CHAPTER TWO: “AFTER THE BALL”: MUSIC OF THE NINETEENTH AND EARLY
TWENTIETH CENTURIES
Key Terms and Definitions
banjo:
Four- or five-stringed instrument with a membrane
stretched over a wooden or metal hoop that is strummed
or plucked. It was developed by slave musicians from
African prototypes during the early colonial period. The
banjo was used in the music of the minstrel show, early
jazz, old time country music, and bluegrass.
blackface:
A style of stage makeup in which performers would
apply burnt cork to darken their face. It is associated with
the practice of minstrelsy.
Bones:
Nickname for the character in a minstrel show who
performed the bones and was positioned at the end of a
line of performers (as was Tambo).
cakewalk:
Africanized version of the European quadrille (a kind of
square dance). The cakewalk was developed by slaves as
a parody of the “refined” dance movements of the white
slave owners.
chorus:
Repeating section within a song, consisting of a fixed
melody and lyrics repeated exactly, typically following
one or more verses.
contradance (or country
Dance tradition in which teams of dancers form
dance):
geometric figures such as lines, circles, or squares.
CHAPTER TWO: “AFTER THE BALL”: MUSIC OF THE NINETEENTH AND EARLY
TWENTIETH CENTURIES
Interlocutor:
One of the standard performers in the minstrel show; the
lead performer who sang and provided patter between
acts.
minstrel show:
The first form of musical and theatrical entertainment to
be regarded by European audiences as distinctively
American in character. Featured mainly white performers
who artificially blackened their skin and carried out
parodies of African American music, dance, dress, and
dialect.
nickelodeon:
Machine that played the latest hits for a nickel. In the
1890s, the first nickelodeons were set up in public places.
These machines later became known as “jukeboxes.”
parlor song:
Popular form of American music in the nineteenth
century. Parlor songs had simple piano accompaniment
and were meant to be performed at home in the parlor.
phonograph (or
Early device for playing recorded sounds etched on a
gramophone):
disc.
plantation song:
Type of song descended from the minstrel song tradition;
combined elements of the parlor song and minstrel song.
ragtime:
The word derives from the African American term “to
rag,” meaning to enliven a piece of music by shifting
melodic accents onto the offbeats (a technique known as
syncopation). Ragtime music emerged in the 1880s, its
CHAPTER TWO: “AFTER THE BALL”: MUSIC OF THE NINETEENTH AND EARLY
TWENTIETH CENTURIES
popularity peaking in the decade after the turn of the
century. Scott Joplin is the recognized master of this
genre.
refrain:
In the verse-refrain song, the refrain is the “main part” of
the song, usually constructed in AABA or ABAC form.
sheet music:
The principal medium for disseminating popular sings
until the advent of recording in the 1890s.
song plugger:
Employee of Tin Pan Alley music publishing firms who
promoted their popular songs.
strophe :
Poetic stanza; often, a pair of stanzas in alternation that
constitute the structure of a poem and could become the
verse and the chorus of a strophic song.
syncopation:
Rhythmic patterns in which the stresses occur on what
are ordinarily weak beats, thus displacing or suspending
the sense of metric regularity.
Tambo:
Character in a minstrel show who performed the
tambourine and was positioned at the end of a line of
performers (as was Bones).
Tin Pan Alley:
Nickname for a stretch of 28th Street in New York City
where music publishers had their offices—a dense hive
of small rooms with pianos where composers and “song
pluggers” produced and promoted popular songs. The
term, which evoked the clanging sound of many pianos
CHAPTER TWO: “AFTER THE BALL”: MUSIC OF THE NINETEENTH AND EARLY
TWENTIETH CENTURIES
simultaneously playing songs in a variety of keys and
tempos, also refers to the style of popular song created by
these publishers in the first half of the twentieth century.
vaudeville:
Style of show that included a variety of acts; it became
the dominant form of popular entertainment in late
nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America.
waltz:
Type of dance with a triple-meter accompaniment,
circular movements, and smooth, graceful lines.