BLOG-- TIME OUT FOR NOW

BLOG --TIME OUT FOR NOW It has been immensely rewarding to create the 82 posts of some of the greatest songs from The Great American Songbook or Classic American Popular Song traditions. The pageview responses from Latvia have often been twice the total of all 3 English speaking countries Canada, the USA and Great Britain. Who would have predicted that ? However, I feel it is important for me to concentrate on completing some original research focused on what ordinary listeners believe what is great about the " The Great American Songbook." There have been several ground breaking studies providing detailed analyses of the defining characteristics of the Classic American Popular Song Tradition. I have extensively cited two essential studies on a number of my earlier posts. The most detailed and comprehensive survey of the songs written between 1900 and 1950 was conducted by " Alec Wilder in AMERICAN POPULAR SONG The Great Innovators 1900-1950.( Oxford University Press 1972." This period is often referred to as The Golden Age of American Popular Song when Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin,Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers and Harold Arlen were identified as having the most influence on the flowering of the " Songbook" tradition. Wilder examined over 17,000 individual songs deposited for copyright in the 1900-1950 time period. The breadth of his analysis cannot be questioned although he described his focus was on" the singing line" or melody and attributes such as intensity, unexpectedness, originality,, sinuosity of phrase, clarity, naturalness, control, unclutteredness, sophistication and honest sentiment. Those are a lot of terms that may have relevance but one person's view of " sinuosity of phrase" may be another persons "too simplistic a melodic line.." Since artistic terms are essentially arbitrary, any attempt to have a group of listeners use those rather ambiguous terms to rate a group of songs would soon result in disarray. Wilder was passionate about his subject, he was knowledgeable, he worked in the industry as a composer, lyricist and arranger and even had Frank Sinatra conduct a number of his smaller concert pieces, much to Wilder's acclaim. His book has been almost a daily reference for me for over forty years and he always made a distinction between " good" songs as opposed to " hit" songs, popular but without merit according to his criteria. , " David Jenness and Don Velsey's CLASSIC AMERICAN POPULAR SONG The Second Half- Century 1950-2000 (Routledge Press, 2006.) acknowledge a huge debt to Wilder. They also provide a broader set of criteria as to what makes a great song as opposed to an hit song that may not have any distinctive stylistic characteristics. Harmonic elements are given a more detailed examination as well as the combined effect of combining words with music. Jenness and Velsey examined over 4,000 songs written after 1950, gave some consideration of 1800 and finally selected1200 songs for analysis withmusical or text illustrations for 130 songs. Unlike Wilder, these authors have found that the classic popular song tradition had not died and continues to flourish. Since 1950, a number of excellent songs have been written by such composers like Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Johnny Mandel, Stephan Sondheim, Henry Mancini, Burton Lane, Harry Warren, Johnny Mercer, Jimmy Van Heusen, Jules Styne and Broadway composer Frank Loesser as well as Lerner and Loewe. The authors also believe that there is still public appreciation of the maturity and sophistication of American popular songs which stand in sharp contrast to the cacophony and illiteracy inherent in much of todays " pop music" offerings. Phillip Furia's "The Poets of Tin Pan Alley: A History of America's Great Lyricists" ( Oxford Press, 1992) covers the songbook tradition focusing on the lyrics, the oft forgotten component of what constitutes a song-words performed by a singer. These 3 sources indicate what expert musicologists and literary analysts have written about what they believe are the hallmarks of a great popular song. THey are eminently qualified to make their detailed assessments and provide their own rationale or criteria for song writing excellence. QUESTION: Has anyone asked the listening public why they feel that a certain song is great? They may not have the technical expertise like those we have just cited. However, they are consumers and they will have their own opinions and personal tastes. I have conducted some initial focus group survey work which I now want to summarize and share with interested " Songbook" devotees. Max Weissengruber