Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1908-05-27
WHAT MAKES THE SONGS "eo. /"
Blanche Ring Tells How to Set the
Country Humming.

Blanche Ring Tells How to Set the
Country Humming.
"And I'll tell you what makes a song
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
Well, Miss Ring is the young woman
who gave palpitating America SIN 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 it's melody has become a part Of
your brain and its words a portion of
your vocabulary.
''What the people want in the song"
said Miss Ring, sis the catchy air ;
something new and yet something not
only easily remembered, but something
that positively refuses to be forgotten.
The more suitable it's range is to the
average voice the more certain it 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, I sometimes think that
half the secret lies in the words. If
they have a catch phrase that can pass
into current slang they are almost sure
of success and I've found it a never
failing rule that the best popular music
won't serve to make popular song the
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 it. 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
her speech not a little of that individ-
ual sort of animation which, since it
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 it hard to get the right kind
Of song?" the interviewer wondered.
"Hard?" echoed the singer. "Are
the best things plenty anywhere? l
spent four weeks in New York last
month listening to impossibilities and
since I have been in Philadelphia this
time 1 have listened to 200 more"
1T wouldn't be so bad" she contin
ued, eff composers only had little
share of the critical faculty. But it
appears that everybody, no matter
what his trade, thinks he can write a
popular song.
"'What sort of songs do you writer
1 inquired of the bashful caller.
"'AIl kinds is his invariable an
sWer"