Re: [Finale] American Styles (was Best Works of the 1920s)
On Mar 14, 2005, at 3:33 AM, Mark D Lew wrote: On Mar 13, 2005, at 10:28 AM, Andrew Stiller wrote: In 1820? *What* interior heartland? There was an interior alright, but it was very sparsely populated and could hardly be considered the heartland of anything. Good point. I would just amend sparsely populated to sparsely populated by non-indigenous Americans. Sorry to nitpick, but I don't like to see perpetuated the myth that American expansion was into vacant land. The ultimate source of the conflict between the Indians and the European colonists was a dramatic contrast in population densities in the different cultures. Europe ca. 1600 was an order of magnitude more densely populated than North America, so that when Europeans arrived in North America, they thought the place was empty, while the indigenous inhabitants thought it was quite full, thank you. So sparsely populated in my posting needs no qualifier--especially since I am speaking by 21st-c. Western standards . And, of course, the high *percentage* of Indians in the interior territories merely underlines the non-existence there of any universal people's music that included everybody. Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] American Styles (was Best Works of the 1920s)
I have read serious speculation that popular music in the sense of music of the people (and I agree with you completely on this meaning) COULD NOT have existed in class-divided and class-conscious Europe, and therefore, as a musical art form that cut across all societal classes, was indeed a new and essentially North American phenomenon. This kind of reasoning can only function in the absence of any examination of the actual music. The dance collections of Attaignant and Susato, English madrigals and glees, the songs collected in Thomas DUrfey's _Wit and Mirth_, and those borrowed for _The Beggar's Opera_--all, and much, much, else are examples of European popular music predating the founding of the United States. Hell, To Anacreon in Heaven, whose melody serves The Star Spangled Banner, is pre-US pop music. So is Yankee Doodle. So is Hail to the Chief (originally sung at boat races). As for class-divided and class-conscious Europe, 19th-c. America was just as highly divided in this way--but our classes were defined by skin color and immigration status. Wherever there are cities (i.e., in any civilization), there is popular music. This is true worldwide and throughout history. see Ch. 4 of Charles Hamm's _Yesterdays_ for the great popularity of Italian opera in the US in the early 19th c. I look forward to seeing it, but remain for the time being convinced that this would have been in the seaport cities that maintained close connections to Europe, and not in the interior heartland. In 1820? *What* interior heartland? There was an interior alright, but it was very sparsely populated and could hardly be considered the heartland of anything. A. P. Heinrich's experiences in Kentucky 1817-23 are instructive. This was a brand new state, as far West as American civilization extended at that time. Heinrich ended up in Kentucky because he'd been hired to conduct opera in Pittsburgh, but found when he got there that the job had fallen through, so he pushed on down the Ohio. The music in the KY towns he visited was typical pop music of the time: waltzes, schottisches, cotillons, and pop songs imported from Philadelphia and New York. The basic 19th-c. American pop song form consisting of solo stanzas interspersed with an ensemble (chorus) refrain was already present, even in this remote area. And BTW, note that this standard form requires the people not only to be able to read music, but to sing in harmony. (Oh, and while I was on the Amazon website I realized why I had not ordered another book that you recommended. With a list price of $175 and no discounted copies available, it's just a little too rich for my blood!) John Yeah, sorry about that. I got my copy of _The Birth of the Orchestra_ at a prepublication price of $70.00, which looks like more and more of a bargain to me as time goes by. Those of you who missed out--well, that's what libraries are for :-) Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] American Styles (was Best Works of the 1920s)
At 2:57 PM -0800 3/11/05, Mark D Lew wrote: On Mar 11, 2005, at 12:53 PM, John Howell wrote: European operetta did not come to North America until the 1890s or later [...] Entirely my fault for not being clear in my statement. I was not thinking so much of imported European operetta, which as you point out very convincingly took place almost simultaneously with it's popularity in Europe, as I was of operettas written IN North America BY North Americans (or transplanted Europeans, like Victor Herbert, who settled here). And my larger point that European music was largely known in seaport cities (and I'm happy to add New Orleans to the mix) and not in the heartland is actually reinforced by what you cite. Certainly the New York publishers did see a market for that music, whether their publications were legal or not, and that is no surprise, either. But I do tend to generalize--the result of teaching a Survey of Music course with no time to discuss details and exceptions--and I do love it when someone can point out some of those details to me, and I can pass them on to my class next time around! John Not even in New Orleans? I know there was an awful lot of French opera comique there throughout the 19th century. I'm surprised if that didn't include operetta as well. Admittedly, French New Orleans was somewhat isolated from the larger musical culture in the United States. Even for the rest of the country, I think you're off by a decade or two. In 1879, D'Oyly Carte presented Pinafore in New York, and later that year Pirates of Penzance opened simultaneously in New York and England. The decision to produce in America was partly in response to small-scale pirated productions already happening in America. According to Kobbé, Strauss's Fledermaus also premiered in New York in 1879, and Zigeunerbaron in 1886. The Levy sheet music collection, catalogued online http://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/, shows several songs from Offenbach operettas published in America in the 1860s. The same collection shows a few more excerpts from operettas by Lecocq, Waldteufel, etc., published in the 1870s. It seems odd -- though not impossible -- that such songs would be published locally if there weren't at least some performance of the pieces. If you read the notes on the songs, you'll see the arrangement is sometimes credited to the musical director of some named theater company, which strongly suggests to me that said musical director had a copy of the score and adapted it for American performance. Even if the operettas themselves weren't being performed, you can hardly argue that European operetta wasn't influencing America if American publishers were selling the sheet music to operetta songs. mdl ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale -- John Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] American Styles (was Best Works of the 1920s)
At 7:56 PM -0500 3/11/05, Raymond Horton wrote: Thanks for the info. I had heard of that strike but not as completely as you write. Wasn't there also heavy taxing of larger bands in clubs after the war that also helped the rise of small combos? Perhaps that was just in NYC? There was a national entertainment tax during the war that applied across the board. I believe it was based on the cost of admissions. My father was in the music education business at the time, and he and many others changed from a fixed admissions price for high school concerts to a suggested donation very specifically to get around that tax. And of course like all taxes, it hung around for years after the war was over. I don't know of any other tax that might have penalized the big bands, but there might have been something along that line. John -- John Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] American Styles (was Best Works of the 1920s)
On Mar 11, 2005, at 3:53 PM, John Howell wrote: American Popular Song did not grow up in the large, East-Coast seaport cities, which maintained close ties to Europe and European culture from the late 18th century on, but in the North American heartland where successive waves of pioneers settled, each bringing its own ethnic background and culture. That culture included folksongs and hymns from many traditions, and songwriters kept writing new songs about current events in the older styles. Those styles were very much based on easy-to-learn-and-remember melodies (often incorporating repetition), vocal ranges limited enough to be sung by anyone, and simple chordal accompaniment rather than complex polyphony. This argument confuses folk music (largely anonymous and non-professional) with popular music (professional, with identifiable composers). The association of the latter with cities is clear at every step--and, I might add, in every culture. The earliest American *popular* songs were written and published in NYC, Philadelphia, etc. Through most of the nineteenth century (from ~1830), these songs were created in the context of minstrel shows, which did indeed tour widely, but had their economic and cultural foundations in the cities. Stephen Foster was from Pittsburgh. Henry Clay Work was from Chicago, and lived in Boston, Phila., NYC. They are not exceptions. To make a living from their works, popular composers from the pre-recording era had to go where the money, the pianos, and the parlors were. Guess where that was. Essentially this formed the background, in the first half of the 19th century, for the brand new music of the people which emerged in the second half, having been essentially protected from the influence of European art music during that gestation period. All popular music, from anywhere, at any time, is *by definition* music of the people (that's what popular means). You cannot seriously assert that there was no American popular music before ~1850, and therefore a music of the people cannot have emerged *ab ovo* after that time. As for a supposed insulation from European art music (as opposed, I guess, to American art music or European popular music), see Ch. 4 of Charles Hamm's _Yesterdays_ for the great popularity of Italian opera in the US in the early 19th c. Hamm's book is the basic text on early American popular music, and it contradicts your highly romanticized interpretation at every turn. Andrew Stiller Kallisti Music Press http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] American Styles (was Best Works of the 1920s)
At 7:56 PM -0500 3/11/05, Raymond Horton wrote: Thanks for the info. I had heard of that strike but not as completely as you write. Wasn't there also heavy taxing of larger bands in clubs after the war that also helped the rise of small combos? Perhaps that was just in NYC? John Howell wrote: There was a national entertainment tax during the war that applied across the board. I believe it was based on the cost of admissions. My father was in the music education business at the time, and he and many others changed from a fixed admissions price for high school concerts to a suggested donation very specifically to get around that tax. And of course like all taxes, it hung around for years after the war was over. I don't know of any other tax that might have penalized the big bands, but there might have been something along that line. John There was something mentioned in the Ken Burns-PBS Jazz series as one reason for the rise of Bebop and the decline of big bands. I remember it as being a tax on larger bands in clubs, but the memory does not always serve. RBH ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] American Styles (was Best Works of the 1920s)
At 12:59 PM -0500 3/12/05, Andrew Stiller wrote: This argument confuses folk music (largely anonymous and non-professional) with popular music (professional, with identifiable composers). On the contrary, my thesis is that it was the music that each separate group of settlers brought with it, which one can refer to as folk music for convenience but which in fact comprises the musical portion of that particular ethnic/language/social/religious group's portable culture, which in the melting pot generated the popular music as you define it. (I have ordered the Hamm book, and another of his, and look forward to seeing what he has to say.) That music often included story songs with moral teachings, story ballads from within each culture, lullabies, play songs, dance tunes, hymns and gospel songs, a very broad expansion of the term folk music but a usable one. But this was music made up to fit within the culture, not consciously written to make money from sales of sheet music. To make a living from their works, popular composers from the pre-recording era had to go where the money, the pianos, and the parlors were. Guess where that was. Of course, but again you are speaking of the latter developments, not the precursors. And no one in the U.S. could count on making a living from their works until U.S. copyright law was changed (in about 1831) for include, for the first time, copyright protection for music. Stephen Foster belonged to the first generation to be able to take advantage of this new law, although he was not a good enough businessman to make it pay off. All popular music, from anywhere, at any time, is *by definition* music of the people (that's what popular means). You cannot seriously assert that there was no American popular music before ~1850, and therefore a music of the people cannot have emerged *ab ovo* after that time. I do not assert it, but I have read serious speculation that popular music in the sense of music of the people (and I agree with you completely on this meaning) COULD NOT have existed in class-divided and class-conscious Europe, and therefore, as a musical art form that cut across all societal classes, was indeed a new and essentially North American phenomenon. As for a supposed insulation from European art music (as opposed, I guess, to American art music or European popular music), see Ch. 4 of Charles Hamm's _Yesterdays_ for the great popularity of Italian opera in the US in the early 19th c. I look forward to seeing it, but remain for the time being convinced that this would have been in the seaport cities that maintained close connections to Europe, and not in the interior heartland. The riverport and lakeport cities would have been the next to pick up imported culture, and undoubtedly did. That still leaves vast areas that were virtually cut off from the influence of European culture for most of the century. Hamm's book is the basic text on early American popular music, and it contradicts your highly romanticized interpretation at every turn. Sure, it's romanticized and highly simplified and suited primarily for an added lecture in a music history course with a textbook that almost ignores popular music entirely. And when I learn something new, I incorporate it. Thanks for the constructive criticism. (Oh, and while I was on the Amazon website I realized why I had not ordered another book that you recommended. With a list price of $175 and no discounted copies available, it's just a little too rich for my blood!) John -- John Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] American Styles (was Best Works of the 1920s)
At 8:40 PM +0100 3/11/05, Daniel Wolf wrote: In the US, pop music is essentially a vocal genre. Instrumental pop successes are novelty or niche items (what instrumentals have made the top ten in the past fifty years? Herb Alpert, disco-fied Beethoven, and---?) . The French guy--Love is Bleu; Glen Campbell and another guitarist--Mason Williams?; Charlie Daniels Band and other Bluegrass bands; but yes, especially the top 40 is almost exclusively vocal-oriented. But American popular song has roots in both European and African-American Art musics, often via the theatre. Here I would beg to differ, with respect, and with reference to specific historical developmental periods. The thesis I present in my music history class is that American Popular Song did not grow up in the large, East-Coast seaport cities, which maintained close ties to Europe and European culture from the late 18th century on, but in the North American heartland where successive waves of pioneers settled, each bringing its own ethnic background and culture. That culture included folksongs and hymns from many traditions, and songwriters kept writing new songs about current events in the older styles. Those styles were very much based on easy-to-learn-and-remember melodies (often incorporating repetition), vocal ranges limited enough to be sung by anyone, and simple chordal accompaniment rather than complex polyphony. Essentially this formed the background, in the first half of the 19th century, for the brand new music of the people which emerged in the second half, having been essentially protected from the influence of European art music during that gestation period. Yes, the sentimental ballads and minstrel songs of Stephen Foster can be compared with Schubert's art songs, but I wonder how much of that music Stephen Foster or James Bland actually knew well. And similarly, the many hymns of Lowell Mason and William Bradbury compare favorably with those of European hymnists, but I wonder whether they were conscious imitations. And as strong as African-American influence has been in American Popular Music (especially in the development of Jazz), that influence came rather later and formed one of the three important branches of American Popular Music, and one could argue whether the term African-American Art music is even valid in the context of its origins and North American developments. The third branch, American Musical Theater, had its own indigenous predecessors as well, which included the Minstrel Show, Vaudeville, and Burlesque (not unknown in Europe, to be sure, as witness the Follies Bergeres), but with a distinctly North American Flavor. European operetta did not come to North America until the 1890s or later, and once again was known in the East-Coast seaports but not so much in the interior heartland, where Ballad Opera was considered high art! The key, for me, is differentiating between developments in the seaports (and later on the riverports, to be sure) and developments in the interior of a continent that is vast beyond the experience of most Europeans (give or take Russians!). But why the present divorce between serious instrumental music (whether Jazz or classical) and popular song? I'm not sure that's a valid dichotomy, but I would have to think about it. What's not to be serious about popular song? I have lots of small ideas (for example, the musicians' union strike from recording during WWII) but no grand ideas to explain this. Hmmm. I was a bit too young to belong to the union during WW II, although I was forced to join at the age of 15 in the early '50s, but I don't remember a strike against the recording industry. In fact, new recordings by popular singers and big bands were considered extremely important for morale during the war, and that I DO remember. What I do recall is the strike by ASCAP against the broadcast industry, which ASCAP did win but which broke the stranglehold that Tin Pan Alley had enjoyed on American Popular Music and opened up the broadcast industry to the many small-time and ethnic musics that subsequently became powerful forces in the industry. (I can never remember whether that came before or after WW II, but I doubt that it happened during the war itself. Too many ASCAP celebrities like Irving Berlin considered themselves an important part of the war effort--which they were!) Thanks for your very interesting comparison of European and North American musical cultures! John -- John Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] American Styles (was Best Works of the 1920s)
John Howell wrote: Hmmm. I was a bit too young to belong to the union during WW II, although I was forced to join at the age of 15 in the early '50s, but I don't remember a strike against the recording industry. In fact, new recordings by popular singers and big bands were considered extremely important for morale during the war, and that I DO remember. What I do recall is the strike by ASCAP against the broadcast industry, which ASCAP did win but which broke the stranglehold that Tin Pan Alley had enjoyed on American Popular Music and opened up the broadcast industry to the many small-time and ethnic musics that subsequently became powerful forces in the industry. (I can never remember whether that came before or after WW II, but I doubt that it happened during the war itself. Too many ASCAP celebrities like Irving Berlin considered themselves an important part of the war effort--which they were!) The James Petrillo-led AFM strike against recordings was in 1942, and is often cited as a factor in the decline of the big band era -- many well-known bands lost their momentum in the recording business. (See, for example: http://www.swingmusic.net/Big_Band_Era_Recording_Ban_Of_1942.html ) (Interestingly, vocalists were not in the same union and all-vocal recordings were made (this was the golden age for groups like the Golden Gate Quartet and there is an interesting -- and not always mediocre as my reference above claims-- repertoire of all-vocal War Songs from that time; e.g. Stalin wasn't Stallin')). In part due to the FDR administration's arguments about the lack of patriotism of a strike during wartime, the strike ended but not without seriously damaging the position of instrumentalists due to loss of sales and market position. I believe that the effect of ASCAP-BMI conflict was an important background event to the AFM strike, although I have a different take on the net effect. Tin Pan Alley composers did suffer from lack of continuous exposure to the public, but ASCAP itself survived just fine. Prior to the ASCAP ban, many of the larger recording firms had subsidiary race labels for local and minority musics. After the agreement, and no longer bound not to compete directly with BMI, ASCAP expanded its membership franchise into any recorded genre. But it is not difficult ot recognize that as relationships between ASCAP and broadcasters renormalized and renegotiated blanket contracts, radio networks began to program more uniformly and many labels dropped their minority catalogues. Simultaneously, smaller, independent, labels were largely driven out of both the record sales and broadcast markets by the change to electrical recordings, lps, and vinyl, for which production techniques were monopolized. Daniel Wolf ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] American Styles (was Best Works of the 1920s)
On Mar 11, 2005, at 12:53 PM, John Howell wrote: European operetta did not come to North America until the 1890s or later [...] Not even in New Orleans? I know there was an awful lot of French opera comique there throughout the 19th century. I'm surprised if that didn't include operetta as well. Admittedly, French New Orleans was somewhat isolated from the larger musical culture in the United States. Even for the rest of the country, I think you're off by a decade or two. In 1879, D'Oyly Carte presented Pinafore in New York, and later that year Pirates of Penzance opened simultaneously in New York and England. The decision to produce in America was partly in response to small-scale pirated productions already happening in America. According to Kobbé, Strauss's Fledermaus also premiered in New York in 1879, and Zigeunerbaron in 1886. The Levy sheet music collection, catalogued online http://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu/, shows several songs from Offenbach operettas published in America in the 1860s. The same collection shows a few more excerpts from operettas by Lecocq, Waldteufel, etc., published in the 1870s. It seems odd -- though not impossible -- that such songs would be published locally if there weren't at least some performance of the pieces. If you read the notes on the songs, you'll see the arrangement is sometimes credited to the musical director of some named theater company, which strongly suggests to me that said musical director had a copy of the score and adapted it for American performance. Even if the operettas themselves weren't being performed, you can hardly argue that European operetta wasn't influencing America if American publishers were selling the sheet music to operetta songs. mdl ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
Re: [Finale] American Styles (was Best Works of the 1920s)
Thanks for the info. I had heard of that strike but not as completely as you write. Wasn't there also heavy taxing of larger bands in clubs after the war that also helped the rise of small combos? Perhaps that was just in NYC? RBH Daniel Wolf wrote: The James Petrillo-led AFM strike against recordings was in 1942, and is often cited as a factor in the decline of the big band era -- many well-known bands lost their momentum in the recording business. (See, for example: http://www.swingmusic.net/Big_Band_Era_Recording_Ban_Of_1942.html ) (Interestingly, vocalists were not in the same union and all-vocal recordings were made (this was the golden age for groups like the Golden Gate Quartet and there is an interesting -- and not always mediocre as my reference above claims-- repertoire of all-vocal War Songs from that time; e.g. Stalin wasn't Stallin')). In part due to the FDR administration's arguments about the lack of patriotism of a strike during wartime, the strike ended but not without seriously damaging the position of instrumentalists due to loss of sales and market position. I believe that the effect of ASCAP-BMI conflict was an important background event to the AFM strike, although I have a different take on the net effect. Tin Pan Alley composers did suffer from lack of continuous exposure to the public, but ASCAP itself survived just fine. Prior to the ASCAP ban, many of the larger recording firms had subsidiary race labels for local and minority musics. After the agreement, and no longer bound not to compete directly with BMI, ASCAP expanded its membership franchise into any recorded genre. But it is not difficult ot recognize that as relationships between ASCAP and broadcasters renormalized and renegotiated blanket contracts, radio networks began to program more uniformly and many labels dropped their minority catalogues. Simultaneously, smaller, independent, labels were largely driven out of both the record sales and broadcast markets by the change to electrical recordings, lps, and vinyl, for which production techniques were monopolized. Daniel Wolf ___ ___ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
