Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1901-12-06
The Sin Of Ragtime.

eullS III tiic midway AZ Tue w OIlu )
Fair in Chicago. 1t was sung and
played by the decollete-clad nauch
girls from India, and during the con
tinuance of the great exposition the
furorc it created was phenomenal
Those who heard it described the mu-
sic as ga mean between the weird
oriental chant and the negro melody"
OF course, the pretty girls who
played the droning pipes and their
dusky, lightly-dressed sisters who did
the wondrous dancing acts, constitut-
ed, perhaps, ninety-nine per cent. of
the attraction. Be this as it may, the
strange music survived the severe Or
deal through which it was made to
pass. and to-day, after nearly decade
of alternate favor and opposition, it is
as popular AS ever in every dance
house and variety theater throughout
the fun-loving world.
But its doom is sealed so far as its
popular rendition is concerned in the
conservative music circles OF our great
metropolitan cities. The American
Confederation of Musicians has sound
ed the alarm and called halt to its
further recognition as legitimate
musical production. The Chicago
branch OF this great confederation be.
gan the crusade few weeks ago, and
now the cry has gone forth from New
York to San Francisco Down with
Ragtime." Even the Four Hundred
in every city thought it was very nice
and innocent at first, but now they are
ridiculing the lively syncopation as if
it were a stencil in their aristocratic
noses, and tons of the printed music
have been consumed in boniires. One
authority declares, 1T is utterly desti-
tute of musical grammar; a degenerate,
low-grade affair."" Professor Charles
S. Horne, band-master of some note,
says OF it, Ragtime is illegitimate
music and menace to good musical
production, performance and recep-
ton; the public that listens to rag
time gradually loses its taste for re.
fined music and Graves the crude, abor.
iginal, degrading rythm of the cake.
walk and can.can variety.
The straightlaced clergy are also
warning against the innovation. The
Rev. Robert A. Hallan, of st. Louis,
says: Ragtime music is immoral,
obscene, degrading and unworthy of
production. It comes from the ami.
NAL to man and to the animal It ap-
peals. In measure and motion it is
the cake-walk."
Now there are two sides to this
question Is in every other controversy.
The music introduced by the pretty
nauch girls charmed tho preachers,
who heard it in Chicago, as dreamily
and madly as it charmed everybody
else. But it has caught the public
taste and goes. straight to the warm
throbbing heart of the people; and
hence its great overlapping waves of
popularity. Preachers and band mas.
ters are afraid Of it. 1t initiates
against the slow and easy church at
tending habit in the larger towns and
cities and is thinning the ranks Of
high-class opera and concert-goers.
Thus it is easy to see one place where
the shoe pinches. Well. Mrs. Grundy,
or somebody else. said long ago that
"The churches have the best songs,
but the devil has the best music"
The truth can be crowded into a
nutshell; and it is simply that the
great rank and file of community have
no love for the so-called classical mu-
sic; they do not care tinker's ladle
for the technique" "Give US the
good old fiddler" say they, !" and away
with your violinist."
But ragtime has taken up its abode
in tho hearts and souls Of the common
people and there it is going to stay,
despite the recent onslaught against
it. Classical composers may not be
aware Of it, but the fact remains all
the same that the nameless graces OF
ragtime are already insinuating them
selves into the bone and sinew of the
best compositions now coming into
favor from the highest sources.
BOLD BULGARIA. The Bulgarian