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CULMINATING EXPERIENCE
UNDERSTANDING TIN PAN ALLEY
A Glimpse Into the Golden Age of Songwriting with
the Big Five American Songwriters Composing
Hundreds of New Songs Every Year.
Jesse Boere
Master of Music Candidate
Contemporary Performance
PREFACE
This is my ‘Culmininating Experience’ project for the Contemporary
Performance Master’s Program of Berklee College of Music- in paper form. It is
a collection of compositions, observations and interpretations of the central
topic that is Tin Pan Alley. It must be noted that this is a glimpse at the very
early stages of a much bigger (artistic) research into Tin Pan Alley in all its
facets. This should not be considered an academic paper, but rather a record of
experiences I’ve had digging into the topic over the past year- one that has
inspired me tremendously and made me consider doing a thorough academic
research at a later time.
INTRODUCTION
My birth name is Jesse Pieter Boere and I was born in a little town way east in
the Netherlands, close to the border with Germany. I grew up in a family of six
with three older brothers and two loving parents. My brothers and I all ended
up taking music lessons at some point. We were all fast learners and
performed at talent nights regularly. However, everyone had a different focus.
My oldest brother played the keys and sang away. My second brother played
Spanish classical guitar and later picked up an electric one. My youngest
brother studied piano and started playing more and more jazz, as he got older.
I was the ‘choir boy’. I already started singing in a choir when I was 8 years
old. I was recruited by the local boys choir (nowadays a very rare breed in the
Netherlands) and was hooked to singing very soon. It did not take long for me
to become the soloist of choir and it was then when I started getting my first
private instruction lessons in classical singing – I was only 10 years old.
I was 13 when I already secretly knew I wanted a ‘career’ in music. At that
time I only had been singing classical music, so automatically that was what I
thought I wanted to study. This soon changed, though. I was 14 years old when
I started to discover jazz. A friend of mine introduced me to this music that
sounded very interesting to me. I was already playing piano a bit and tried out
some jazz chords. It didn’t take long before I was hooked to jazz and began
singing and playing tunes – it was Jamie Cullum, a pop/jazz singer and pianist
that had me doing that and soon I discovered he sang quite some jazz
standards – I discovered the tunes I played were ‘jazz standards’, an
unfamiliar term to me at the time. Before that I was already amazed by Herbie
Hancock; stuff I loved a lot but could never play. Understanding the concept of
‘jazz standards’ automatically let me to – of course – Frank Sinatra. I think the
fact Sinatra sang a song just like I sang Schubert songs in the past, attracted
me a lot. Was this something I could do too?
And so it went. Almost naturally I turned from a classical singer into a jazz
singer. I realized soon, though, that the two weren’t so different after all. The
basic technique is the same – the melodic and rhythmical freedom is what
makes them different. Exploring this was a treat.
Then I had an unfortunate setback. I had a serious back problem that kept
me from paying attention to anything else. Extensive surgery eventually
ended this chapter of my life’s book and all of this made me more determined
than ever. I was going to work very hard to get into the conservatory and
pursue my dream: to make and create music for a living. I took jazz singing
lessons just one year before I auditioned for the top conservatories in the
country. I was accepted to all except one and decided to go to Codarts
Rotterdam because of their openness to fusion.
At the conservatory of Rotterdam (Codarts Rotterdam) I threw myself at
jazz. Besides sharpening my listening skills, harmony skills, rhythmical skills,
notating skills, I studied vocalists like Frank Sinatra, Mel Tormé, Dean Martin,
Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, Louis Armstrong, Bobby McFerrin, and Chet
Baker, but also singers like James Brown, Michael Jackson, Ray Charles,
Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Prince, Tom Waits, and Bob Dylan. I also took
interest in listening to more recent artists (a lot of times both singers and
songwriters), like D’Angelo, Jamie Cullum, Peter Cinoctti, Erykah Badu, Raul
Midon, John Legend, Gregory Porter, José James, Amos Lee, Kurt Elling, and
John Mayer. Somehow I was also very inspired Scandinavian jazz – I
especially liked the piano trios from this area because of their very melodic
approach – like Tord Gustavsen, Jan Lundgren, Esbjorn Svensson, and Bobo
Stenson.
At Codarts Rotterdam I have always been searching for my own sound and
identity. Because of the little amount of male singers in jazz programs, you are
easily pushed into the ‘crooner corner’, and I felt pushed into that corner too.
It was when I decided to take my own writing seriously, when I suddenly found
things started falling into place. The response was generally good when I
played my own work. The compositions were not bad, the intention was good,
my diction improved, my sound more genuine and I had more fun doing it.
Since that moment I’ve been starting to call myself a singer-songwriter. At
that point, I had a lot of unfinished material on the shelves (or, as most song
writers would say, ‘the trunk’) and I forced myself to finish a lot of songs.
Within a year I produced dozens of songs – some better than others, but one
thing I learned was to always finish a song, however bad you think it is. My
graduation concert was not a typical jazz one: I only played my own material
that was not really straight-up jazz of course. Nevertheless, it was very well
received and I think people saw that what I was doing was what I should be
doing as an artist – I had found my identity as an artist.
I somehow felt that it was good for me to study some more and do that in a
very different environment. After some extensive research, looking at only
American universities (I felt the roots of my music lay there), I found that
Berklee’s master’s program in performance would be the best fit for me. It
could give me the right environment in terms of openness to different artistic
identities, the guidance of interesting professors and furthermore the amazing
facilities. The fact that the campus is in Europe was an advantage for me too
for reasons that are beyond the scope of explaining in this document.
I have always loved being a songwriter, and my love for song has grown
tremendously during my time at Berklee. Students and faculty alike have
given me the feedback that my music has a distinct music theater flavor. In
searching for why this is, I realized my songs are influenced by jazz standards
- most of which were originally written for musicals, revues, and vaudeville
shows. Almost all of these were written in the 20th century, beginning in Tin
Pan Alley, the name of the district in New York City that housed most music
publishers and songwriters that dominated American popular music until the
1950s.
When I discovered this, I decided to begin to study the Tin Pan Alley’s ‘Big
Five’ songwriters: Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Richard
Rodgers and Jerome Kern. Altogether, they wrote thousands of songs- a
goldmine of material to study.
I aim to improve and diversify myself as a songwriter by learning from
these five greats in two steps. It embodies learning about their lives, motives
and influences. Furthermore, it embodies the analysis of their songs, trying to
understand their techniques and methods and attempting to write in Tin Pan
Alley style.
This turned out to be a very ambitious plan and I soon realized it would
take years to accomplish. My Culminating Experience (CE) at Berklee is one
that describes the process of discovering a magical world of song that was so
interesting and big that I was overwhelmed by it.
In this year I barely scratched the surface of a thorough research into Tin
Pan Alley and its impact on Broadway and jazz, but have been able to
understand the scope of it- I know now where to begin when (and if) I would
embark on the journey all the way to the end, if there is any; probably
something that would take four to five years.
Despite all of this, I was able to compose and write quite a few new pieces
in the style and/or spirit of Tin Pan Alley, something I aimed when I planned
this research- in fact, it is an inherit part of it. In the end, I want to improve
myself as a songwriter by practicing composing a lot and studying the great
songwriters I so admire.
I have decided to focus this reflection paper on a brief history of Tin Pan
Alley and one example of lyric writing in the style I call “Tin Pan Alley Style”.
Quite some music has been composed in this year, using the lyrics that have
been written, but this is not included in the paper. The focus is on writing
lyrics using a very particular set form.
TIN PAN ALLEY
New York City became the epicenter of songwriting and music publishing in
the late 19th century. Tin Pan Alley, located on 28th street between Broadway
and 6th Avenue in Manhattan, was the alley, or street, that housed most of the
influential American songwriters and music publishers of that time, until
1920s. Before this time, the important publishers were divided over the entire
country. Besides New York, they were based in Boston, Philadelphia,
Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, amongst others. Tin Pan Alley was a phenomenon
throughout the 1930s and 1940s, but it could not be called the epicenter of
publishing anymore, since a lot of money had moved to Hollywood.
There were many music publishers around this time, publishing not only
sheet music (their main income stream), but also instruction books and school
materials. It was a tough business with a lot of competition; there was no
monopoly on success whatsoever.
Pianos became very popular after the American Civil War and
subsequently; the demand of sheet music for piano became higher and higher
every year. In the late 19th century, more than half a million young people
were studying piano and they craved for new music like never before. New
music publishing companies popped up like mushrooms. Most of these
emerged in New York City. The reason was because NYC already was becoming
a very important center for the performing arts. Musical talent was migrating
to the Big Apple because they knew it was where all the new popular musicpublishing companies were establishing themselves. This attracted even more
companies- New York City was the place where the newest trends in musical
style could be observed the first. It was the place to be for the publishers. In
this time, a remarkable amount of new music was written, following and
creating new trends every year. The music industry flourished like never
before.
Very successful publishers of that time were Harms, Inc. (1881) and
Witmark & Sons. There were many publishers coming to New York City and
leaving again after having failed. However, some were there to stay: Irving
Berlin, Inc., Remick Music Co., Berstein & Co., and E. B. Marks Music
Company, amongst others. The reason they were successful and the others
not, was partly luck, but also because they concentrated almost exclusively on
popular music and had a big budget for marketing and marketing research.
Music publishers in that time earned a lot of money off of the composers
and lyricists. They were usually hired under contract, which meant that all
rights were transferred to the publisher. Market research determined which
songs were selling best and composers were instructed to write in that style.
Songs were tested on an audience and on performers and were trashed as soon
as it was deemed to fail.
Song pluggers marketed the published songs. These pluggers worked in
music shops and played the new releases. Performers were also payed to sing
and/or play the songs in their shows to expose the music to a wider audience.
By the end of the 19th century, the most important publishers had moved
to offices on 28th street between 5th Avenue and Broadway. This street
became known as "Tin Pan Alley." It is not entirely clear where exactly this
name originates; several stories go around about it. The most plausible one
tells of a reporter names Monroe Rosenfeld who worked for the New York
Herald. He wrote about the sheet music publishing business and ones tried to
explain what you heard walking down 28th street. Rosenfeld characterized the
sounds of many pianos coming out of the open windows of publisher’s offices as
a bunch of tin pans clanging. After having describing this way in several
newspaper articles at the end of the 19th century, the street became widely
known as Tin Pan Alley.
At the same time vaudeville became immensely popular and at the center
these shows were based on music – new music. Publishing companies jumped
on this opportunity because it was a perfect way to make songs popular and
sell a lot of sheet music. It is remarkable how the industry flourished in these
years. Enormous amounts of new songs were published and became very
popular. Sales were, even for today’s standards, very high, with some songs
selling more than 4 million copies of sheet music. Some of these songs are still
sung today.
Although we consider many of the songs composed from the time of Tin
Pan Alley works of art in the present day, in the time it was made it was for
purely commercial purposes. It was all about creating and selling music that
people wanted to buy. What sold in that time was music happy music; music
that allowed people to escape from their life’s troubles, even if just for a couple
of hours.
The impact of the Tin Pan Alley publishers has been immense. Music today
would have been very different without Bernstein & Co., Irving Berlin Inc. and
the likes. Despite their purely commercial motives, they have been key
contributors to some of the most beautiful music we still enjoy today.
THE BIG FIVE
Although the term ‘The Big Five’ is not very commonly used, it seems to be a
term familiar to jazz vocalists and musical theater vocalists alike. It refers to
the big five of modern American music, all connected to Tin Pan Alley: Jerome
Kern, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, and Richard Rodgers.
Altogether, they wrote more than 4500 songs (published ones, that is). These
were the composers of these tunes; they wrote the melodies and sometimes
also the harmonies. Except for Irving Berlin and Cole Porter, they didn’t write
lyrics to the songs themselves, but collaborated with lyricists. A brief
biography of the Big Five in order of birth year:
Jerome Kern (1885-1945)
Born on January 27th, 1885 in New York City, Jerome Kern was the first born
of the Big Five. His father was a Jewish German immigrant, his mother an
American Jew with parents from Bohemia. Jerome Kern grew up in New York
City and as a child was taught to play the piano by his mother. When only 16,
he already wrote songs for the musical of his high school. He attended the New
York College of Music and studied piano and harmony before going to
Heidelberg (Germany) to receive private tutoring in composition. After a
couple of years, he returned to New York City and began to contribute songs to
Broadway shows, usually imported from London. He also worked as a songplugger for Tin Pan Alley music publishers.
His first complete score was for the musical The Red Petticoat (1912).
After 1915 he composed many complete Broadway scores and was very
productive. In 1925 he met Oscar Hammerstein II; they remained close friends
for the rest of their lives. Together they wrote the first truly modern American
musical with an integrated story, produced by Florenz Ziegfeld: Show Boat
(1927). This musical is still being produced up to this day.
Jerome Kern went on composing for both theater and screen, dividing his
time between Broadway and Hollywood. His movie hits included the film hit
Swing Time. His death in 1945 was sudden. He suffered a cerebral hemorrhage
in New York City. Six days after, with Oscar Hammerstein II and his wife at his
bedside, he passed. Kern was one of the founding members of American
Society of Composers (ASCAP).
Irving Berlin (1888-1989)
Having lived over a 100 years, Isreal Ballin (his birth name) has had a long life
that started out in the poorest neighborhoods in NYC and ended in the richest
ones. He was an immigrant of Belarusian-Jewish origin and moved to the
United States with his whole family in 1893. His father died only a few years
later, and Berlin dropped out of school to help his family that was barely
scraping by. When he was 14, he realized he couldn’t contribute enough to the
family and decided to not burden them anymore and moved out. In the
following years he discovered that singing was his best option to earn enough
money to get by. He went to saloons and sang the few songs he had heard on
the street. He began plugging songs and later worked as a singing waiter at the
Pelham Café. It was that place where he composed his first piece “Marie From
Sunny Italy” together with resident pianist Mike Nicholson. That was also the
moment that Israel Ballin started referring himself as Irving Berlin (a very
conscience choice).
Berlin’s first hit song (and it was enormous) was “Alexander’s Ragtime
Band” in 1911. It sparked an international dance craze and made Irving Berlin
famous to the wide public very quickly.
During his life (of which he composed ‘only’ 60 years), he wrote an
estimated 1,500 songs. He was known to write songs that reached the heart of
the average American, songs that were simple and uncomplicated. Jerome
Kern: "Irving Berlin has no place in American music—he is American music."
He played a major role in both World War I and World War II by producing
shows performed by the army – most notable songs from those times are “Oh,
How I Hate To Get Up In the Morning”, and, of course, “God Bless America”
So great many great songs have been written by Irving Berlin that picking
out a few wouldn’t give it enough justice. However, notable because it’s one of
the most recorded songs in history, is “White Christmas”, for which Berlin
received an Academy Award (Best music in an Original Song).
In the last 25 years of his life he didn’t write a song anymore. He died on
September 22, 1989 of natural causes.
Cole Porter (1891-1964)
Of the five, Cole Porter is one of the two songwriters (the other is Irving
Berlin) that both wrote the tune and the lyrics for a song, whereas the others
collaborated with lyricists.
How similar Berlin and Porter are in this way, how different are they in
their background. Cole Porter was born to a wealthy family in 1891. His
grandfather was the successful Indiana entrepreneur J.O. Cole. Despite the
plans his family had for him (to become a lawyer), Porter went a different way.
From an early age he showed great musical talent. He did enter Yale (as he
was supposed to), but mostly composed songs for its Glee Club (he composed
300 songs while at Yale). He even went on to Harvard Law School but
switched to Harvard’s music department very soon because his heart lay in
song writing. There he studied harmony and counterpoint.
His first Broadway show, See America First (1916), only ran for two weeks
and subsequent shows were also failures. Porter then moved to Paris and
lived there for an extended period of time. Although bi-sexual (and some argue
homosexual), he married in 1919.
It was when Cole Porter met Irving Berlin’s brother-in-law E. Ray Goetz,
when Cole Porter began to have success. The first show they wrote together,
Paris (1928), became a hit when it opened on Broadway and it was his first. It
also marked the first hit song entitled (Let’s Do It) Let’s Fall in Love. At the
same time a show called La Revue opened in Paris and this was also a hit,
elevating Cole Porter to ‘the big leagues’. In the decade that followed Cole
Porter’s shows were often big hits: The Gay Divorce (1932), Anything Goes
(1934), Jubilee (1935), Red, Hot and Blue (1936), and Born to Dance (1936,
film).
In 1937, Cole Porter had a devastating riding accident that crushed his
legs, something that followed him for the rest of his life. Despite many
operations, he was in constant pain for the rest of his life. However, as soon as
he could, he resumed working because it kept his mind off the pain. His
greatest successes on Broadway came after the accident, including Du Barry
Was a Lady (1939), Panama Hattie (1940), Something To Shout About
(1942), Kiss Me, Kate (1948), and Can-Can (1953). By then he divided his
time between Broadway and Hollywood, since he wrote for both.
Porter’s wife died in 1954 and he wrote less after that. In 1958 his right leg
had to be amputated. After this Porter never wrote another song. He lived a
secluded life and died from kidney failure in 1964.
George Gershwin (1898-1937)
George Gershwin was a composer of both popular and classical music. Born in
1898, he was the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia. He didn’t care for
music much until he was 10 years old and started taking piano lessons.
Gershwin dropped out of school when he was 15 and found his first job in
Tin Pan Alley. As a song plugger he worked for the music publisher Remick &
Co. His very first own song that got published, was "When You Want 'Em, You
Can't Get 'Em, When You've Got 'Em, You Don't Want 'Em" in 1916. His first
national hit followed in 1919: famous Broadway star Al Johnson sang
“Swanee” in one of his shows. At the same time Gershwin also arranged and
recorded numerous piano rolls for several companies, and accompanied
vocalists on the piano in vaudeville shows.
Gershwin collaborated with different lyricists, but was most successful with
his brother Ira Gershwin. Their first hit show was Lady, Be Good (1924), most
known for the songs “Fascinating Rhythmn” and “Oh, Lady Be Good!”. The
shows Oh, Kay! (1926), Funny Face (1927), Strike Up the Band (1927), Show
Girl (1929), Girl Crazy (1930), and Of Thee I Sing (1931) followed, the latter
winning a Pulitzer Prize for Drama- the first time a musical comedy won that
prize.
In these years Gershwin gained notable recognition for works composed for
the concert hall. Most notable are Rhapsody in Blue (1924), for piano and
orchestra, the Piano Concerto in F (1925), and An American in Paris (1928).
One famous work could never really be categorized: Porgy and Bess (1935). It
hovers somewhere in between an opera and a musical. Gershwin himself
called it a “folk opera”. Probably the most known song from this folk opera is
the song “Summertime”, still sung today by both classical singers and singers
in the popular genre. Although now considered a masterpiece and
groundbreaking for the time, Porgy and Bess was a commercial failure.
In 1937 Gershwin began to have headaches. His doctors dismissed these
ongoing headaches as symptoms of stress and even diagnosed him with
hysteria later on. George Gershwin in fact had a brain tumor and as soon as
that became evident, it was already too late. Shocking the country, he died on
July 11, 1937 at the age of 38.
Richard Rodgers (1902-1979)
Like Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers was born to a wealthy family. He was
mesmerized by musical theater at a very young age already and wrote his first
songs in his early teens at summer camps. He met Lorenz Hart when he was
only 16. They both went to Columbia University and they began a collaboration
that lasted for almost 25 years.
Although most of the productions Rodgers & Hart premiered failed, there were
several songs that became popular on their own. It was in 1925 when they
broke through with The Garrick Gaieties (1925), a benefit show meant to only
run for one night. “Manhatten” was the hit song in this show and because of its
success the show was re-opened later. In the following years the duo produced
an impressive amount of shows (ten from 1925-1929) both on Broadway and
in London, including hits like Peggy-Ann (1926) and Present Arms (1928).
For most of the 1930s, Rodgers & Hart composed for Hollywood, but in the
late 30s and early 40s, they made their comeback to Broadway and produced
hit after hit, most notable being Babes in Arms (1937), The Boys From
Syracuse (1938), Pal Joey (1940-41), and their last complete show By Jupiter
(1942). It had become harder and harder to work with Hart due to his
alcoholism and subsequent unreliability. This is when Rodgers started to
collaborate with Oscar Hammerstein II, who he studied with at Columbia
University with whom he had actually friends with since he him when he was
13 years old- even prior to working with Hart, he already had written songs
with Hammerstein II.
If the duo Rodgers & Hart didn’t seem like a golden one yet – unfortunately
Hart’s health condition declined very fast and he died in 1943 – the
partnership of Rodgers with Hammerstein II has turned out to be the most
successful in in musical theater. Their first show, Oklahoma (1943),
revolutionized the art form. All but one of the projects that followed were big
successes too: State Fair (1945, film), Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949),
and The King and I (1951).
The duo spent most of the 50s in Hollywood working on adaptations of their
shows for the silver screen. At the end of the decade they came back to
Broadway and produced a few more shows. The last show they worked on
together was as revolutionary as their first. The Sound Of Music (1959) is
perhaps the most well known musical that has been produced and was
massively successful- it still is. Unfortunately, Oscar Hammerstein II didn’t get
to enjoy much of its success, dying in 1960.
After Hammerstein’s death, Rodgers worked alone for a while. He wrote
both music and lyrics for the musical No Strings (1962) and some additional
songs for a re-make of State Fair and the film adaption of The Sound of Music.
Later he collaborated with a few others: Stephen Sondheim on Do I Hear A
Waltz? (1965), Martin Charnin on Two by Two (1970) and I Remember Mama
(1979)– both failures, and Sheldon Harnick on Rex (1976). During the 1970s
Rodgers struggled with his health but he always kept working. He died in 1979
at the age of 77.
SONGWRITING IN ‘TIN PAN ALLEY STYLE’
I have spent most of my time reading about the Big Five American composers
and by learning about their lives, learned a lot about their music too. All of
them have their own ways of writing songs but surely there are similarities.
Irving Berlin had ones penned down ‘The Nine Rules of Songwriting” which to
me is both a funny and interesting list.
Nine rules of songwriting:
1. The melody should be within the range of most singers
2. The title should be attention-getting and, in addition, repeated within
the body of the song
3. The song should be “sexless”: able to be sung by men and women
4. The song requires “heart interest”
5. It should be original in idea, words, and music
6. Stick to nature. Not nature in a visionary abstract way, but nature as
demonstrated in homely, concrete, everyday manifestations.
7. Sprinkle the lyrics with “open vowels” so that it will be euphonious.
8. Make the song as simple as possible
9. “The song writer must look upon his work as a business, that is, to make
a success of it, he must work and work, and then WORK
In addition to these rules, there were some common rules that every
songwriter used; something Irving Berlin didn’t even have to mention. These
are the rules of form.
The thirty-two-bar form
The commonly used and accepted form in Tin Pan Alley was the thirty-two-bar
form, often referred to as the AABA form. Until the verse-chorus form started
dominating the music scene, this was the most used form. In the thirty-two-bar
form, each chorus is made up of four 8-bar sections. Usually, the first 8 bars
(A) introduce a principle melody in the home key of the tune. These 8 bars are
repeated, often entirely similar, but if lyrics are present, they are different.
Then comes the middle 8, the B-part, which from the beginning can be in a
different key (having modulated in the preceding bar) or modulated within the
section. The melody in this section is usually significantly different. At the end
it remains harmonically open and doesn’t resolve to a new tonic but rather
sets itself up to modulate back to the original key of the tune, often arriving at
the dominant of the home key at the very end. The last section (referred to as
the ‘last 8) repeats the beginning 8 bars and ends on the tonic of the home key.
Sometimes this section is extended with a coda.
With this in mind and the nine rules of songwriting in mind, I tried composing
one of my first “Tin Pan Alley” tunes; it is also one of my best attempts:
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The experience of writing this tune was immediately very different than
the ones I had before whilst writing songs. I almost always wrote music first
and then lyrics. With this song I did it the other way around – Irving Berlin
actually came up with a melody first most of the time – and this gave me a
different perspective. Now I had to find the mood of the music that fit with the
lyrics instead of the other way around. In the end this means you have more
freedom. Usually when you write music first, you do not have a story in mind.
Ones you finish the music, you are stuck with a mood in which a story should
fit. Now, some argue that writing songs is like telling stories. In that respect, if
you have to fit a story to something else that already exists, you limit yourself
in telling that story. However, if you know what the story is from the
beginning by writing the lyrics first, you will write more creatively because the
story and music are better connected. In the end it is not that black-and-white,
I think. The music you write can inspire you to write stories/lyrics that you
would never write if beginning with them from scratch and vice-versa. This
could and probably is one of the reasons why songs are often written by a
songwriter/lyricist duo: They can inspire each other and write things they
would have never written if not for the work of their counterpart.
I cannot exactly remember where I got the idea from for this tune. I do
remember someone saying the words “a melody is a beautiful thing”
somewhere and it was something I wrote down immediately and knew I was
going to use for a song. I also knew right away that would be the title.
From what I’ve gathered, for Big Five songwriters this was usually how they
got an idea for a song too. They heard someone say something that somehow
sounded good to their ears and then used it in a song. Usually, this would be
the title of the song too. It is interesting how the songs of that era have titles
that are very memorable and capture the essence of the song, much more than
song titles do today.
Rule 2 of Irving Berlin’s 9 rules says that the title of a song should be
“attention-getting and, in addition, repeated within the body of the song”,
something that has become characteristic for these type of songs. A lot of the
songs actually begin with the title of the song (“Love for Sale”, “In A
Sentimantal Mood”, “Lullaby of Birdland”) and audiences nowadays even
confuse the first words of a song with the actual title, because they are not the
same (“My One and Only Love”, “The Christmas Song”). Titles are important,
and I guess Irving Berlin thought so too, and wanted to make sure people knew
the title of the song after having heard it. That’s why he thought it should be
repeated within the body of the song. Of course, it is also a way for people to
know which song to ask for if they wanted to buy the sheet music…
When writing “A Melody Is A Beautiful Thing” I knew I wanted to end the
song with the title, because it sounded to me like a shout-out. In the end I
repeated it another time in the second A section just before the middle 8.
Now that I had a title and knew where I wanted to place it in the body of
the song, I could start constructing the lyrics1. It was obvious that I had to
write about the fact that a melody is a beautiful thing. I quickly came up with
the idea of using a melody as a metaphor for a woman, or rather a woman as a
metaphor for a melody. However, I didn’t want to give this away at the
beginning of the song. All of this gave me enough ammunition to come up with
words – I had to try and find words that could describe both a melody and a
woman.
I had already scribbled down ‘oh, how I want to sing!’ pretty soon after
having come up with the title and thought it was a good idea to use it in the 4th
line of the first A section. I would then rhyme that with the 4th line of the
second A section repeating the title before going to the middle 8. This left me
While reading on, review the attached Keynote presentation that visualizes the
process of writing the lyrics for the song “A Melody Is A Beautiful Thing”.
1
with the first three lines for both the first and second A section.
It became apparent to me that the best rhyming scheme for both sections
would be AAAC / BBBC, providing balance (that is what the lyrics needed to
convey), but not feeling repetitious. I decided to use the first A section for
descriptive purposes, to give the listener imagery right from the start. The
second section would then slowly reveal that the song is not the typical love
song about a woman.
I don’t shy away from using a thesaurus and a rhyming dictionary;
something the big five songwriters and their collaborations didn’t either, I
learned. Ones I have a line with a word at the end that needs to rhyme with
one or even several words later, I look at my options and think if they can
connect to the theme. A rhyming dictionary is a tool that speeds up that
process. A thesaurus comes in handy when you’d like to use a certain word
that doesn’t fit the prosody of a line. A synonym with fewer or more syllables
might be an outcome in that case.
After having constructed the first two A sections, I moved on to the B
section, the middle 8. This section doesn’t only contrast melodically, but also
in terms of lyrics. It should, if only for a brief moment, question what has been
said in the first half of the song – it might even confuse the listener for a brief
moment.
Here is when I started thinking about the music too, and had the idea to
use it to my advantage. I planned on writing a melody and harmony in this
section that would go seriously somewhere else before snapping back to the
home key, as if it got “lost” along the way. The 1st line became a kind of
modulated version of the first line of the A sections. Then the 2nd line would
actually be a repetition harmonically, but not melodically, ending on a major
7th, not particularly stable and announcing a detour. From there on it briefly
modulates again to the key of B major, a half step down from the original key,
but abruptly finds its way back to the home key. This is a part where I almost
literally translated the metaphor of the text into music.
This left the last A section. I knew the last line, the 4th, was going to be the
title. I soon realized I also had to repeat the kind of ‘tag’ “oh, how I want to
sing!” just before the last line. This left me with the 1st and 2nd line. What was
left to say? A conclusion, and it had to top everything that came before. I knew
it was turning out to be homage to ‘the melody’ and decided to go all the way
and call it “the queen of song” to which “nothing can compare”.
Writing the melody and harmony
Although I won’t go deep into how I approached writing the melody and
harmony for these lyrics and others, which was not the focus of my studies
this year, I can give some general comments.
Apart from the lyrics, the musical style of Tin Pan Alley is also pretty
particular. Harmony always seems to serve the melody and the melody always
serves the lyrics. That’s why the best order to do these things seems to be
writing the lyrics first, then writing the melody, and then the harmony. This is
also what I have attempted this year.
Actually, lyrics have kind of melody in them naturally already. You just have
to speak them out loud and you start noticing where the tone ascends and
descends. If you speak them out loud enough times, a melody will start shaping
itself piece by piece.
This works the same for rhythm in some ways, although there is a little more
freedom whereas you can emphasize words by giving them ‘time’ to be sung.
But then again, this is also what we do in speech if we want to emphasize
something. A high note does not emphasize, rhythm does.
More attempts
Over the course of my year at Berklee, I have written numerous lyrics
attempting to somehow recreate the style of Tin Pan Alley but not copy it. On
the next few pages you will find some of those attempts and their brief lyrical
analysis. Some are in the thirty-two-bar form, others are in forms that were
less commonly used, but nonetheless used – some becoming very successful.
The author of these is J.P. Bell, pseudonym for Jesse Boere.
DISCUSSION
This has been a year of a lot of composing and writing for me, despite all
the coursework I had to in a lot of other areas at Berklee. In my
proposal for my Culminating Experience I explained I wanted to do just
that. I also explained I wanted to learn about the history of Tin Pan
Alley, about the lives of the Big Five American songwriters and analyze
the tunes they have written. The latter proved to be something I was not
able to dig into, due to the time restraint. However, because of my
history in jazz singing and my familiarity with American Songbook
repertoire, I could still build on some solid knowledge.
I would recommend any jazz musician to at least read about some of
the most famous American songwriters. This is what I spend the most
time on, and just by knowing about their lives, their motives, their work
methods, and their believes, I feel I am a better performer and composer
already.
I will most certainly carry on researching this era and will start
using a more systematic approach, probably chronologically. Beginning
at the beginning, I plan on making a time line from around 1885
outlining the news and successful shows and/or songs one by one and
analyzing the songs. When finishing that timeline, I hope to have
discovered some connections, some clear evolution and maybe even
traits that every successful song has.
The following is a list of songs that should certainly be on that
timeline. I made this to illustrate what I think are very important songs
in the American songwriting history. Noted must be that this is a
shortened list. A proper list for the purposes of the timeline mentioned
before would be much longer.
Irving Berlin
Alexander's Ragtime Band (1911), I Love A Piano (1915), Oh! How I Hate to
Get Up in the Morning (1918), A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody (1919), What'll I
Do (1924), Blue Skies (1926), The Song is Ended (but the Melody Lingers
On) (1927), Russian Lullabye (1927), Puttin' on the Ritz (1930), Soft Lights
and
Sweet
Music (1932),
How
Deep
Is
the
Ocean? (1932),
Supper
Time (1933), Cheek to Cheek (1935), God Bless America (1938), Change
Partners (1938), White Christmas (1942), There's No Business Like Show
Business (1946), You Can't Get a Man with a Gun (1946).
Cole Porter
Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love) (1928), What Is This Thing Called Love? (1929),
Love For Sale (1930), Night and Day (1932), You're The Top (1934), I Get a
Kick out of You (1934), Just One of Those Things (1935), I've Got You Under
My Skin (1936), (You'd Be) So Easy to Love (1936), In the Still of the
Night (1937), My Heart Belongs to Daddy (1938), Well, Did You Evah! (1939),
I Hate You, Darling (1941), You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To (1942), Look
What I Found (1946), From This Moment On (1950), I Love Paris (1953),
True Love (1956).
More on next page
Richard Rodgers (with Lorenz Hart)
Manhatten (1925), Here in My Arms (1925), Blue Room (1926), My Heart
Stood
Still (1927),
You
Took
Advantage
of
Me (1928),
Isn't
It
Romantic? (1932), The Most Beautiful Girl in the World (1935), My
Romance (1935), Little Girl Blue (1935), There's a Small hotel (1936), Where
or When (1937), My Funny Valentine (1937), The Lady Is a Tramp (1937),
Falling in Love with Love (1937), I'll Tell the Man in the Street (1938),
Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered (1940), Wait till You See Her (1942).
Richard Rodgers (with Oscar Hammerstein II)
Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin' (1943), People Will Say We're in Love (1943), If I
Loved You (1945), You'll Never Walk Alone (1945), It Might as Well Be
Spring (1945),
Some
Enchanted
Evening (1949),
Getting
to
Know
You (1951), My Favorite Things (1959), The Sound of Music (1959), Sixteen
Going on Seventeen (1959), Climb Ev'ry Mountain (1959), Do-Re-Mi (1959),
Edelweiss (1959)
George Gershwin (with Ira Gershwin)
Fascinating Rhythm (1924), Oh, Lady Be Good! (1924), Someone to Watch
Over Me (1926), My One and Only (1927), How Long Has This Been Going
On? (1928), I've Got a Crush on You (1928), Embraceable You (1928), But
Not for Me (1930), I Got Rhythm (1930), I Loves You, Porgy (1935),
Summertime (1935), It Ain't Necessarily So (1935), Let's Call the Whole Thing
Off (1937), Nice Work If You Can Get It (1937), They Can't Take That Away
from Me (1937), A Foggy Day (1937), Love Is Here to Stay (1938).
More on next page
Jerome Kern
Various collaborators
They Didn't Believe Me (1914)
Herbert Reynolds
Look for the Silver Lining (1919)
B.G. DeSylva
Who? (1925)
Otto Harbach & Hammerstein II
Ol' Man River (1927)
Oscar Hammerstein II
Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man (1927)
Oscar Hammerstein II
The Song is You (1932)
Oscar Hammerstein II
I've Told Ev'ry Little Star (1932)
Oscar Hammerstein II
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (1933)
Otto Harbach
Yesterdays (1933)
Otto Harbach
Let's Begin (1933)
Otto Harbach
A Fine Romance (1936)
Dorothy Fields
Pick Yourself Up (1936)
Dorothy Fields
All the Things You Are (1939)
Oscar Hammerstein II
The Way You Look Tonight (1936)
Dorothy Fields
I'm Old Fashioned (1942)
Johnny Mercer
Long Ago (and Far Away) (1944)
Ira Gershwin
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Banfield, Stephen (2006). Jerome Kern (Yale Broadway Masters Series)
Bergreen, Laurence (1996). As Thousands Cheer: The Life Of Irving
Blok, Geoffrey Holden (2002). The Richard Rodgers Reader
Bordman, Gerald (1990). Jerome Kern: His Life and Music
Fordin, Hugh (1995). Getting To Know Him: A Biography Of Oscar Hammerstein II
Forte, Allen (1995). The American Popular Ballad of the Golden Era, 1924-1950
Goldberg, Isaac (1930). Tin Pan Alley: A Chronicle of American Popular Music
McBrien, William (2000). Cole Porter
Pollack, Howard (2007). George Gershwin: His Life and Work Hardcover
Rodgers, Richard (2002). Musical Stages: An Autobiography
Schwartz, Charles (1976). Cole Porter: A Biography
Sears, Benjamin (2012). The Irving Berlin Reader
Wilder, Alec (1973). American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950
Wilk, Max (1973). They’re Playing Our Song: Conversations with America’s Classic
Songwriters
Wyatt, Robert & Johnson, John Andrew (2004). The George Gershwin Reader
UNDERSTANDING TIN PAN ALLEY
A Glimpse Into the Golden Age of Songwriting with
the Big Five American Songwriters Composing
Hundreds of New Songs Every Year.
Jesse Boere
Master of Music Candidate
Contemporary Performance
PREFACE
This is my ‘Culmininating Experience’ project for the Contemporary
Performance Master’s Program of Berklee College of Music- in paper form. It is
a collection of compositions, observations and interpretations of the central
topic that is Tin Pan Alley. It must be noted that this is a glimpse at the very
early stages of a much bigger (artistic) research into Tin Pan Alley in all its
facets. This should not be considered an academic paper, but rather a record of
experiences I’ve had digging into the topic over the past year- one that has
inspired me tremendously and made me consider doing a thorough academic
research at a later time.
INTRODUCTION
My birth name is Jesse Pieter Boere and I was born in a little town way east in
the Netherlands, close to the border with Germany. I grew up in a family of six
with three older brothers and two loving parents. My brothers and I all ended
up taking music lessons at some point. We were all fast learners and
performed at talent nights regularly. However, everyone had a different focus.
My oldest brother played the keys and sang away. My second brother played
Spanish classical guitar and later picked up an electric one. My youngest
brother studied piano and started playing more and more jazz, as he got older.
I was the ‘choir boy’. I already started singing in a choir when I was 8 years
old. I was recruited by the local boys choir (nowadays a very rare breed in the
Netherlands) and was hooked to singing very soon. It did not take long for me
to become the soloist of choir and it was then when I started getting my first
private instruction lessons in classical singing – I was only 10 years old.
I was 13 when I already secretly knew I wanted a ‘career’ in music. At that
time I only had been singing classical music, so automatically that was what I
thought I wanted to study. This soon changed, though. I was 14 years old when
I started to discover jazz. A friend of mine introduced me to this music that
sounded very interesting to me. I was already playing piano a bit and tried out
some jazz chords. It didn’t take long before I was hooked to jazz and began
singing and playing tunes – it was Jamie Cullum, a pop/jazz singer and pianist
that had me doing that and soon I discovered he sang quite some jazz
standards – I discovered the tunes I played were ‘jazz standards’, an
unfamiliar term to me at the time. Before that I was already amazed by Herbie
Hancock; stuff I loved a lot but could never play. Understanding the concept of
‘jazz standards’ automatically let me to – of course – Frank Sinatra. I think the
fact Sinatra sang a song just like I sang Schubert songs in the past, attracted
me a lot. Was this something I could do too?
And so it went. Almost naturally I turned from a classical singer into a jazz
singer. I realized soon, though, that the two weren’t so different after all. The
basic technique is the same – the melodic and rhythmical freedom is what
makes them different. Exploring this was a treat.
Then I had an unfortunate setback. I had a serious back problem that kept
me from paying attention to anything else. Extensive surgery eventually
ended this chapter of my life’s book and all of this made me more determined
than ever. I was going to work very hard to get into the conservatory and
pursue my dream: to make and create music for a living. I took jazz singing
lessons just one year before I auditioned for the top conservatories in the
country. I was accepted to all except one and decided to go to Codarts
Rotterdam because of their openness to fusion.
At the conservatory of Rotterdam (Codarts Rotterdam) I threw myself at
jazz. Besides sharpening my listening skills, harmony skills, rhythmical skills,
notating skills, I studied vocalists like Frank Sinatra, Mel Tormé, Dean Martin,
Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, Louis Armstrong, Bobby McFerrin, and Chet
Baker, but also singers like James Brown, Michael Jackson, Ray Charles,
Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Prince, Tom Waits, and Bob Dylan. I also took
interest in listening to more recent artists (a lot of times both singers and
songwriters), like D’Angelo, Jamie Cullum, Peter Cinoctti, Erykah Badu, Raul
Midon, John Legend, Gregory Porter, José James, Amos Lee, Kurt Elling, and
John Mayer. Somehow I was also very inspired Scandinavian jazz – I
especially liked the piano trios from this area because of their very melodic
approach – like Tord Gustavsen, Jan Lundgren, Esbjorn Svensson, and Bobo
Stenson.
At Codarts Rotterdam I have always been searching for my own sound and
identity. Because of the little amount of male singers in jazz programs, you are
easily pushed into the ‘crooner corner’, and I felt pushed into that corner too.
It was when I decided to take my own writing seriously, when I suddenly found
things started falling into place. The response was generally good when I
played my own work. The compositions were not bad, the intention was good,
my diction improved, my sound more genuine and I had more fun doing it.
Since that moment I’ve been starting to call myself a singer-songwriter. At
that point, I had a lot of unfinished material on the shelves (or, as most song
writers would say, ‘the trunk’) and I forced myself to finish a lot of songs.
Within a year I produced dozens of songs – some better than others, but one
thing I learned was to always finish a song, however bad you think it is. My
graduation concert was not a typical jazz one: I only played my own material
that was not really straight-up jazz of course. Nevertheless, it was very well
received and I think people saw that what I was doing was what I should be
doing as an artist – I had found my identity as an artist.
I somehow felt that it was good for me to study some more and do that in a
very different environment. After some extensive research, looking at only
American universities (I felt the roots of my music lay there), I found that
Berklee’s master’s program in performance would be the best fit for me. It
could give me the right environment in terms of openness to different artistic
identities, the guidance of interesting professors and furthermore the amazing
facilities. The fact that the campus is in Europe was an advantage for me too
for reasons that are beyond the scope of explaining in this document.
I have always loved being a songwriter, and my love for song has grown
tremendously during my time at Berklee. Students and faculty alike have
given me the feedback that my music has a distinct music theater flavor. In
searching for why this is, I realized my songs are influenced by jazz standards
- most of which were originally written for musicals, revues, and vaudeville
shows. Almost all of these were written in the 20th century, beginning in Tin
Pan Alley, the name of the district in New York City that housed most music
publishers and songwriters that dominated American popular music until the
1950s.
When I discovered this, I decided to begin to study the Tin Pan Alley’s ‘Big
Five’ songwriters: Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Richard
Rodgers and Jerome Kern. Altogether, they wrote thousands of songs- a
goldmine of material to study.
I aim to improve and diversify myself as a songwriter by learning from
these five greats in two steps. It embodies learning about their lives, motives
and influences. Furthermore, it embodies the analysis of their songs, trying to
understand their techniques and methods and attempting to write in Tin Pan
Alley style.
This turned out to be a very ambitious plan and I soon realized it would
take years to accomplish. My Culminating Experience (CE) at Berklee is one
that describes the process of discovering a magical world of song that was so
interesting and big that I was overwhelmed by it.
In this year I barely scratched the surface of a thorough research into Tin
Pan Alley and its impact on Broadway and jazz, but have been able to
understand the scope of it- I know now where to begin when (and if) I would
embark on the journey all the way to the end, if there is any; probably
something that would take four to five years.
Despite all of this, I was able to compose and write quite a few new pieces
in the style and/or spirit of Tin Pan Alley, something I aimed when I planned
this research- in fact, it is an inherit part of it. In the end, I want to improve
myself as a songwriter by practicing composing a lot and studying the great
songwriters I so admire.
I have decided to focus this reflection paper on a brief history of Tin Pan
Alley and one example of lyric writing in the style I call “Tin Pan Alley Style”.
Quite some music has been composed in this year, using the lyrics that have
been written, but this is not included in the paper. The focus is on writing
lyrics using a very particular set form.
TIN PAN ALLEY
New York City became the epicenter of songwriting and music publishing in
the late 19th century. Tin Pan Alley, located on 28th street between Broadway
and 6th Avenue in Manhattan, was the alley, or street, that housed most of the
influential American songwriters and music publishers of that time, until
1920s. Before this time, the important publishers were divided over the entire
country. Besides New York, they were based in Boston, Philadelphia,
Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago, amongst others. Tin Pan Alley was a phenomenon
throughout the 1930s and 1940s, but it could not be called the epicenter of
publishing anymore, since a lot of money had moved to Hollywood.
There were many music publishers around this time, publishing not only
sheet music (their main income stream), but also instruction books and school
materials. It was a tough business with a lot of competition; there was no
monopoly on success whatsoever.
Pianos became very popular after the American Civil War and
subsequently; the demand of sheet music for piano became higher and higher
every year. In the late 19th century, more than half a million young people
were studying piano and they craved for new music like never before. New
music publishing companies popped up like mushrooms. Most of these
emerged in New York City. The reason was because NYC already was becoming
a very important center for the performing arts. Musical talent was migrating
to the Big Apple because they knew it was where all the new popular musicpublishing companies were establishing themselves. This attracted even more
companies- New York City was the place where the newest trends in musical
style could be observed the first. It was the place to be for the publishers. In
this time, a remarkable amount of new music was written, following and
creating new trends every year. The music industry flourished like never
before.
Very successful publishers of that time were Harms, Inc. (1881) and
Witmark & Sons. There were many publishers coming to New York City and
leaving again after having failed. However, some were there to stay: Irving
Berlin, Inc., Remick Music Co., Berstein & Co., and E. B. Marks Music
Company, amongst others. The reason they were successful and the others
not, was partly luck, but also because they concentrated almost exclusively on
popular music and had a big budget for marketing and marketing research.
Music publishers in that time earned a lot of money off of the composers
and lyricists. They were usually hired under contract, which meant that all
rights were transferred to the publisher. Market research determined which
songs were selling best and composers were instructed to write in that style.
Songs were tested on an audience and on performers and were trashed as soon
as it was deemed to fail.
Song pluggers marketed the published songs. These pluggers worked in
music shops and played the new releases. Performers were also payed to sing
and/or play the songs in their shows to expose the music to a wider audience.
By the end of the 19th century, the most important publishers had moved
to offices on 28th street between 5th Avenue and Broadway. This street
became known as "Tin Pan Alley." It is not entirely clear where exactly this
name originates; several stories go around about it. The most plausible one
tells of a reporter names Monroe Rosenfeld who worked for the New York
Herald. He wrote about the sheet music publishing business and ones tried to
explain what you heard walking down 28th street. Rosenfeld characterized the
sounds of many pianos coming out of the open windows of publisher’s offices as
a bunch of tin pans clanging. After having describing this way in several
newspaper articles at the end of the 19th century, the street became widely
known as Tin Pan Alley.
At the same time vaudeville became immensely popular and at the center
these shows were based on music – new music. Publishing companies jumped
on this opportunity because it was a perfect way to make songs popular and
sell a lot of sheet music. It is remarkable how the industry flourished in these
years. Enormous amounts of new songs were published and became very
popular. Sales were, even for today’s standards, very high, with some songs
selling more than 4 million copies of sheet music. Some of these songs are still
sung today.
Although we consider many of the songs composed from the time of Tin
Pan Alley works of art in the present day, in the time it was made it was for
purely commercial purposes. It was all about creating and selling music that
people wanted to buy. What sold in that time was music happy music; music
that allowed people to escape from their life’s troubles, even if just for a couple
of hours.
The impact of the Tin Pan Alley publishers has been immense. Music today
would have been very different without Bernstein & Co., Irving Berlin Inc. and
the likes. Despite their purely commercial motives, they have been key
contributors to some of the most beautiful music we still enjoy today.
THE BIG FIVE
Although the term ‘The Big Five’ is not very commonly used, it seems to be a
term familiar to jazz vocalists and musical theater vocalists alike. It refers to
the big five of modern American music, all connected to Tin Pan Alley: Jerome
Kern, Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, and Richard Rodgers.
Altogether, they wrote more than 4500 songs (published ones, that is). These
were the composers of these tunes; they wrote the melodies and sometimes
also the harmonies. Except for Irving Berlin and Cole Porter, they didn’t write
lyrics to the songs themselves, but collaborated with lyricists. A brief
biography of the Big Five in order of birth year:
Jerome Kern (1885-1945)
Born on January 27th, 1885 in New York City, Jerome Kern was the first born
of the Big Five. His father was a Jewish German immigrant, his mother an
American Jew with parents from Bohemia. Jerome Kern grew up in New York
City and as a child was taught to play the piano by his mother. When only 16,
he already wrote songs for the musical of his high school. He attended the New
York College of Music and studied piano and harmony before going to
Heidelberg (Germany) to receive private tutoring in composition. After a
couple of years, he returned to New York City and began to contribute songs to
Broadway shows, usually imported from London. He also worked as a songplugger for Tin Pan Alley music publishers.
His first complete score was for the musical The Red Petticoat (1912).
After 1915 he composed many complete Broadway scores and was very
productive. In 1925 he met Oscar Hammerstein II; they remained close friends
for the rest of their lives. Together they wrote the first truly modern American
musical with an integrated story, produced by Florenz Ziegfeld: Show Boat
(1927). This musical is still being produced up to this day.
Jerome Kern went on composing for both theater and screen, dividing his
time between Broadway and Hollywood. His movie hits included the film hit
Swing Time. His death in 1945 was sudden. He suffered a cerebral hemorrhage
in New York City. Six days after, with Oscar Hammerstein II and his wife at his
bedside, he passed. Kern was one of the founding members of American
Society of Composers (ASCAP).
Irving Berlin (1888-1989)
Having lived over a 100 years, Isreal Ballin (his birth name) has had a long life
that started out in the poorest neighborhoods in NYC and ended in the richest
ones. He was an immigrant of Belarusian-Jewish origin and moved to the
United States with his whole family in 1893. His father died only a few years
later, and Berlin dropped out of school to help his family that was barely
scraping by. When he was 14, he realized he couldn’t contribute enough to the
family and decided to not burden them anymore and moved out. In the
following years he discovered that singing was his best option to earn enough
money to get by. He went to saloons and sang the few songs he had heard on
the street. He began plugging songs and later worked as a singing waiter at the
Pelham Café. It was that place where he composed his first piece “Marie From
Sunny Italy” together with resident pianist Mike Nicholson. That was also the
moment that Israel Ballin started referring himself as Irving Berlin (a very
conscience choice).
Berlin’s first hit song (and it was enormous) was “Alexander’s Ragtime
Band” in 1911. It sparked an international dance craze and made Irving Berlin
famous to the wide public very quickly.
During his life (of which he composed ‘only’ 60 years), he wrote an
estimated 1,500 songs. He was known to write songs that reached the heart of
the average American, songs that were simple and uncomplicated. Jerome
Kern: "Irving Berlin has no place in American music—he is American music."
He played a major role in both World War I and World War II by producing
shows performed by the army – most notable songs from those times are “Oh,
How I Hate To Get Up In the Morning”, and, of course, “God Bless America”
So great many great songs have been written by Irving Berlin that picking
out a few wouldn’t give it enough justice. However, notable because it’s one of
the most recorded songs in history, is “White Christmas”, for which Berlin
received an Academy Award (Best music in an Original Song).
In the last 25 years of his life he didn’t write a song anymore. He died on
September 22, 1989 of natural causes.
Cole Porter (1891-1964)
Of the five, Cole Porter is one of the two songwriters (the other is Irving
Berlin) that both wrote the tune and the lyrics for a song, whereas the others
collaborated with lyricists.
How similar Berlin and Porter are in this way, how different are they in
their background. Cole Porter was born to a wealthy family in 1891. His
grandfather was the successful Indiana entrepreneur J.O. Cole. Despite the
plans his family had for him (to become a lawyer), Porter went a different way.
From an early age he showed great musical talent. He did enter Yale (as he
was supposed to), but mostly composed songs for its Glee Club (he composed
300 songs while at Yale). He even went on to Harvard Law School but
switched to Harvard’s music department very soon because his heart lay in
song writing. There he studied harmony and counterpoint.
His first Broadway show, See America First (1916), only ran for two weeks
and subsequent shows were also failures. Porter then moved to Paris and
lived there for an extended period of time. Although bi-sexual (and some argue
homosexual), he married in 1919.
It was when Cole Porter met Irving Berlin’s brother-in-law E. Ray Goetz,
when Cole Porter began to have success. The first show they wrote together,
Paris (1928), became a hit when it opened on Broadway and it was his first. It
also marked the first hit song entitled (Let’s Do It) Let’s Fall in Love. At the
same time a show called La Revue opened in Paris and this was also a hit,
elevating Cole Porter to ‘the big leagues’. In the decade that followed Cole
Porter’s shows were often big hits: The Gay Divorce (1932), Anything Goes
(1934), Jubilee (1935), Red, Hot and Blue (1936), and Born to Dance (1936,
film).
In 1937, Cole Porter had a devastating riding accident that crushed his
legs, something that followed him for the rest of his life. Despite many
operations, he was in constant pain for the rest of his life. However, as soon as
he could, he resumed working because it kept his mind off the pain. His
greatest successes on Broadway came after the accident, including Du Barry
Was a Lady (1939), Panama Hattie (1940), Something To Shout About
(1942), Kiss Me, Kate (1948), and Can-Can (1953). By then he divided his
time between Broadway and Hollywood, since he wrote for both.
Porter’s wife died in 1954 and he wrote less after that. In 1958 his right leg
had to be amputated. After this Porter never wrote another song. He lived a
secluded life and died from kidney failure in 1964.
George Gershwin (1898-1937)
George Gershwin was a composer of both popular and classical music. Born in
1898, he was the son of Jewish immigrants from Russia. He didn’t care for
music much until he was 10 years old and started taking piano lessons.
Gershwin dropped out of school when he was 15 and found his first job in
Tin Pan Alley. As a song plugger he worked for the music publisher Remick &
Co. His very first own song that got published, was "When You Want 'Em, You
Can't Get 'Em, When You've Got 'Em, You Don't Want 'Em" in 1916. His first
national hit followed in 1919: famous Broadway star Al Johnson sang
“Swanee” in one of his shows. At the same time Gershwin also arranged and
recorded numerous piano rolls for several companies, and accompanied
vocalists on the piano in vaudeville shows.
Gershwin collaborated with different lyricists, but was most successful with
his brother Ira Gershwin. Their first hit show was Lady, Be Good (1924), most
known for the songs “Fascinating Rhythmn” and “Oh, Lady Be Good!”. The
shows Oh, Kay! (1926), Funny Face (1927), Strike Up the Band (1927), Show
Girl (1929), Girl Crazy (1930), and Of Thee I Sing (1931) followed, the latter
winning a Pulitzer Prize for Drama- the first time a musical comedy won that
prize.
In these years Gershwin gained notable recognition for works composed for
the concert hall. Most notable are Rhapsody in Blue (1924), for piano and
orchestra, the Piano Concerto in F (1925), and An American in Paris (1928).
One famous work could never really be categorized: Porgy and Bess (1935). It
hovers somewhere in between an opera and a musical. Gershwin himself
called it a “folk opera”. Probably the most known song from this folk opera is
the song “Summertime”, still sung today by both classical singers and singers
in the popular genre. Although now considered a masterpiece and
groundbreaking for the time, Porgy and Bess was a commercial failure.
In 1937 Gershwin began to have headaches. His doctors dismissed these
ongoing headaches as symptoms of stress and even diagnosed him with
hysteria later on. George Gershwin in fact had a brain tumor and as soon as
that became evident, it was already too late. Shocking the country, he died on
July 11, 1937 at the age of 38.
Richard Rodgers (1902-1979)
Like Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers was born to a wealthy family. He was
mesmerized by musical theater at a very young age already and wrote his first
songs in his early teens at summer camps. He met Lorenz Hart when he was
only 16. They both went to Columbia University and they began a collaboration
that lasted for almost 25 years.
Although most of the productions Rodgers & Hart premiered failed, there were
several songs that became popular on their own. It was in 1925 when they
broke through with The Garrick Gaieties (1925), a benefit show meant to only
run for one night. “Manhatten” was the hit song in this show and because of its
success the show was re-opened later. In the following years the duo produced
an impressive amount of shows (ten from 1925-1929) both on Broadway and
in London, including hits like Peggy-Ann (1926) and Present Arms (1928).
For most of the 1930s, Rodgers & Hart composed for Hollywood, but in the
late 30s and early 40s, they made their comeback to Broadway and produced
hit after hit, most notable being Babes in Arms (1937), The Boys From
Syracuse (1938), Pal Joey (1940-41), and their last complete show By Jupiter
(1942). It had become harder and harder to work with Hart due to his
alcoholism and subsequent unreliability. This is when Rodgers started to
collaborate with Oscar Hammerstein II, who he studied with at Columbia
University with whom he had actually friends with since he him when he was
13 years old- even prior to working with Hart, he already had written songs
with Hammerstein II.
If the duo Rodgers & Hart didn’t seem like a golden one yet – unfortunately
Hart’s health condition declined very fast and he died in 1943 – the
partnership of Rodgers with Hammerstein II has turned out to be the most
successful in in musical theater. Their first show, Oklahoma (1943),
revolutionized the art form. All but one of the projects that followed were big
successes too: State Fair (1945, film), Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949),
and The King and I (1951).
The duo spent most of the 50s in Hollywood working on adaptations of their
shows for the silver screen. At the end of the decade they came back to
Broadway and produced a few more shows. The last show they worked on
together was as revolutionary as their first. The Sound Of Music (1959) is
perhaps the most well known musical that has been produced and was
massively successful- it still is. Unfortunately, Oscar Hammerstein II didn’t get
to enjoy much of its success, dying in 1960.
After Hammerstein’s death, Rodgers worked alone for a while. He wrote
both music and lyrics for the musical No Strings (1962) and some additional
songs for a re-make of State Fair and the film adaption of The Sound of Music.
Later he collaborated with a few others: Stephen Sondheim on Do I Hear A
Waltz? (1965), Martin Charnin on Two by Two (1970) and I Remember Mama
(1979)– both failures, and Sheldon Harnick on Rex (1976). During the 1970s
Rodgers struggled with his health but he always kept working. He died in 1979
at the age of 77.
SONGWRITING IN ‘TIN PAN ALLEY STYLE’
I have spent most of my time reading about the Big Five American composers
and by learning about their lives, learned a lot about their music too. All of
them have their own ways of writing songs but surely there are similarities.
Irving Berlin had ones penned down ‘The Nine Rules of Songwriting” which to
me is both a funny and interesting list.
Nine rules of songwriting:
1. The melody should be within the range of most singers
2. The title should be attention-getting and, in addition, repeated within
the body of the song
3. The song should be “sexless”: able to be sung by men and women
4. The song requires “heart interest”
5. It should be original in idea, words, and music
6. Stick to nature. Not nature in a visionary abstract way, but nature as
demonstrated in homely, concrete, everyday manifestations.
7. Sprinkle the lyrics with “open vowels” so that it will be euphonious.
8. Make the song as simple as possible
9. “The song writer must look upon his work as a business, that is, to make
a success of it, he must work and work, and then WORK
In addition to these rules, there were some common rules that every
songwriter used; something Irving Berlin didn’t even have to mention. These
are the rules of form.
The thirty-two-bar form
The commonly used and accepted form in Tin Pan Alley was the thirty-two-bar
form, often referred to as the AABA form. Until the verse-chorus form started
dominating the music scene, this was the most used form. In the thirty-two-bar
form, each chorus is made up of four 8-bar sections. Usually, the first 8 bars
(A) introduce a principle melody in the home key of the tune. These 8 bars are
repeated, often entirely similar, but if lyrics are present, they are different.
Then comes the middle 8, the B-part, which from the beginning can be in a
different key (having modulated in the preceding bar) or modulated within the
section. The melody in this section is usually significantly different. At the end
it remains harmonically open and doesn’t resolve to a new tonic but rather
sets itself up to modulate back to the original key of the tune, often arriving at
the dominant of the home key at the very end. The last section (referred to as
the ‘last 8) repeats the beginning 8 bars and ends on the tonic of the home key.
Sometimes this section is extended with a coda.
With this in mind and the nine rules of songwriting in mind, I tried composing
one of my first “Tin Pan Alley” tunes; it is also one of my best attempts:
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The experience of writing this tune was immediately very different than
the ones I had before whilst writing songs. I almost always wrote music first
and then lyrics. With this song I did it the other way around – Irving Berlin
actually came up with a melody first most of the time – and this gave me a
different perspective. Now I had to find the mood of the music that fit with the
lyrics instead of the other way around. In the end this means you have more
freedom. Usually when you write music first, you do not have a story in mind.
Ones you finish the music, you are stuck with a mood in which a story should
fit. Now, some argue that writing songs is like telling stories. In that respect, if
you have to fit a story to something else that already exists, you limit yourself
in telling that story. However, if you know what the story is from the
beginning by writing the lyrics first, you will write more creatively because the
story and music are better connected. In the end it is not that black-and-white,
I think. The music you write can inspire you to write stories/lyrics that you
would never write if beginning with them from scratch and vice-versa. This
could and probably is one of the reasons why songs are often written by a
songwriter/lyricist duo: They can inspire each other and write things they
would have never written if not for the work of their counterpart.
I cannot exactly remember where I got the idea from for this tune. I do
remember someone saying the words “a melody is a beautiful thing”
somewhere and it was something I wrote down immediately and knew I was
going to use for a song. I also knew right away that would be the title.
From what I’ve gathered, for Big Five songwriters this was usually how they
got an idea for a song too. They heard someone say something that somehow
sounded good to their ears and then used it in a song. Usually, this would be
the title of the song too. It is interesting how the songs of that era have titles
that are very memorable and capture the essence of the song, much more than
song titles do today.
Rule 2 of Irving Berlin’s 9 rules says that the title of a song should be
“attention-getting and, in addition, repeated within the body of the song”,
something that has become characteristic for these type of songs. A lot of the
songs actually begin with the title of the song (“Love for Sale”, “In A
Sentimantal Mood”, “Lullaby of Birdland”) and audiences nowadays even
confuse the first words of a song with the actual title, because they are not the
same (“My One and Only Love”, “The Christmas Song”). Titles are important,
and I guess Irving Berlin thought so too, and wanted to make sure people knew
the title of the song after having heard it. That’s why he thought it should be
repeated within the body of the song. Of course, it is also a way for people to
know which song to ask for if they wanted to buy the sheet music…
When writing “A Melody Is A Beautiful Thing” I knew I wanted to end the
song with the title, because it sounded to me like a shout-out. In the end I
repeated it another time in the second A section just before the middle 8.
Now that I had a title and knew where I wanted to place it in the body of
the song, I could start constructing the lyrics1. It was obvious that I had to
write about the fact that a melody is a beautiful thing. I quickly came up with
the idea of using a melody as a metaphor for a woman, or rather a woman as a
metaphor for a melody. However, I didn’t want to give this away at the
beginning of the song. All of this gave me enough ammunition to come up with
words – I had to try and find words that could describe both a melody and a
woman.
I had already scribbled down ‘oh, how I want to sing!’ pretty soon after
having come up with the title and thought it was a good idea to use it in the 4th
line of the first A section. I would then rhyme that with the 4th line of the
second A section repeating the title before going to the middle 8. This left me
While reading on, review the attached Keynote presentation that visualizes the
process of writing the lyrics for the song “A Melody Is A Beautiful Thing”.
1
with the first three lines for both the first and second A section.
It became apparent to me that the best rhyming scheme for both sections
would be AAAC / BBBC, providing balance (that is what the lyrics needed to
convey), but not feeling repetitious. I decided to use the first A section for
descriptive purposes, to give the listener imagery right from the start. The
second section would then slowly reveal that the song is not the typical love
song about a woman.
I don’t shy away from using a thesaurus and a rhyming dictionary;
something the big five songwriters and their collaborations didn’t either, I
learned. Ones I have a line with a word at the end that needs to rhyme with
one or even several words later, I look at my options and think if they can
connect to the theme. A rhyming dictionary is a tool that speeds up that
process. A thesaurus comes in handy when you’d like to use a certain word
that doesn’t fit the prosody of a line. A synonym with fewer or more syllables
might be an outcome in that case.
After having constructed the first two A sections, I moved on to the B
section, the middle 8. This section doesn’t only contrast melodically, but also
in terms of lyrics. It should, if only for a brief moment, question what has been
said in the first half of the song – it might even confuse the listener for a brief
moment.
Here is when I started thinking about the music too, and had the idea to
use it to my advantage. I planned on writing a melody and harmony in this
section that would go seriously somewhere else before snapping back to the
home key, as if it got “lost” along the way. The 1st line became a kind of
modulated version of the first line of the A sections. Then the 2nd line would
actually be a repetition harmonically, but not melodically, ending on a major
7th, not particularly stable and announcing a detour. From there on it briefly
modulates again to the key of B major, a half step down from the original key,
but abruptly finds its way back to the home key. This is a part where I almost
literally translated the metaphor of the text into music.
This left the last A section. I knew the last line, the 4th, was going to be the
title. I soon realized I also had to repeat the kind of ‘tag’ “oh, how I want to
sing!” just before the last line. This left me with the 1st and 2nd line. What was
left to say? A conclusion, and it had to top everything that came before. I knew
it was turning out to be homage to ‘the melody’ and decided to go all the way
and call it “the queen of song” to which “nothing can compare”.
Writing the melody and harmony
Although I won’t go deep into how I approached writing the melody and
harmony for these lyrics and others, which was not the focus of my studies
this year, I can give some general comments.
Apart from the lyrics, the musical style of Tin Pan Alley is also pretty
particular. Harmony always seems to serve the melody and the melody always
serves the lyrics. That’s why the best order to do these things seems to be
writing the lyrics first, then writing the melody, and then the harmony. This is
also what I have attempted this year.
Actually, lyrics have kind of melody in them naturally already. You just have
to speak them out loud and you start noticing where the tone ascends and
descends. If you speak them out loud enough times, a melody will start shaping
itself piece by piece.
This works the same for rhythm in some ways, although there is a little more
freedom whereas you can emphasize words by giving them ‘time’ to be sung.
But then again, this is also what we do in speech if we want to emphasize
something. A high note does not emphasize, rhythm does.
More attempts
Over the course of my year at Berklee, I have written numerous lyrics
attempting to somehow recreate the style of Tin Pan Alley but not copy it. On
the next few pages you will find some of those attempts and their brief lyrical
analysis. Some are in the thirty-two-bar form, others are in forms that were
less commonly used, but nonetheless used – some becoming very successful.
The author of these is J.P. Bell, pseudonym for Jesse Boere.
DISCUSSION
This has been a year of a lot of composing and writing for me, despite all
the coursework I had to in a lot of other areas at Berklee. In my
proposal for my Culminating Experience I explained I wanted to do just
that. I also explained I wanted to learn about the history of Tin Pan
Alley, about the lives of the Big Five American songwriters and analyze
the tunes they have written. The latter proved to be something I was not
able to dig into, due to the time restraint. However, because of my
history in jazz singing and my familiarity with American Songbook
repertoire, I could still build on some solid knowledge.
I would recommend any jazz musician to at least read about some of
the most famous American songwriters. This is what I spend the most
time on, and just by knowing about their lives, their motives, their work
methods, and their believes, I feel I am a better performer and composer
already.
I will most certainly carry on researching this era and will start
using a more systematic approach, probably chronologically. Beginning
at the beginning, I plan on making a time line from around 1885
outlining the news and successful shows and/or songs one by one and
analyzing the songs. When finishing that timeline, I hope to have
discovered some connections, some clear evolution and maybe even
traits that every successful song has.
The following is a list of songs that should certainly be on that
timeline. I made this to illustrate what I think are very important songs
in the American songwriting history. Noted must be that this is a
shortened list. A proper list for the purposes of the timeline mentioned
before would be much longer.
Irving Berlin
Alexander's Ragtime Band (1911), I Love A Piano (1915), Oh! How I Hate to
Get Up in the Morning (1918), A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody (1919), What'll I
Do (1924), Blue Skies (1926), The Song is Ended (but the Melody Lingers
On) (1927), Russian Lullabye (1927), Puttin' on the Ritz (1930), Soft Lights
and
Sweet
Music (1932),
How
Deep
Is
the
Ocean? (1932),
Supper
Time (1933), Cheek to Cheek (1935), God Bless America (1938), Change
Partners (1938), White Christmas (1942), There's No Business Like Show
Business (1946), You Can't Get a Man with a Gun (1946).
Cole Porter
Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love) (1928), What Is This Thing Called Love? (1929),
Love For Sale (1930), Night and Day (1932), You're The Top (1934), I Get a
Kick out of You (1934), Just One of Those Things (1935), I've Got You Under
My Skin (1936), (You'd Be) So Easy to Love (1936), In the Still of the
Night (1937), My Heart Belongs to Daddy (1938), Well, Did You Evah! (1939),
I Hate You, Darling (1941), You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To (1942), Look
What I Found (1946), From This Moment On (1950), I Love Paris (1953),
True Love (1956).
More on next page
Richard Rodgers (with Lorenz Hart)
Manhatten (1925), Here in My Arms (1925), Blue Room (1926), My Heart
Stood
Still (1927),
You
Took
Advantage
of
Me (1928),
Isn't
It
Romantic? (1932), The Most Beautiful Girl in the World (1935), My
Romance (1935), Little Girl Blue (1935), There's a Small hotel (1936), Where
or When (1937), My Funny Valentine (1937), The Lady Is a Tramp (1937),
Falling in Love with Love (1937), I'll Tell the Man in the Street (1938),
Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered (1940), Wait till You See Her (1942).
Richard Rodgers (with Oscar Hammerstein II)
Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin' (1943), People Will Say We're in Love (1943), If I
Loved You (1945), You'll Never Walk Alone (1945), It Might as Well Be
Spring (1945),
Some
Enchanted
Evening (1949),
Getting
to
Know
You (1951), My Favorite Things (1959), The Sound of Music (1959), Sixteen
Going on Seventeen (1959), Climb Ev'ry Mountain (1959), Do-Re-Mi (1959),
Edelweiss (1959)
George Gershwin (with Ira Gershwin)
Fascinating Rhythm (1924), Oh, Lady Be Good! (1924), Someone to Watch
Over Me (1926), My One and Only (1927), How Long Has This Been Going
On? (1928), I've Got a Crush on You (1928), Embraceable You (1928), But
Not for Me (1930), I Got Rhythm (1930), I Loves You, Porgy (1935),
Summertime (1935), It Ain't Necessarily So (1935), Let's Call the Whole Thing
Off (1937), Nice Work If You Can Get It (1937), They Can't Take That Away
from Me (1937), A Foggy Day (1937), Love Is Here to Stay (1938).
More on next page
Jerome Kern
Various collaborators
They Didn't Believe Me (1914)
Herbert Reynolds
Look for the Silver Lining (1919)
B.G. DeSylva
Who? (1925)
Otto Harbach & Hammerstein II
Ol' Man River (1927)
Oscar Hammerstein II
Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man (1927)
Oscar Hammerstein II
The Song is You (1932)
Oscar Hammerstein II
I've Told Ev'ry Little Star (1932)
Oscar Hammerstein II
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (1933)
Otto Harbach
Yesterdays (1933)
Otto Harbach
Let's Begin (1933)
Otto Harbach
A Fine Romance (1936)
Dorothy Fields
Pick Yourself Up (1936)
Dorothy Fields
All the Things You Are (1939)
Oscar Hammerstein II
The Way You Look Tonight (1936)
Dorothy Fields
I'm Old Fashioned (1942)
Johnny Mercer
Long Ago (and Far Away) (1944)
Ira Gershwin
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Banfield, Stephen (2006). Jerome Kern (Yale Broadway Masters Series)
Bergreen, Laurence (1996). As Thousands Cheer: The Life Of Irving
Blok, Geoffrey Holden (2002). The Richard Rodgers Reader
Bordman, Gerald (1990). Jerome Kern: His Life and Music
Fordin, Hugh (1995). Getting To Know Him: A Biography Of Oscar Hammerstein II
Forte, Allen (1995). The American Popular Ballad of the Golden Era, 1924-1950
Goldberg, Isaac (1930). Tin Pan Alley: A Chronicle of American Popular Music
McBrien, William (2000). Cole Porter
Pollack, Howard (2007). George Gershwin: His Life and Work Hardcover
Rodgers, Richard (2002). Musical Stages: An Autobiography
Schwartz, Charles (1976). Cole Porter: A Biography
Sears, Benjamin (2012). The Irving Berlin Reader
Wilder, Alec (1973). American Popular Song: The Great Innovators, 1900–1950
Wilk, Max (1973). They’re Playing Our Song: Conversations with America’s Classic
Songwriters
Wyatt, Robert & Johnson, John Andrew (2004). The George Gershwin Reader
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