Studying Musical Genre: a case-study page

The Genre Implosion Radio Show and the “Imploding Musical Genre” Thesis project were really based firmly in theory, but both used real music, real genres, real history and real ideas and observations to develop their respective cases.

This page of genreimplosion.ca is dedicated to my ongoing work in musical genre, and especially that that examines specific bodies of music that we call ‘genres’, or at least treat as though they were.

One Froggy Evening - retrieving Tin Pan Alley in a mid-century ‘Toon

During my graduate work on Genre I developed an entirely unexpected secondary area of interest in cartoon music. Whether or not you recognise this frog, you might find the work I did on its role in a 1955 Warner Bros cartoon retrieval of the era of vaudeville and the ‘genre’ of Tin Pan Alley.

With a robust song-and-dance rendition of the turn-of-the-century “coon song” “Hello Ma Baby!”, One Froggy Evening this frog jumps out of the cornerstone of the J.C. Wilbur building as it is torn down in 1955, and into the life of a middle-aged, slightly overweight construction worker who immediately sees the possibility of making millions as the promoter of a singing, dancing frog.

In a sad but elegantly comic way this dream based on nostalgia for the music and entertainment of the worker’s youth fails to come true - but provides for Warner Bros. 1955 audience a music-genre based experience of nostalgia which seems to have remained just as effective for those of us far too young to have known vaudeville or Tin Pan Alley. The cartoon’s references to vaudeville, silent film, and its unique use of music and striking lack of spoken dialogue make for an extraordinary repository of an American cultural paradigm well beyond its own extinction.

If all of this intrigues you, by all means help yourself to:

One Froggy Evening: Retrieving Tin Pan Alley in a mid-Century ‘Toon

Genre and Germanness - A musical-critical look at the North German Organ in a genrified world.

In September 2006 I had the opportunity of presenting at a Symposium in Calgary, Alberta, entitled “The North German Organ” on the occasion of the inauguration of a new historically-informed organ by Jurgen Ahrend in the Rosza Centre at the University of Calgary. With my own background as a concert organist with a keen interest in history, and the politics of musical genre still fresh in my mind from graduate work earlier that year - the whole notion of constructing a genre of organ, music, or indeed, academic symposium around “The North German Organ” seemed like a good target (oops... did I say ‘target’? I meant topic...

Here is what I came up with: be forewarned that this is much more of a cultural expose than a formal paper, so you will find no bibliographic references: but if you have any questions I could help to answer, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

“Genre and Germanness: A music-critical look at the North German Organ in a genrified world.”