Tag Archives: music sheets

Though popular music has always been a component of human culture, the rise of a commercial, large-scale and hugely profitable industry that specializes in bringing songs to a general public is a relatively recent development tied to such trends as the development of commercially available recording technology. Before that was achieved, however, the essential key to the music industry’s creation lay in the rise of literacy and availability of leisure time to the bourgeois middle class of the 19th century, which passed its time partly through the means of commercially available sheet music by which songs could be codified, rather than being gradually disseminated through oral folk culture in varying forms, soon after they were composed. Music sheets became particularly attractive for ownership after the rise of the piano as an essential feature of middle-class life, commonly displayed during social visits and parties as a way of indicating social status. The beginnings of a true industry based on the distribution of sheet music began in the United States in the late 19th century, in a business centered on New York City that came to be known as Tin Pan Alley. The early ability of artists and business people to offer … Continue reading