 Leonard Cohen “Halleluja” (click link to hear on you tube) |
I was listening to music this morning as I cleaned the bathrooms. For the record it was Leonard Cohen, who I loved when I was a young teen. I know, I was a strange kid. I started to sing along and I remembered how much I used to sing when I was younger. I sang doing chores, I sang in the car, I sang to the kids during the day and lullabies at night. Now I leave the singing to the professionals and I just listen. |
| Just listening to music is a strange state of affairs. For most of human history music has been live. It wasn’t until the early 1900s that people had access to recorded music and that music started to belong to the professionals. Throughout the 1800s and early 1900s sheet music was a huge business. Companies published reams of music and people all over the nation would buy it and sing the most popular songs. |  |
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In the 1800s and early 1900s sheet music was part of political campaigns. Without radio or TV candidates relied on print media and sheet music to spread their messages. Some candidates had songs with words, while other’s had music only. McKinley, who was president from 1896 until he was assassinated in 1901, had a march with no music. Since every town had a town band the music was played at rallies. |
| My husband’s grandfather, Ed Teale, wrote about sing-alongs in Central Bridge, NY in the early 1900s when he was a young man. Here is an excerpt from his memoirs.”The railroad passed through the center of town dividing it plum center so much of the doings of youth revolved around it. Engines were small, burned soft coal, belched high clouds of dense black smoke, drank large quantities of water and rattled and hooted and clanged pulling small cars and small trains to and fro. Most of the time there was a line of box cars standing on the siding in the center of Main Street, directly in front of the grocery stores and hotels. Stores, meat markets and hotels did more business in the evening than in the day time so the street was almost always well filled with farmers and young people.
What a time for a group to climb on top a line of box cars and sing. Most generally a collection would be taken and a ten pound butter pail of beer bought and passed man to man along the top of the car. All the old songs and any of the newer ones that could be had would be sung. Sometimes a guitar or mandolin or both would be there and as I look back I realize that we really had a good leader and I know now that some of the voices must have been better than average. I recall once we sent a quartet to a then distant city, Canajoharie, and they received second prize (a large book of songs). One night passing the bucket the man sitting on the end of the car passed it to the next man but there was no next man, the bucket fell to the ground and we lost about five cents worth of beer. It cost ten cents a pail. Some nights as many as three pails would be had. Just think 30 cents a lot of money then. Once a tenor getting to his place walked off the end of a car and broke both arms. On the whole we had a good time and many a time the people on the street would clap and applaud and ask for certain favorites.” |
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Music in the 1900s
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