The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-11-23
MAKING POPULAR SONGS
WHERE THE FIRST GERMS OF TUNES
OF THE STREET ARE FOUND.
Many Revivals I'm n New Form to
Which Catchy Musical Phrases Are
Subject-Hymns adapted"
New York Post.

New York Post.
II a Confederate soldier, had been told
during the war that Dixie" was written
for walk around" by an lend man" born
in Maine, his answer would probably have
been a word and blow To-day he would
either listen in courteously incredulous ST.
lence, or prove, 10 his own satisfaction,
that the spirit of the melody is inherently
Southern. Indeed, it has not been very long
since a white-haired Confederate honored
me with long and logical account of the
real origin" of this one of our popular
songs-an origin as far from the truth as
the publc's impression of where many, II
not most, of our popular songs come from
The audiences who delight in them, the
boys who whistle them. and the street mu-
sicians who play these melodies are as un-
conscious of their genesis and significance
as the average church-goer and church
singer are of the racial characteristics, the
religious and sociological history, the def
mite period of secular artistic Development
and the individual creative activity en-
bodied in the Gregorian chants. AS far
apart as these two branches of music stand,
they are not dissimilar in the manner OF
their composition. Many of the Gregorian
chants interpretations or adaptations
of the old folk-songs; many OF our popular
songs are adaptations or plagiarisms or old
melodies. Sometimes, the whole melody Is
taken, as in 1.-The Seven Joys of Mary" IA
miliar to us as THE Man Who Hath Good
Peanuts and Giveth His Brother None;"
here the only change made is in the chorus
of the college song, and this Is QUILT UP
on a phrase of the hymn. Sometimes half
a dozen tones are worked into motive, as
in 1.-THE Holy City," different parts of which
are incorporated into as many different
songs and hymns. Sometimes the only
May Irwin's Bully" which is the old
Maid of Athens transposed in key and
set to rag-time; or ''Annie Rooney" which
was originally Baptist hymn.
sUBCONsCIoUs "REMINISCENCES.
To call this transposition OF melodies
plagiarism would scarcely be fair. When
we remember that the musical composer
has at his command but seven primary
tones, that these can be stretched into only
twelve. and that subsconscious reminis-
cence is one Of the most ingeniously con-
structed pitfalls in the way Of all original
composition, it is not easy to say at what
point unconscious reflection or assimilation
slips into careless imitation Or deliberate
plagiarism. D'Albert's "Gismonda" is so
dominated by Wagnerian Ideals that the
listener is leased by an Intellectual effort
to remember when and where he has heard
ii all before, until the act in which he ex-
claims, "Siegfrfed's bird song stolen bod
ilyr' and is ready to assert that he has
been listening to Wagner paraphrased and
diluted. But D'Alberti's opera is not Wag-
passed through a creative medium in which
the reminiscent faculty Is so strong that 1t
has colored the original melodic idea.
This insoluble subconscious "Reminiscences
is the cause, effect and explanation OF those
infant prodigies who never reach musical
maturity, and is also element In the
pleasure with which we hear the popular
music of the day. We often sing or play
these melodies after one hearing because
they are largely made up of musical mo-
tives or ideas that we are already vaguely
familiar with. This familiarity is COM
! posite thing, just as the germ of the popu-
lar song is often an unconscious process of
selection and rejection from half dozen
perhaps an even greater number-of va
grant tunes harvested from fields as far
apart as the old English melodies and the
Bach fugues, and as involuntary in their
appropriation as the creative impulse of
the genius that makes Schubert the writer
of immortal songs, or the instinct that
eliminates the obvious and the common
place from MacDowell's compositions.
THE COMPOSER AT WORK.
1t was wholly by chance, while waiting
in the dark passageway of a private house
which had been converted into cheap flats
and lodging rooms, that 1 stumbled upon
two ways of earning living which in their
combinations are one of the most fruitful
sources of our popular songs. The sound
of apparently purposeless intermittent
whstling and discordant banging on a
piano-not more than one chord and COM
bination out of six ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS con-
fused and finally fixed in my consciousness
a musical phrase that puzzled me by It's
familiarity later in a music hall until
suddenly remembered where / had first
heard Ii, and traced back TO the dark pas
sageway and discordant whistling and
banging what may be termed 1.-The second
period of the popular song. The first is
when the tune or melody is whistled by the
man who devises 1.-THE process can
scarcely be called composition. For many
of our popular songs in their first form
the work or play of men vho have mel
odic gift not strong enough TO impel them
TO the drudgery of study necessary to the
production of musical harmonies, but which
expresses itself easily, instinctively in mel
odies that they either turn TO account by