History of American Popular Music and the 1890s

Historical Overview of the 1890s

• The Gay Nineties: Period remembered nostagically as a prosperous and joyful decade (the $1890s$). Cultural nostalgia typically cycles every $30$ years (e.g., the $1990s$ nostalgia for the $1960s$).

• Tin Pan Alley: The center of the American music publishing industry during this era.

• After the Ball (1892): Written by Charles K. Harris; the biggest hit of the $1890s$ and the entire $19th$ century, selling over $2,000,000$ copies of sheet music.

Defining American Popular Music

• Textbook Definition (Star and Waterman): Music that is mass-produced and disseminated via mass media, listened to by large numbers of Americans, and draws upon various preexisting musical traditions.

• Socioeconomic Factors: The industry focuses on exchanging money for access to music via physical recordings (traditionally) or streaming.

William Albus’s Categorization of Music

• Folk Music: Created by amateurs for community consumption; often unwritten and created extemporaneously.

• Art Music (Classical): Created by professionals for elite consumption; historically supported by the aristocracy or religious institutions.

• Popular Music: Created by professionals for mass consumption. Note that historical Art music (e.g., Mozart) functions as popular music in the modern recording era via labels like Deutsche Gramophone.

Five Themes of Popular Music Study

1. Listening (Style): Focuses on how music sounds, including pitch, rhythm, melody, harmony, form (verse/chorus), and instrumentation.

2. Music and Identity: How listeners identify with specific genres (e.g., Rock vs. Hip Hop) or express personal and social identity through tastes.

3. Music and Technology: The impact of inventions like the microphone, recording media, and streaming on how music is captured and consumed.

4. Music Business: The roles of A&R (Artists and Repertoire) personnel, songwriting teams, and producers in creating hits.

5. Centers and Peripheries: The relationship between the "mainstream" (the center) and marginalized traditions (the periphery), such as Rock and Roll emerging from Rhythm and Blues.

The Sheet Music and Minstrel Industry

• Sheet Music Consumption: The dominant form of home entertainment in the $19th$ century, presupposing middle-class piano ownership and leisure time.

• Pluggers: Musicians (e.g., George Gershwin) employed by music stores to play sheet music live for potential customers.

• Minstrel Shows: The primary form of $19th$-century theatrical entertainment featuring white performers in blackface. These variety shows utilized stock characters like Jim Crow, Zip Coon, and Butterbones and served as a major marketing platform for sheet music.

• Steven Foster: A leading songwriter of the $1800s$ (e.g., "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair", "Oh! Susanna") whose career was heavily boosted by minstrel troupes.

Questions & Discussion

Q: What is the Listening Journal Assignment?A: Students must keep a continuous record for one week of every piece of music they experience, noting the time, the artist/title, and the context of why they heard it (e.g., car radio, TV theme, or background music at CVS or Kroger).

Q: Does technical skill matter in amateur musicianship?A: Historically, many amateur musicians were highly skilled. Sheet music often used simple arrangements (e.g., the key of B-flat) to make music accessible for home performance by those with a few years of lessons.

Q: How did "After the Ball" become so successful?A: Its inclusion in the Broadway musical "A Trip to Chinatown" ($1891$–$1893$) and promotion by the John Philip Sousa band at the Chicago World’s Fair ($1893$) significantly boosted its popularity.