregular rhythms
added for effect.
15Scott Joplin (18681917)
- The most famous ragtime composer of the era
- Best known for his piano rags
- Born in Texas
- Began to play piano around the town of Texarkana
during his teens and received instruction in
classical music theory from a German teacher - His first regular job as a pianist was in a cafe
in St. Louis.
16Scott Joplin (18681917)
- Developed a ragging piano style, improvising
around the themes of popular songs and marches in
a syncopated style - Between 1895 and 1915, Joplin composed many of
the classics of the ragtime repertoire - Helped popularize the style through his piano
arrangements, published as sheet music
17Scott Joplin (18681917)
- Joplins rags were also widely heard on player
pianos. - Player pianos were elaborate mechanical devices
activated by piano rollsspools of paper with
punched holes that controlled the movement of the
pianos keys.
18Maple Leaf Rag (1898)
- Scott Joplins first successful piece
- Named after the Maple Leaf social club in
Sedalia, where he often played - The piece was published in 1899 and became a huge
hit, spreading Joplins fame to Europe and
beyond. - Maple Leaf started a nationwide craze for
syncopated music.
19The Golden Age of Tin Pan Alley Song
- During the 1920s and 1930s, certain
characteristic musical structures and styles of
performance dominated popular song. - Professional tunesmiths wrote some of the most
influential and commercially successful songs of
the period. - The potential for fame and financial success on a
previously unknown scale lured composers and
lyricists with diverse skills and backgrounds.
20Jewish Immigrants
- From Central and Eastern Europe
- Played a central role in the music business
during the early twentieth century as composers,
lyricists, performers, publishers, and promoters
21Irving Berlin
- Born Israel, or Isadore, Baline
- The most productive, varied, and creative of the
Tin Pan Alley songwriters - His professional songwriting career started
before World War I and continued into the 1960s. - It has been said that Berlin often composed from
three to seven songs a week. - In 1969, the catalog of Irving Berlin
compositions still available in print included
899 songs.
22Irving Berlin
- His most famous songs include
- Alexanders Ragtime Band,
- Blue Skies,
- Cheek to Cheek,
- Theres No Business Like Show Business,
- White Christmas, and
- God Bless America.
23George Gershwin (18981937)
- His songs set new standards in excellence in
terms of harmonic complexity and melodic flow. - More classically trained and ambitious than other
songwriters - Sought and achieved success in the world of
concert music and popular music - Influenced by jazz and blues
24Alexanders Ragtime Band
- Published in 1911
- The song that first brought Berlin mass acclaim
- Actually had little to do with ragtime as
performed by the great black ragtime pianists of
the day - Sold 1.5 million copies almost immediately
25Broadway and Film
- Berlin wrote songs for the Broadway stage and for
sound film. - Blue Skies, performed by Al Jolson in the first
talkie, The Jazz Singer - Wrote the entire score for the Marx Brothers
debut movie, The Cocoanuts, in 1929 - The 1942 film Holiday Inn introduced White
Christmas. - The 1946 Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun
- Berlin was the most prolific and consistent of
Tin Pan Alley composers. - His songwriting career spanned almost sixty
years.
26Tin Pan Alley Song Form
- Song forms inherited from the nineteenth century
- The AABA structure
- Verse-and-chorus form of After the Ball
- Verse-refrain form, with an AABA refrain
- Tin Pan Alley song form had two major sections
the verse and the refrain/chorus.
27Listening My Blue Heaven, performed by Gene
Austin (1927)
- Austin was one of the first crooners
- Singers who mastered the intimate style of
singing made possible with the electric
microphone. - This recording was one of the bestselling records
of the era. - Form verse-refrain
- Introduction
- Verse two sections of equal length with nearly
identical music - Refrain four sections, AABAthe A sections all
end with the words my blue heaven - The B section, or bridge or release,
provides variety.
28Listening My Blue Heaven, performed by Gene
Austin (1927)
- The song depicts the deepest aspirations of the
Tin Pan Alley listening public. - The lyrics poetically reinforce a familiar and
comfortable motif of the American dream home and
family. - Gene Austins performance reinforces the
sentiments expressed in the lyrics quiet
intimacy and tranquility.
29Listening April Showers, performed by Al
Jolson (1921)
- This recording reveals the sound and style of the
premicrophone period. - Jolsons singing style reflects the performance
techniques used on the vaudeville stage. - His vocal style was declamatory rather than
lyrical. - Form verse-refrain (ABAC structure)
30What Are Tin Pan Alley Songs About?
- Predominately aimed at white, urban middle- and
upper-middle-class Americans - Said little in the way of social or political
commentary - Were generally escapist
- Privacy and romance
31Tin Pan Alley and Broadway
- Mutually beneficial relationship between Tin Pan
Alley Songs and Broadway shows - Close proximity
- Fruitful relationship in the 1920s and 1930s
- The so-called Golden Age of Tin Pan Alley song
32What Makes a Song a Standard?
- Standards
- Songs that remain an essential part of the
repertoire of todays jazz musicians and pop
singers - Possess a continuing appeal that surpasses
nostalgia - Tin Pan Alley composers produced many standards.
33Rock n Roll
- When rock n roll took over the pop charts in
the later 1950s, the connection between Broadway
and mainstream popular song had completely
dissolved.
34Conclusion
- Popular song both reflected and helped shape the
profound changes in American society during the
1920s and 1930s. - The intermixing of high and low cultures
- The adoption of new technologies
- The expansion of corporate music industry
- The increasingly intimate interaction of white
and black cultures during a period of strong
racism - The emergence of a truly national popular culture
35Conclusion
- Tin Pan Alley and the singing style known as
crooning were important influences on rhythm
blues and rock n roll during the 1950s and
1960s. - Many Tin Pan Alley songs are still used by
contemporary jazz musicians as a basis for
improvising.