Street music

“ There's a barrel-organ carolling across a golden street
In the City as the sun sinks low;
Though the music's only Verdi there's a world to make it sweet
Just as yonder yellow sunset where the earth and heaven meet
Mellows all the sooty City! Hark, a hundred thousand feet
Are marching on to glory through the poppies and the wheat
In the land where the dead dreams go. ”

“ Whenever any sort of street music commences at either end of your street, turn on, by an apparatus specially arranged in your area, the full force of the above. This will not only overpower your would-be tormentors, but bring every householder in the neighbourhood to his street-door begging you to desist. ”

“ Forbid entirely—Authorize Police to seize the Instrument and take it to the Station—An Association for Prevention of Street Music proposed. During the last ten years, the amount of street music has so greatly increased that it has now become a positive nuisance to a very considerable portion of the inhabitants of London. It robs the industrious man of his time; it annoys the musical man by its intolerable badness ”

“ The multitude of music-halls now established in all parts of London is such that those who enjoy street music may have a much larger quantity of it, and of a better kind, at a cheaper rate than that which in their own street disturbs all their neighbours.
If street music is to be at all tolerated by law, against which I protest in the strongest manner, then every performer ought to carry on his back or upon his instrument his name and address, or an authorized number, by which the public might be saved from wasting their time by false addresses, now so frequently given. ”

“ It is just like a holiday out on the street—like Easter. All the windows are brightly lit up, the gay music of violins and pianos floats out through the panes, cabmen drive up and drive off without cease. ”

“ Where is the harm child, in your sitting up at a piano, even behind a curtain; in a large room in Gower Street, I can’t imagine why you say GOWER Street; playing, with the soft pedal either down or up, the kind of music that you play so beautifully? ”

“ As we draw nearer the people on the sidewalks thicken, while the music, which in the distance sounded at first like the wild air of a street minstrel ditty, assumes the style of a religious chant. The music, if it can so be called, issues from a dark, dense circular mass of people in the middle of the street. Suddenly it breaks into nervous and excited motion, and takes up a line of march, led by a man who walks backwards, facing those who follow, and beating time with a baton. ”

“ Life beats, like some great wave, up the dim alleyways—it breaks, in a shattered tide, against rock-like doorways. The music of a street band, strangely sweet despite its shrillness, rises triumphantly above the tumult of pavement vendors, the crying of babies, the shouting of small boys, and the monotonous voices of the womenfolk. ”

“ The air is full of the scent of the flowers hawked about the streets. In some houses over the street, lessons arc being given in dancing, and passers-by stand open-mouthed below enjoying the tinkling music. ”

“ Hawkers in a neighbouring alley were calling, and the monotonous ting-ting of the muffin-bell made an audible background to the picture. I left it, and then the glamour was already passing. In a little while darkness possessing it, the place would reassume its aspect of sordid gloom.
There is a street not far from there, bearing a name that quickens life within one, by the vision it summons of a most peaceful country, where the broad roads are but pathways through green meadows, and your footstep keeps the time to a gentle music of pure streams. ”

“ They walked up a street of brick and brownstone houses with narrow windows stuffed with fussy curtains on the parlor floors. Occasionally a girl passed them with a folder of music under her arm. From the houses came a perpetual sound of scales taken with tenors, sopranos, contraltos, tinkled on pianos, scraped on 'cellos and violins, toodled on flutes. From somewhere came occasionally the muffled bray of an English horn.
"Fearful street, isn't it?" said Fanshaw. ”

“ In the metropolis, music has advanced with far greater rapidity than in the provinces. This appears the natural and inevitable result of causes to which we have already alluded. Ten or fifteen years ago, the street-music of London consisted of such tunes as Tom and Jerry—an especial favourite—the Copenhagen Waltz, and other melodies of the same class. ”

“ A brass band will fill a whole street with glamour, and the normal person finds it quite impossible to be out of step with the rhythm of the march. Watch the way in which, as the Pied Piper of Hamelin drew the children after him, the band draws the elders to the window and the children to the street: the appeal is never in vain. Marching in time with the music tired feet forget their weariness, and new strength comes from the reserves of the greater self, liberated at the unspoken appeal of melody and rhythm. ”

“ A Lover of Music. Our street musicians are growing worse and worse. There is a piper who infests the street in which I live, and sets my nerves on edge with his horrible droning. What am I to do with him? ”

“ The traffic, the restlessness of crowds, the noise of vehicles, of the clatter of horses on the asphalt, of human cries and calls sounding above the street-bass, a couple of organ grinders trying to outplay each other, a brass band coming down the avenue, the thunder of a railway train hurling itself over leagues of steel, the sirens of steamboats and locomotives, the overtones of factory whistles, the roar of cities and harbors, become music to him. ”

“ The amount of interruption from street music, and from other occasional noises, varies with the nature and the habits of its victims. Those whose minds are entirely unoccupied receive it with satisfaction, as filling up the vacuum of time. Those whose thoughts are chiefly occupied with frivolous pursuits or with any other pursuits requiring but little attention from the reasoning or the reflective powers, readily attend to occasional street music. ”

“ Not content with scanning every face as it passes, he looks up at the houses, searching with eager eye their blank, close-shuttered walls, as if in hope of seeing through the barriers of brick and stone, and surprising the secrets that may lurk within. Now and then a house seems to take his fancy, for he stops, and still looking up at the windows, plays a tune. It is generally the same tune,—a simple, homely old air, which the street-boys can readily take up and whistle, though they do not hear it in the music-halls or on the hand-organs. ”

“ A street musician has seated himself on the steps of yonder church, and pours forth his strains to the busy town, a melody that has gone astray among the tramp of footsteps, the buzz of voices, and the war of passing wheels. ”

“ I mean, of course, the real old-fashioned music-halls, not those depressing palaces where you see by grace of a biograph things that you have seen much better, and without a headache, in the street, and pitiable animals being forced to do things which Nature has forbidden them to do—things which we can do so very much better than they, without any trouble. Heaven defend me from those meaningless palaces! But the little old music-halls have always attracted me by their unpretentious raciness, their quaint monotony, the reality of the enjoyment on all those stolidly rapt faces in the audience. ”

“ They sometimes remain soaring [127] for days together, and strains of that aerial music, attuned in sad "minore," float out upon every passing breath of air. Passers-by in the street look up, shading their eyes from the sun, at the bright things soaring and singing in the sky, and dispute much about the melodious merits of each. ”

“ But if opera no longer reaches the negro, it cannot be said that it has failed to leave its stamp on the French quarter. From open windows and doors, from little shops and half-hidden courtyards, from shuttered second story galleries, there comes floating to the ears of the wayfarer the sound of music. [Pg 660] In one house a piano is being played with dash; in another a child is practising her scales ”

“ As if political revolutions and vagabond music had some mysterious connection, the number of street bands, Italian harp-players, organ-grinders, and guitar-strummers, that have deafened us during the last six weeks, is something extraordinary. ”

“ On one of these occasions, while eating our luncheon in the open air, a band of eight or ten street musicians station themselves upon the porch but a few feet from us. They are healthy, hearty-looking men, but contrary to our previous experience in this country, they play the most inharmonious airs. We endure this for a short time, then as the discordant sounds become more and more annoying, we bestow upon the leader a number of small coins, and entreat them to begone. ”

“ Asphalt, when swept and cleaned, makes an admirable dancing floor, and to this street dance come all the neighbors and their friends. The children play games to the music in their roped-off section, the young people dance, and all are merry. ”

“ My neighbours had no arts of their own. For any refreshment of that kind they were dependent on the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table, or on such cheap refuse as had come into the village from London music-halls or from the canteens at Aldershot. Street pianos in the neighbouring town supplied them with popular airs, which they reproduced—it may be judged with what amazing effect—on flute or accordion; but the repertory of songs was filled chiefly from the sources just mentioned. ”

“ The street, not more than ten feet wide, was spanned here and there by bridges, open and covered, which, like the roofs along the way, were beginning to be occupied by men, women, and children, called out by the music. ”

“ I can even recognize some melody in the music which comes irregularly and fitfully from the balcony of the Museum on Market Street, although it may be broadly stated that, as a general thing, the music of all museums, menageries, and circuses becomes greatly demoralized,—possibly through associations with the beasts. ”

“ Any one who may doubt this statement has but to observe the foot-passengers the next time he or she hears a band of music playing on the street.
It would sometimes happen, however, that our notice would be attracted by the peculiar walk of an individual who had so little music in his soul that we could not bring him into step. In that case we would perform Mohammed’s miracle of the mountain, by accommodating our fife and drum to his particular gait, and bring the rest of the street into the same pace. ”

“ USIC "hath charms to soothe," we admit, but not all music, and not at all times; and it is this modification of the soothing effects of music that our street minstrels, both vocal and instrumental, seem to be unable, or unwilling, to comprehend. ”

“ We are only beginning to understand what might be done through the festival, the street procession, the band of marching musicians, orchestral music in public squares or parks, with the magic power they all possess to formulate the sense of companionship and solidarity. ”

“ I am very well aware of the fact that the other street musicians are satisfied to reel off a few street ditties, German waltzes, even melodies of indecent songs, all of which they have memorized. These they repeat incessantly, so that the public pays them either in order to get rid of them, or because their playing revives the memory of former joys of dancing or of other disorderly amusements. ”

“ The largest section of the Paris street-musicians consists, probably, of the little Italian boys who overrun public places and who are to be found at night asleep under the seats of the boulevards, against the parapets of the quays, or upon some doorstep. They are as difficult to suppress and as persistent as ants: the very police get tired of trying to clear the streets of them. ”

“ The tunes are mostly picked up from the street bands, and sometimes from the cheap concerts, or from the gallery of the theatre, where the street ballad-singers very often go, for the express purpose of learning the airs. They are mostly utterly ignorant of music, and some of them get their money by the noise they make, by being paid to move on. There is a house in the Blackfriars’-road where the people has been ill for the last 16 years, and where the street ballad-singer always goes, because he is sure of getting 2d. ”

“ I only know a few who have left other businesses to become musicians. The great majority—19-20ths of us, I should say—have been brought regularly up to be street-performers. Children now are taught very early, and seldom leave the profession for any other business. Every year the street musicians increase. The better sort are, I think, prudent men, and struggle hard for a decent living. All the street-performers of wind instruments are short-lived. Wind performers drink more, too, than the others. ”

“ CHAPTER IX. STREET MUSICIANS. Street musicians in New York are as plentiful as the leaves in Vallambrosa. One cannot walk two blocks in the entire City, without hearing from one to half a dozen street instruments in full blast. A few of the instruments are good and in perfect tune, but the majority emit only the most horrible discord.
THE ORGAN GRINDERS. Only a few of the organ grinders own their organs. The majority hire them from parties who make a business of letting them. The rent varies from two to twenty dollars per month, according to the quality of the instrument ”

“ Perhaps the pleasantest of all the out-door accessories of a London life are the strains of fugitive music which one hears in the quiet by-streets or suburban highways—strains born of the skill of some of our wandering artists, who, with flute, violin, harp, or brazen tube of various shape and designation, make the brick-walls of the busy city responsive with the echoes of harmony. ”