Narrative Essay
Denzel Coleman
Jerome McKeever
English 1020
7 July, 2013
From Tin Pans to Electric Wails: The Progression of Popular Music
Music can be defined it so many ways. However, one thing that cannot be argued is that American music has had quite the journey becoming what it is today. I’m going to tell the story of how Rock ‘n’ Roll came to be from the era of Tin Pan Alley in order to demonstrate how American music has progressed in its means of publication, forms of style, and with its cultural diversity.
Picture this: New York, nearing the end of the 19th century. Buildings as tall as the sky. During this period, Italianate style architecture was big. Buildings covered with arched windows, intricate designs, and statues filled the streets. Then, there was the area of uptown New York extending from 14th Street through the streets of 49-51, all the way to 28th. A little less regal in appearance, but here, many song composers gathered and resided where they would create their works. of published music. This is in turn led to the name of this musically filled area itself. The echoing, cacophonic sounds of all these old time pianos and other instruments made it seem as if people were constantly banging tin pans. Thus, in Tin Pan Alley, New York itself, high demand for talent was ever so obvious, and this started new trends in style and musical performance. With all this new talent, new forms of commercializing and publicizing music were renewed.
One of the main advertising techniques used were using market research and persistent means of product exposure. With tactics like these, it was clear that music was becoming less of a form of art and expression and more of an everyday business and industry. This was all done by having composers become cognizant of what kind of music was currently popular, and thus create a plethora of music just like it. In fact, even the style and lyrics of these songs were the reason for the high selling point of this music. In contrast to a lot of the music during World War One that consisted of very simplistic melodies and spoke mainly of victory to increase patriotism in America, styles in demand ranged from love ballads, to show tunes, to Latin American music. During this era, lyrics of Tin Pan Alley spoke of life in a far more happier manner, despite the fact that times were just as bad then, if not worse than now. Songs of this era had actually led to this era being referred to as the “Gay Nineties”.
Following creation huge trend in music, hopeful performers would be called to sing these songs, ensuring that more demand from these publishers would be asked for. When certain songs were big hits, they would have performers known as pluggers, sing the songs within their play productions, advertising the music of the publishers. While all these popular songs were being produced, the era of vaudeville came. Vaudeville consisted of a series of performances all extending to popular music and what was in demand at the time. During this time, many immigrants moved to America, and many were able to find work in the entertainment field from vaudeville itself to other works in entertainment. What vaudeville was replacing were Minstrel shows, which were derogatory shows that made fun of the life and mannerisms of blacks in America. Obviously, this was a change for the better.
Life like this continued on for about thirty years until around the 1930’s. In this time, the idea of publishing as much sheet music as possible for profit became a little old hat for some companies who invested in Tin Pan Alley composers. That is to say, a newer, more captivating form of publication and profit came. Invented in July of 1877, the phonograph cylinder was born by famous inventor, Thomas Edison. This device allowed sound to be recorded within these cylindrical tubes that would allow recorded audio to be replayed. This was a huge change from having music always performed live for customers or relying on the sheet music itself for entertainment. Eventually surpassing this invention was Emile Berliner’s gramophone in 1894 where it was now produced in America, prior exclusively to Europe. His invention at first had poorer audio quality, but his company was able to surpass the competition and became one of the biggest record companies in the United States. The public finally caught onto this new technology around 1908. Of course. This change in production lead the eventual decline in Tin Pan Alley’s popularity. Although strucken by innovative ideas and creations, Tin Pan Alley musicians composers were granted their rights for future songs through the creation of American Society of Composers. This organization created copyright laws for composers where if songs of theirs were used in productions, whether it would be on radio broadcast or in live performances, they would be fairly compensated for such with money known as “royalties”.
Around 1914, music created in the North has gone silent for awhile due to the decline in popularity of Tin Pan Alley. However, a totally different type of music has been brewing in the south, mainly around New Orleans, Louisiana. Here, the genre of Blues has been developed quite dramatically. Many musicians from the south, mainly of the black demographic, moved up north when employment opportunities were available. For those of the musical persuasion, many moved to Chicago, Illinois, where this city developed its own style of Blues music. Eventually, this trend in Blues led to Jazz, which led back to Blues, but with more divisions. With the creation of Classic Blues, women, many who came from vaudeville, now were given their own genre of Blues music to sing and perform. It is important to note that this is a significant moment for women, not only being heavily represented in the entertainment field, but female minorities as well. That is because many of Classic Blues singers were black, and this opened the door for exposure of other races singing with famous companies, and even bands. With such a change in a typical publicized form of entertainment, this eventually led to the term “race music” for those who created music and were black, or at least non-white. For those who created similar music and were white, they had their style referred to as “hillbilly music”. This music was dissuaded by popular music industries almost as much as race music. These names stayed for quite some time until 1949 where they were referred to as “rhythm and blues” and “country & western” music.
In the early 1920’s, a not-so censored type of music began to emerge with black music, that being Rock ‘n’ Roll. By now, commercial radio was invented in 1920. This was bad for Tin Pan Alley composers, because now music could be heard for miles over airwaves practically for free. Tin Pan Alley composers still managed to find work. Transitioning from writing music for singers to perform in vaudeville shows, they went on to writing scores for films and movies west in Hollywood. later in time. Despite the change of field, Tin Pan Alley musicians still made bank from radio broadcasts and live performances of songs that they have written.
Rock ‘n’ Roll was originally used as a euphemism for sex, the term first made its appearance within the record “My Baby Rocks Me with One Steady Roll” by Trixie Smith. The music of Rock ‘n’ Roll came from the culmination of Urban Blues with Jazz, as well as cross-artistry with Country music. In short, Rock ‘n’ Roll is essentially is the result of black and white musicians being influenced by each other’s styles of music. In fact, in 1931, created by Adolph Rickenbacker and George Beauchamp, the electric guitar came, a staple in Rock ‘n’ Roll music. It’s process of using coil wrapped around a magnet to amplify the vibrations on the strings had many youths of America amazed and fascinated and began to steer away from the traditional popular music of their parents, that being older vaudeville music. This thus help open the door for these racially integrated styles of music to be heard.
By the late 1940’s and early 50’s, song lyrics had already began to shift from simple times and happiness. Much of it consisted of sexuality, innuendos, and euphemisms. However, topics and song coding like these were already popular within a lot black music well before this time. Exposure of genres like blues, country, and rhythm and blues, which all used aspects of these risque topics, towards the white audience could be accredited to disc jockey, DJ Alan Freed. Thanks to him, racial integration among young teenage Americans became more welcomed by presenting music by black artists on his radio program. Also, he arranged live concerts that had an integrated audience. Now being somewhat appropriated by white musicians, country singers began to sing of alcohol intoxication and cheating in a relationship more frequently, imitating topics song by black musicians. However, pop music of the time was not as flexible, and decided to use to the style of black music, yet clean the lyrics up. This was to prevent offending older generations when listening to the music. A great example of this would be Bill Haley’s rendition of the famous blues-rock ‘n’ roll singer, Big Joe Turner’s “Shake, Rattle, and Roll.” Turner’s version had a greater sexual connotation to them, so his version was played less often on the radio in comparison to Haley’s. Haley’s version consisted of instrumentation that was more energetic with the use of a slap bass rather than a walking-bass playing style. With Rhythm and Blues being exposed more so to the public,particularly to teenagers, many were influenced by this. This led to white popular music having less of an influence and more black musicians were played, thus setting the stage for early rock ‘n’ roll. However, due to the racism within the music industry, many black artists were labeled as rhythm and blues singers simply because many industries felt that Rock ‘n’ Roll was a term that was more suited for white musicians. It has remained this way to today, but for different reasons. Eventually, because of rapid growth diverse radio music, Rock ‘n’ Roll (as well as Rhythm and blues) became the most growing style of music, with revolting teens and young adults supporting it, all with the intention of distinguishing themselves from the generation of their parents.
Now it’s 1954, and life sure has changed. Now with Rock ‘n’ Roll as the most popular type of music, new artists began to appear that catered to this genre. One singer who definitely set this new age in place would be Fats Domino for his song “The Fat Man”, for it has been called one of the very first Rock ‘n’ Roll tunes ever recorded. But, then the true craze came with Elvis Presley and his debut album which featured the songs “Heartbreak Hotel” and “Blue Suede Shoes”. He being a white artist singing in style more common amongst black musicians helped his career go skyrocketing within the charts of top hits in music, helping the rock ‘n’ roll era to progress so far that it lead to even more genres surfaces surfacing like Soul and Funk. In the 60’s, singers like Bob Dylan the Beatles arose with their own style and lyrics that took rock ‘n’ roll and made it pure Rock, thus allowing Rhythm and Blues to exist harmoniously alongside, without it being a pseudonym for black singers. Since 1955, the market share for rock 'n' roll has increased from 15.7% to 42.7%, making it the fastest growing style of music ever. Rock ‘n’ Roll truly is the result of togetherness between different worlds of music.
America has gone through a dynamic journey in its progression in music and musical acceptance. Our forms of music publication went from relying on sheet music, to records, and now CDs and even digital media for today’s time. True, much of America’s early music involved segregating people, thus preventing us from enjoying the same music, side-by-side. However, because of this, our country has such a prominent diversity that race-related music is almost irrelevant now. I am beyond curious as to what the next big movement will be in American music. I definitely look forward to experiencing it.
The End