Tim Horwood <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Steve Schwartz wrote:
>
>>Many American films and cartoons of the 1930s touch on the culture wars
>>between colloquial, vernacular musicians and "classical" ones.  ......
>>
>>How this antagonistic divide came about is less clear than the fact
>>that it *has* come about and, as far as the history of music goes, fairly
>>recently.
>
>My theory is that when music started to be recorded it became a product.
>Once labelled as a product it was at the mercy of salesmen and marketing
>men and it was a short step to putting it in categories to make purchasing
>easier.

Tim is onto something here.  With the rise of Tin Pan Alley and cheap
three- minutes-of-music recordings (10-cents-a-dance), it was no longer a
matter of "folk music" (or as Steve describes it, "colloquial,vernacular")
vs.  classical, but of an entirely new cultural phenomenon vs.an older one
which struggles mightily today just to have relevance let alone an
audience.

John Dalmas
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