Novelty Piano is a
genreA genre is a loose set of criteria for a category of composition; the term is often used to categorize literature and speech, but is also used for any other form of art or utterance...
of piano music that was popular during the 1920's.
A successor to
ragtimeRagtime is an originally American musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged", rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being...
and an outgrowth of the
piano rollA piano roll is the music storage medium used to operate the player piano, pianola or a reproducing piano. The piano roll was the first medium which could be produced and copied industrially and made it possible to provide the customer with actual music fast and easily. A piano roll is a roll of...
music of the teens, novelty piano can be considered a pianistic cousin of
jazzJazz is a musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
, which appeared around the same time.
Its originators were mostly piano roll artists from the Chicago area, where two of the
largest piano roll companies, QRS and Imperial, had their headquarters.
Novelty Piano is a
genreA genre is a loose set of criteria for a category of composition; the term is often used to categorize literature and speech, but is also used for any other form of art or utterance...
of piano music that was popular during the 1920's.
A successor to
ragtimeRagtime is an originally American musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged", rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being...
and an outgrowth of the
piano rollA piano roll is the music storage medium used to operate the player piano, pianola or a reproducing piano. The piano roll was the first medium which could be produced and copied industrially and made it possible to provide the customer with actual music fast and easily. A piano roll is a roll of...
music of the teens, novelty piano can be considered a pianistic cousin of
jazzJazz is a musical art form which originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States from a confluence of African and European music traditions....
, which appeared around the same time.
Its originators were mostly piano roll artists from the Chicago area, where two of the
largest piano roll companies, QRS and Imperial, had their headquarters. It is distinct
from
stride pianoStride, Harlem Stride Piano, or Stride Piano, is a jazz piano style that evolved partially from ragtime. The left hand may play a four-beat pulse with a single bass note, octave, seventh or tenth interval on the first and third beats, and a chord on the second and fourth beats...
, which was developed in New York at about the same time.
The earliest composers of novelty piano were piano roll artists looking to sell piano rolls. These pieces started out as super rags with characteristic breaks, consecutive fourths, and advanced harmonies. The pioneer of this style was
Charley StraightCharles Theodore Straight , better known as Charley Straight, was an American pianist, bandleader and composer. He started his career in 1909 accompanying singer Gene Greene in Vaudeville. In 1916 he began working at the Imperial Piano Roll Company in Chicago were he recorded dozens of piano rolls...
, whose compositions were issued on piano roll years before Confrey's novelty hits. Early
Charley StraightCharles Theodore Straight , better known as Charley Straight, was an American pianist, bandleader and composer. He started his career in 1909 accompanying singer Gene Greene in Vaudeville. In 1916 he began working at the Imperial Piano Roll Company in Chicago were he recorded dozens of piano rolls...
novelties include S'more, Playmor, Nifty Nonsense, Rufenreddy, and Wild And Wooly.
Novelty piano came to the attention of the public in 1921 with the appearance of
Zez Confrey'sEdward Elzear "Zez" Confrey was an American composer and performer of piano music.Zez Confrey was born in Peru, Illinois, the youngest child of Thomas and Margaret Confrey. After World War I he became a pianist and arranger for the QRS piano roll company...
"Kitten on the Keys". The popularity of this piece quickly led to other Confrey works including "Dizzy Fingers" and "Greenwich Witch", and inspired other artists to issue their own novelty pieces. The style remained popular through the end of the decade, at which time big bands were on the rise, player pianos were in decline, and the popularity of jazz continued unabated. Novelty piano slowly succumbed to, or was absorbed into, the new orchestral styles as the piano moved off center stage and took a support role.
Although novelty piano has structural and stylistic similarities to the earlier ragtime form, there are also distinct differences. Ragtime was generally sold in the form of sheet music, so it was important to keep it simple enough to be played by the competent amateur. By 1920, though, two new technologies had appeared which allowed the general public to hear music as performed by skilled musicians: the "hand-played" piano roll and the phonograph record. Novelty piano was developed as a vehicle to showcase the talents of these professionals, and was thus more often sold in the form of recordings and piano rolls than as sheet music. It was a new turbo-charged piano form, shorn of hackneyed Victorian-era stylings, infused with chromatic piano roll flourishes, and influenced by the "modernistic" sounds of the art-deco twenties.
Unlike ragtime, whose distinctively "staggered" sound was a result of
syncopationIn music, syncopation includes a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected in that they deviate from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak beats in a meter . These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat or a rest where one would normally be stressed...
, novelty piano largely eschewed the emphasis of secondary beats in favor of right-hand triplet and dotted-eighth/sixteenth figures. This allowed novelty musicians to appeal to their predominantly white audiences, many of whom found syncopated music too much of a departure from European-influenced styles.
Prominent artists in the novelty piano genre include
Zez ConfreyEdward Elzear "Zez" Confrey was an American composer and performer of piano music.Zez Confrey was born in Peru, Illinois, the youngest child of Thomas and Margaret Confrey. After World War I he became a pianist and arranger for the QRS piano roll company...
,
Charley StraightCharles Theodore Straight , better known as Charley Straight, was an American pianist, bandleader and composer. He started his career in 1909 accompanying singer Gene Greene in Vaudeville. In 1916 he began working at the Imperial Piano Roll Company in Chicago were he recorded dozens of piano rolls...
,
Roy BargyRoy Fredrick Bargy was an American composer and pianist.Born in Newaygo, Michigan, he grew up in Toledo, Ohio, where he was exposed to the music of pianists Johnny Walters and Luckey Roberts. In 1919 he began working with Charley Straight at the Imperial Piano Roll Company in Chicago, performing,...
, Victor Arden,
Pete WendlingPete Wendling , an American composer and pianist, was born in New York City to German immigrants.He started his working life as a carpenter, but gained fame during the mid 1910s as a popular music composer - producing such hits as Yaaka Hula Hickey Dula, Take Me To The Land Of Jazz, Take Your...
, Max Kortlander, and
Billy MayerlBilly Joseph Mayerl , was an English pianist and composer who built a career in music hall and musical theatre and became an acknowledged master of light music...
.
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