Alaska sentinel., 1908-07-30
WHAT MAKES THE SONGS "Go."
Blanche Ring Tells How to Set the
 Counfry HumminR.

Country Running.
 And I'll tell you what makes song popular" said Miss Blanche Ring to a Philadelphia North American writer.
 Do you realize the weight of that authority? A good many singers think they know what makes a song popular. But Blanche Ring
 We'll, Miss Ring is the young woman who gave palpitating America "In the Good Old Summer Time" "The Belle of Avenue A." "Bedelia," Waltz Me Around Again, Willie," and then some.
 Oh, other people may have written these songs and, besides the mighty million on the street, one or two others may have sung them from behind the footlights. But Blanche Ring made" them.
 That's her mission-"making" the sort of song that the hurdy -gurdy plays, that the office boy huns till you kill him and that runs in your own head until its melody has become a part of your brain and it's words a portion of your FOcdDuldTy.
 What the people want in the song" said Miss Ring 'is the catchy air something new and yet something not only easily remembered, but something that positively refuses to be forgotten. The more suitable Its range is to the average voice the more certain 1t Is to take hold.
 But, above all, the words must be either clever or of wide human appeal, expressing an emotion common to all sorts of men and women. After all, l sometimes think that half the secret lies in the words. If they have catch phrase that can pass into current slang they are almost sure of success and I've found 1t a never falling rule that the best popular music won't serve to make popular song the words of which aren't up to the popu- lar standard"
 So that was what they wanted In the songs. What, then, did they want In the singer?
 Action" said Miss Ring. "Action and plenty of 1t. The singer must act the implication of the words and the spirit of the music. She must sing as if she liked to sing; she must seem just as much entertained as she wants her audience to be and first, last and all the time she must enunciate so dis tinctly that her hearers will understand and remember every syllable she ut. ters."
 Better qualified to speak of these things than any one else of all the thou sands who do speak of them, Miss Ring, even as she talked, threw into her speech not a little of that individ- ual sort of animation which, since 1t Is hers alone, she had modestly omitted from this list of requisites.
 One looked at her and, remembering her whirlwind career, filled with special train dashes to keep engagements and equally hazardous descents upon Lon- don's music halls, one ceased to won- der why fate had, for these five years of her success, been so kind to her.
 And Is 1t hard to get the right kind of song?' the interviewer wondered.
 Hard" echoed the singer. Are the best things plenty anywhere? spent four weeks In New York last month listening to impossibllities and since have been in Philadelphia this time I have listened to 200 more." "It wouldn't he 90 bad" she contin. ued, If composers only had a little share of the critical faculty. But 1t appears that everybody, no matter what his trade thinks he can write a popular song.
 "'what sort of songs do you write? inquired of the bashful caller. "'All kinds is his invariable an swer"