[78-L] Early studio singers - question

[Craig Ventresco]

I'm guessing that almost every pro singer 100 years ago was able to read
atleast some music--and  many of those NewYork guys must have been great at
sight singing. I read that Billy Murray said he was unable to read music,
but I bet that he could get around the treble cleff vocal parts alright.
There may have been a difference in his head between doing that and reading
piano music. I don't know. Part of the Tin pan Alley songwriting machine
was a group of people whose job it was to teach singers their songs--to
coach them. I believe that this is what many recording artists would hacve
done. To use Murray as an example again, I think that he became duet
partners with ed Smalle because Smalle was his song coach--or whatever it
was called..and Murray liked the way Smalle sang with him. Of course,
there's no way of knowing how many recording artist/singers could at least
sight read their vocal parts...but I really think tat it would have been a
high number...just gussin'.
I think that a singers' ability to retain the words to many songs in
his/her momory was a huge asset. Dan Quinn mentioned this as the reason
that he was able to work nonstop throughout the 1890's....

On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 11:28 AM, Mark Bardenwerper <citrogsa at charter.net>wrote:

> On 12/10/2011 12:21, Michael Biel wrote:
> > In many cases they were recording brand new songs, so they were not yet
> > familiar with many of them to record from memory.  But I think the real
> > basis of the question was if could they read music or did they learn the
> > melody by rote and sing the words from a lyric sheet.  Perhaps Jim Walsh
> > knew -- did he write about this about some of his friends?  I have seen
> > some photos of acoustic recording studios that had a wire with clips
> > crossing the studio by the horn.  The sheets could be clipped to it
> > instead of using a music stand or holding the music which might rub
> > against the horn accidentally.
> >
> You can be fairly certain that most of them had some training in another
> instrument. Piano would be a common one, especially early on. So to pick
> out a melody would have been a simple task. Another form of training
> which is often forgotten now is solfege.
>
> Solfege was a formalize method of learning vocal music utilizing
> syllabic symbols. For instance, the diatonic scale is do-re-me etc.
>
> --
> Mark L. Bardenwerper, Sr. #:?)
> Technology, thoughtfully, responsibly.
> Visit me at http://citroen.cappyfabrics.com
>
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