perhaps i'll cry

there is one reason why i have not torn out my hair nor moved to wordpress (nor have i posted, though): a couple of years back, google decided that any user like me who was still using the old format could just forget accurate links to older posts if they were foolhardy enough to not want to update.

like now, there was a huge uproar which went on and on. if i recall correctly, even when a googmanager did post it was not very friendly. but we perservered in our protest.

finally, someone wrote some little fix that we oldies could tack onto our templates and make it work for older posts. why they didn't do it sooner i do not know.

but this is the only reason i am slightly optimistic even after all the heedless bullshit: they have made right, at least once, in the past.

meanwhile, while this GUI is still available, i might as well use it; the making of this blog seems to have been encoded in my cells after all these years; it organizes how i think.

meanwhile, check out this endlessly marvelous (new?) site featuring wondrous sheet music cover art. but only go when you have a lot of time to spare.

and they all have one thing in common...

but of course many of the sheet music covers owed a tremen- dous amount to japonisme with regards to style, not merely the ones with asian themes. we've got wiener werkstatte yiddisher boys and violin-playing clowns.

speaking of wiener werk- statte, we've also got a hymn to hawaii and some- thing involving vampires and tipperary.

there were the copycats.

and there were the real copycats. interestingly, it was gene buck who did the blue wilhelmina. buck was president of ascap for many years, and as well as his proli- fic illus- tra- tion work, he also wrote, or directed, or acted in plays, wrote the music too. i could find nothing else that copied anything else.

gene buck also did work that was just flat-out beautiful, as did many other artists, sung and... uh... unsung.

and then there are the ones that make you scratch your head and double-check the date: sapho (sic) (and she looks a little like me to me!) and, well, positively psychedelic!

some are just down- right, well, con- fused. (um... those are irises, not lilies) and.... (that's mt fuji, mate. you won't find that in hawaii).

and the ones you're just happy to find.

(by the way, i looked up lauterbach and it really does look a lot like this. but WAY LESS JAPANESE!)

with the diagonal structure, the dark outline, the all-over patterns, the blocks of color, the simplification of detail and line, and the appearence of being woodblocked rather than painted, these sheet music examples become prime illustrations of japonisme.

tin pan alley goes to asia

Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, places of mystery and attraction to the western civilization. Long a cradle of art, religion and civilization, Asia has always been an enigma and a land of the unknown and exotic ways for those of us in the Western world. In earlier times, many myths and misunderstandings prevailed about Asia due to its inaccessibility and hard to understand languages and ways. Today, we've learned much about Asia and now have a better understanding of the wonderful peoples of that far away continent. It was not always so.

In the middle 19th century, Asia became more open for the west and peoples from Asia began to emigrate to other parts of the world seeking opportunity and bringing their culture and manners to other parts of the world. As with many such influxes, much misunderstanding and misinformation resulted and as well, the ugly face of stereotypes, racism and prejudice raised their heads and took over reason. As we moved into the late 19th century and the early 20th, some better understanding was occurring but still, most Westerners and particularly Americans held inaccurate beliefs and understandings of Asian cultures and manners. The world of music was reflective of these misunderstandings and as Tin Pan Alley took on the subject of Asia and Asian music, we saw a large number of songs emerge that idealized Asian culture and mostly missed the mark when it came to accuracy.

This month's issue looks at some of the music from Tin Pan Alley that used Asian and Oriental themes as a basis for the music and lyrics. As we will see, many of the composers and lyricists did a wonderful job of writing music but failed miserably when it came to accuracy about the lands and peoples and their music. Nonetheless, as always, the writers of American songs managed to provide us with great songs and entertainment. After all, that is what it was all about.

Come with us now as we visit exotic Asia and the Orient as seen through the eyes of Tin Pan Alley's early songwriters. As always, this issue is on two separate pages so don't miss page two of this issue.

where the lanterns glow

At the beginning of the century, during the 'Meiji' era in Japan, Japan exported many singers and musicians to the west, who had a great deal of influence on turn-of- the-century composers, especially in Europe (Puccini, Ravel and Debussy being the most prominent.) In the U. S., music with "oriental" titles began to appear, but in most cases, this was an excuse to produce staccato notes in the upper register of the piano.

["Yo-San, A Japanese Intermezzo Two Step"] is the exception, and actually echoes a Japanese popular song of the era (which itself had been influenced by American music of thirty years before). [note the various different songs with similar or exact titles. note the 'half-will- bradley-half-kimono dress.]

The end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth saw a great deal of interest in Japanese culture in the arts. Puccini wrote "Madame Butterfly", Gilbert & Sullivan wrote "The Mikado" and singers and dancers from Japan toured America and Europe to tremendous critical acclaim.

The popular arts were not immune from this interest: prior to 1905 the musical play "The Mayor of Tokio" played all over the country to large crowds, and the overture was recorded by Vess Ossman, playing banjo for Columbia Records. There was even a popular candy-bar called "Sa-Yo" with the picture of a Japanese maid on the wrapper. This ragtime excursion into orientalia shows the tremendous breadth of Henry Lodge's talent. Starting with themes from "The Mikado" he quickly develops a gentle syncopation which manages to sustain the oriental feeling while becoming a robust rag. (more)

in fact, much of what was written, of what is shown here (just a begin- ning), is a fine combination of ragtime from the african south, "tin pan alley" from the eastern european northeast, and, well.... japonisme -- the asian west coast. immigrants celebrating diversity.