Tales from Tin Pan Alley
The Cover Story of Digital Sheet Music
Charles K. Harris
After the Ball: As Sung By J. Aldrich Libbey the Peerless Baritone
Milkauwee: Chas K. Harris
1892
It is difficult to pinpoint where the name "Tin Pan Alley" originated, but it likely came from New York City's West 28th Street where a row of buildings housed music industry businesses filled with composers and lyricists banging out new tunes on their pianos. "After the Ball" (1892) by Charles K. Harris was one of the first national mega-hits of the genre during Tin Pan Alley's early years. The large inset photo of vaudeville star J. Aldrich Libbey helped to drum up excitement about the song and the show "A Trip to Chinatown." The show featured Harris' "After the Ball" despite the song having nothing to do with the plot itself, a common marketing tactic at the time. The mix of artist, song, and show demonstrates the symbiotic relationship between publishers, performers, composers, lyricists, and theater companies from a time when advertising innovations in print and mass marketing helped to spur the growth of the popular music trade.
Image Courtesy: Kulas Music Library Digital Music Scores
Theo A. Metz
A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight
New York: Willis Woodward & Co.; Milkauwee: Joseph Flanner
1896
The song "A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" (1896) by Theo A. Metz demonstrates the legacy of racist topics, cover images, and imitation of African-American dialect in Tin Pan Alley song lyrics and subject matter. This song plays into such tropes with lyrics that speak about religious practices including "hoodoo" and dance performance styles. Popular vaudevillian Josephine Sabel, featured on the cover's inset photo, used a vocal style of "coon shouting," a label for those who specialized in such songs. The advertisement for the answer song "Cakewalk to the Sky" printed on the inside cover capitalizes on the original song's popularity.
Image Courtesy: Kulas Music Library Digital Music Scores
Image Courtesy: Kulas Music Library Digital Music Scores
Harry Dacre
Daisy Bell
New York: T.B. Harms & Co
1892
An extremely popular song from the late 19th and early 20th century, "Daisy Bell (A Bicycle Built for Two)" (1892) by Harry Dacre demonstrates how trends in leisure, technology, courting, and even clothing styles related to the bicycle became significant for women's empowerment. Josephine Sabel of "A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" fame played a part in promoting the song. "Daisy Bell" has a long legacy of performance, one of the most recognizable being from 1961 when the IBM 7094 became the first computer to "sing" when programmed with 'Daisy Bell'. The performance inspired a similar scene in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Image Courtesy: Kulas Music Library Digital Music Scores
Image Courtesy: Kulas Music Library Digital Music Scores
George Rosey
Grand Opera Bits
New York: Geo. Rosey Pub. Co.
1906
Known for his arrangements of popular marches and waltzes, "Grand Opera Bits: A Selection of the Most Popular Operas" (1906) by George Rosey demonstrates how opera overlapped between the popular music and classical music genres at the time. Rosey, a pseudonym for George Rosenberg, was possibly a European immigrant. Pieces such as this were often also adapted for the player piano, a parlor instrument machine that played pre-made metal cylinders to operate piano keys and generate music. These instruments grew in popularity during the Tin Pan Alley era.
Image Courtesy: Kulas Music Library Digital Music Scores
Carl Seelig [compiled by]
Grotesken Album
Vienna and New York: Universal Edition
1922
The concept of 'grotesque' refers to the experimental nature of 'modern' or 'contemporary' classical music. As its introduction notes, composers who pushed the boundaries of accepted sounds in harmonic and tonal conventions were less concerned about the aesthetic or melodic experience of music and were more interested in the 'unexpected' and avant-garde.
Image Courtesy: Kulas Music Library Digital Music Scores
John Beach
A Garden Fancy
Newton Center, MA: Wa-Wan Press
1907
A fledgling press, Wa-Wan tried to bring representation of 'American' output to the German-dominated field of classical music composition. Unlike its contemporaries, Wa-Wan published works by female composers as well as Native American folk song, taking its name from a traditional ceremony among the Omaha Indians. Arthur Shepherd, who taught at Western Reserve University and also served as assistant conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, was among the composers published by Wa-Wan. His works are also represented among the print materials within the Kulas music collection.
Image Courtesy: Kulas Music Library Digital Music Scores
Alfredo Berisso
Suite de Danses pour Piano
Milan: Ricordi
1920
Known primarily as a painter of modern art, Alfredo Berisso's art style is difficult to encapsulate, but falls somehwhere between that of Surrealism and that of the Italian scuola metafisica. Featured by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, he likewise published works for piano. Born in Argentina and residing in Genoa, Italy, Berisso also took part in the Spiritualism psychic community of the early 1900s, an interest perhaps influencing his approach to painting such as that featured on the cover of his "Suite de Dances Pour Piano" (1920).
Image Courtesy: Kulas Music Library Digital Music Scores
