Known as the center of the sheet music publishing industry, the district of Tin Pan Alley in New York became synonymous with popular music in the early 20th century. It fostered the talents of some of America’s greatest songwriters, including George Gershwin and Irving Berlin, popularized music in a wide range of styles from dance tunes to Broadway musicals, and familiarized American audiences with African-American music in its adoption of ragtime rhythms and blues themes. The first successful Tin Pan Alley tunes came from the pen of Charles K. Harris, whose song, “After the Ball,” became a success in 1892, when it sold over 75,000 copies. Early Tin Pan Alley songwriters were seen as seedy, dissolute, and disreputable Bohemians. They were constantly on the road, visiting 60 joints a week to plug song music. While one music publisher remarked, “the best songs came from the gutter in those days,” the pattern quickly changed. Increasingly after 1900, popular song music came from different sources, including musical composers like George M. Cohan, professionally trained musicians like Gershwin, and popular songwriter Irving Berlin. Music publishers enjoyed enormous success in popular terms, having created new markets by plugging songs both in popular venues like saloons and music halls and on the vaudeville and touring show circuits. Stage performers boosted sheet music sales, and new mediums, such as wax cylinder and, later, phonograph recordings, also increased the demand.
Between 1892 and 1905, Tin Pan Alley music publishers enjoyed great success with over 16 best-selling songs, including still familiar standards like “In the Good Old Summertime” (1902), “Sweet Adeline” (1903), and “In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree” (1905). Using a brief piano opening, the songs launched into romantic narratives, many to a waltz rhythm and a repeating chorus. Other anthems, such as novelty songs like “Under the Bamboo Tree” (1902), folk songs, and new ragtime music reached popular audiences through the sheet music of Tin Pan Alley. While African-American songwriters received little attention from the music publishers, ragtime music influenced songwriters such as Berlin, who softened its rhythms in the popular “Alexander’s Ragtime Band,” published in 1911. With the advent of vaudeville and Broadway musical comedies in the work of Cohan and Gershwin, sheet music linked New York, the epicenter of popular culture, to the rest of the nation. The coming of radio, however, eroded the market for sheet music, as did the continued expansion of the music recording industry and the new popularity of sound motion pictures. Increased labor costs and a paper shortage further undermined the cheap prices and large market that had made the rise of Tin Pan Alley possible. By the 1920s, the market for sheet music and the district itself was in decline.
See also entertainment, popular.
Further reading: David Ewen, The Life and Death of Tin Pan Alley: The Golden Age of American Popular Music (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1964); Nicholas Tawa, The Way to Tin Pan Alley: American Popular Song, 1866-1910 (New York: Schirmer, 1990).
World History
