The Gilded Age was a wonderful age for music. With the emergence of leisure time many of the middle class and working class had much more time on their hands and were looking for ways of entertainment. This new demand for performers caused the entertainment industry to be born. In the early days of the Gilded Age the most popular acts were the traveling minstrel shows which soon evolved into Vaudeville theatre. To accompany this new form of theatre many new styles of music had to be developed.
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| Scott Joplin |
Music of the time was much less modest and melodic than anything which had come before it. The most notable innovation in music at the end of the 19th century was the development of a new genre of African influenced rhythmic music called ragtime emerging out of New Orleans. Ragtime is the most well known of any styles of music from the Gilded Age. Scott Joplin is one of the most famous Ragtime composers gaining much of his following from his piece called "The Maple Leaf Rag". Before this time most popular music was strictly classical in style and composition following rules derived from the romantic age of Bach and Mozart. Charles Ives was one of these composers to step out of the Classical comfort zone as he implement very strange and innovative chords in his compositions. In the time of Vaudeville and Ragtime many songs start to have signs of structure know today as; verse chorus verse chorus verse chorus. In this structure a song would have clear sections where the music changed or the lyrics repeated. This form of song writing has directly influenced popular music today.
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| Example of Vaudeville Theatre |
Popular music of the Gilded Age was also know for its common themes in lyrics of the night life and descriptions of city life and fantastical new ways to spend one's time. In this time the lyrics of many songs performed in Vaudeville contained many more suggestive themes never before seen in lyrics predating this time. Ragtime was well known for being criticized as vulgar by many classical composers of the day. The Gilded Age was the time for major shifts in popular music. Ragtime began to change peoples view of the piano to that of a rhythmic instrument and not the beautiful melody producing machine it was before.
Other than in Vaudeville most music was still enjoyed instrumentally. This is show by the mass of sheet music found in saloons and taverns where a pianist usually entertained the patrons of the establishment. Often these musicians were not classically trained and could play only few songs. The working class could not often listen to the most well trained of musicians and compositions. at this time there is evidence which shows a large increase of music for the lower level citizens in cities which caused most popular music to be governed by the working and middle classes.
There is no question Vaudeville outmatched the music business in the Gilded Age. This was the case until the late 1890s when and entrepreneur from San Francisco decided to use the Phonograph to record and playback music that the music industry would be able to overtake the Theatre in popularity. Before the Phonograph the only way a person living in the Gilded Age could listen to music was to know a professional musician or to buy the sheet music and play it himself. As I studied Popular songs and music technology of the Gilded Age I found America's first platinum hit. "After the Ball" by Charles K. Harris sold over two million pieces of sheet music by the end of the 19th century. This song was made famous after it was given to a vaudeville performer to perform in a show. The song was described an individual recounting to a young girl how they lost there love after a ball. "After the Ball" demonstrates the theme of entertainment in the lyrics and fame of Ragtime music in this time period.
