Show Vaudeville Songs Chicago Record The development of the vaudeville song from the time wften vaudeville performances were known as variety shows is onoof the curiosities of the stag I has come rapidly and naturally natu-rally with the development of vaudeville vaude-ville itself The men who publish the sheet music of course have made a special study of the song as a matter of business So have the performers who are the first to know whether a song is going to take with the public pub-lic Most of the thousands of persons who go to vaudeville shows every week have enjoyed the song part of the pro gramme without stopping t think much about it Up to the present nobody no-body outside of the profession seems to have made a scientific or critical study of this interesting factor in pubic pub-ic amusement Yet the vaudeville song has be ome a big element in amusing the modern theatregoer I occupies the first place among the stable attractions of the I = r varietyshow I becomes more quickly quick-ly toipwrf to the public that any other form ont s c It Is whistled 6n the streets parodied fdf pdlitical purposes and played by themilitary bands To a Certain extent it has Usurped the place of the sentimental song and the old fashioned ballad I hi been accepted and approved by the people for the simple sim-ple and sufficient reason that they like It It has developed such widespread popularity that in me instances not to know at least the air of the chorus I of a vaudeville song is to argue yourself your-self unknown But just why it is so popular what is these iret of Its attraction at-traction and what it is really worth as r music nobpJy has taken the trouble to find out G S 0 0 I The publishers insist that the way in Which a song is pushed is more than t half the battle that its success or failure depends upon the number of persons who can be made to hear i ort or-t least hear of it But in the long run writers and publishers are alike dependent upon the publics tastes in the matter and all the pushing that has ever len done cannot explain why not only a single song but a whole class of songs have a distinct family resemblance should have come into a flourishing popularity The socalled coon song for Instance in-stance which appeared in its present shape n little more than five years ago has had a readily traceable history America has no coster class to be taken off in song in the manner of Albert Chevalier The nearest approach to it is the Bowery type and the Bowery song duly appeared I has still a moderate mod-erate popularity and My Poll Is a Bowery Gcll and The Bowry raged for awhile But the Bowery type one of the very few which lends Itself readily ily and safely to caricature was either not widely enough known or had too little variety to hold attention long Gradually the coon song crowded it out of place and it is the coon song which still somehow hangs on to the public favor There are reasons for thIs The coon song has character I is not true character of course and the theory that the inspiration of the coon song is drawn from the colored race is a transparent fiction The subject O the song is the same imaginary person who is seen in the funny weeklies who speaks a makebelieve dialect and hag no exigence in actual life The type is individual however and so i strikes the imagination and holds interest The i song writers turned to i unconsciously as the one affording the most accessible material for song writing of the kind which would make a hit What other cleverness there is in these songs lies in the successful use of catchline retrains re-trains and a suggestion of groteque humor in the lines > < Apart from the element ofcharacter however the coon songs have come into popularity no doubt largely on the strength of the tune themselves and these too have a flavor of their own though it is totally unlike the characteristic charac-teristic flavor of the true negro melody Most of the songs have romping cho I rues which are made attractive by reason of their swing and rhythm Probably without stopping to consider I the means they used the writers of the tunes most popular today have resorted t an expert use of accent and rhythm One secret of the coon song is that it has caught the rhythm of the shuffling I shuf-fling clattering halting dance step which Is the especial property of the vaudeville dance This is the reason also for the popularity of rag time stOp time and all other ingenious nhythmlcal contrivances of the vaudeville vaude-ville music maker To a theorist in music of course this is chiefly a trick of It consists largely syncopation very largey in keeping in the auditors mind the true rhythm of the music at the same time relaying or advancing an accent so that it falls on a off beat This peculiarity or else tho steady use of a strong accent such as Sousa employs in his marches combined with a swinging swing-ing melody have givpn the coon sng music much ofits character as music Trake a collection such songs as All Cooria Look Ali to Me A HighBorn I High-Born Lady The Wedding of the Chi nee and the Coon A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight and The Warmest Baby in the Bunch and in most cases you will find that the swinging romping romp-ing rhythm and the smashing accents of the chorus are the things which hold the average ear 00 < SIt > S-It Is with no little interest that pe ple who have time enough to watch this curious phase of a peops amusements amuse-ments will wait to see what takes the place of the coon song Several attempts at-tempts have been made to get away from it and in some cases as in On the Banks of the Wabash and She Was Bred in Old Kentucky tho composers I com-posers have Made signal successes in an entirely different line But it seems to have been shown both here and in Englalnd that thC development of music hal performances follows some logical law and one of these laws is that people like a note of characterization characteriza-tion in popular stage songs The coon song has been distinct and individual as its subject Its swinging tunes and its cakewalk adjuncts show l these elements save one may be taken away a they are in fact in Why Dont Yo Get a Lady of Yo Own an absurdly I reproachful ditty that has same real charm of melody in it But the character I char-acter is especially strong in that particular I par-ticular song The sentimental songs most of which are atrociously bad as music and maudlin in sentiment may I recur from time to time but they will not answer the requirements of the insatiable in-satiable vaudeville public which demands de-mands to be amused amuse o < > 0 There is one point moreover which is I well worth the respectful attention of professed musicians however much they may scorn the humble democracy of the vaudeville show This constant hearing and production of such songs is going to have an appreciable effect not only on public taste but on the development de-velopment of music as well Symphonies Sympho-nies and grand operas may be superior means of culture but where ten persons per-sons her works of art of that style a thousand are listening to some singer in the vaudeville houses What influence influ-ence is all this to have on the evolution evoluton of public taste ir music I A Antibreakfast Society An antibreakfast society is to be organized in Elgin Il its membership member-ship comprising some of the most intelligent In-telligent and cultured people of the city editors clergyman physicians and teachers I is the outcome of experiments ex-periments in abstaining from the morn ing meal Following the advice laid down by a Pennsylvania doctor who for twenty years has used no drugs in his practc3 the Elginites are subsisting on two meals a day and enjoying bettor bet-tor health and a greater degree of exhilaration ex-hilaration than they had known for years The ranks of the converts are I not confined to adults for children have adopted the new gospel of health and it is said to be a fact capable of demonstration that they are making much more rapid progress in their studies than they did when they believed be-lieved three meals a day necessary to their existence The claim is that the stomach needs a rest and does not get i when three meals a day are the rule Refreshing sleep is not a hunger causing process is the basis of the reasoning of the antis and with this goes the injunction Injunc-tion no between meal nibbling Although Al-though the originator or discoverer of the system has written two large books showing the effects of the plan on I classes of people from office workers to the most active outofdoor laborers the gist of the thing is in the no breakfast and no between meal eating No drug no dosage nothing injurious in-jurious whatever taken into the system sys-tem renewed health a better appetite than has been known since the golden days of childhood these are the excellencies excel-lencies the antis claim for their new departure They caused them to swear off forever on the vulgar habit of partaking of an early morningmeal j r 1 t a |