Week 2 Minstrelsy; Early Pop; Ragtime; Dance; Early Jazz (1880s-1910s)

Question 1

The Minstrel Show

Answer 1

actual Africanisms in minstrelsy
Stephen Foster
Tin Pan Alley
song pluggers
the ragtime craze
Scott Joplin

Question 2

The Minstrel Show

Answer 2

• The beginnings of the popular American music show
• Blackface performers
• Popular in the late 1800s in parts of Africa
• Cakewalk: slaves mimicked dances of slave owners, slave owners would further mimic slaves

Question 3

Thomas Dartmouth Rice 1808-1860

Background

Answer 3

NY Working class, performed in working class neighbourhoods

Question 4

Thomas Dartmouth Rice 1808-1860

Jim Crow

Answer 4

• 1832 popularized blackface character with the song Jim Crow
• Clown or jester-like character mimicking/mocking powerful people of NY
• Music was irish, dialect was mix of accents Rice had heard
• Post slavery, Jim Crow referred to anti racism laws

Question 5

Dan Emmett and the Virginia Minstrels

Answer 5

• Dan Emmet and the Virginia Minstrels standardize the minstrel show format
• 1804s-1880s the minstrel show becomes the predominant genre of popular culture in the US
• Minstrelsy loses its subversive edge

Question 6

Minstrelsy and Popular Music History 1830s

Answer 6

• 1830s white urban youth culture expressed their independence through appropriation of black style
• Minstrelsy co-opted by mainstream, standardized as it is popularized

Question 7

Minstrelsy and Popular Music History 1840s-1870s

Answer 7

• 1840s-1870s, troupes tour widely, creating a national culture crosses boundaries of urban/rural, folk/popular, northern/southern culture
• Small shows that would travel from town to town
• Early recorded blues musicians began in southern minstrel shows

Question 8

Stephen foster (1826-1864)

Answer 8

First important composer of american popular song
First full time professional american songwriter
Composed over 200 songs from 1840s-1860s
Incorporated high and low styles
Used musical and verbal hooks
Died in poverty at 37
Output
Plantation songs and minstrel songs (massa’s in de cold, cold ground, old folks at home, oh! susanna)
Genteel parlour songs (jeannie with the light brown hair, beautiful dreamer)
Reasons for his popularity
Minstrel troupes performed and spread his songs
Sheet music was popularized at this time due to
An increase in music education
Cheap pianos marketed at the middle class

Question 9

Tin Pan Alley

Answer 9

From 1885 on 28th St Manhattan new publishing companies dedicated to popular songs
Created by the sons of Jewish immigrants
1890s a sheet music hit might sell one million copies

Question 10

Song Pluggers

Answer 10

“Song pluggers”

Sang the songs in bars, shops, etc to promote the music and sell copies to customers

Question 11

Ragtime Craze

Answer 11

Ragtime
“Rag” to use syncopation
Suggests a continuation of the white fascination with african american music first evinced in minstrelsy
“Maple Leaf Rag” Scott Joplin, began the ragtime craze

Question 12

The Rise of the Phonograph

Answer 12

The Rise of the Phonograph
1877 Thomas Edison invents cylinder phonograph player
Gramophone
1887 berliner introduces the flat disc gramophone
1900 columbia records and victor talking machine company are founded
1902 enrico caruso records, demonstrates musical possibilites