What “actors”? Take your pick. Charles Laughton singing in a bar in Ruggles of Red Gap. Gary Cooper not singing in the company of old duffers like Oskar Homolka and S. Z. Sakall (Cuddles) in the 1st Ball of Fire (1941) with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck, old batchelors just casually breaking out in “Sweet Genevieve”, just using their presumed skill at singing together.
Even in the 1950s when I was a kid, music was far more important at home, church and school. I was a terrible singer and some of my first memories are hating to sing and just mouthing it. I've always greatly admired people who could sing or play instruments.
I fell squarely in this camp: "...they were just exercising the customary cultural habit, that nearly everyone except the deaf or the tone-deaf practiced."
"Tone-deaf" doesn't begin to describe my singing!
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Great Depression I hit the record industry hard and killed many smaller record companies including Hit of the Week. Meanwhile, radio technology had improved, so radio listening took off as people realized that you could now hear music for free through the radio.
A fine article. My understanding however is that there were about 100 piano companies in the US at our peak, not 300. At the same time many companies had various brands.
Records first started to become popular and fairly widespread in the 1890s. They were very popular by the 1900s, especially among the upper and upper-middle classes who could more easily afford them, but many people would have at least occasionally heard recorded music early in the century. Before then, player pianos were popular for those who couldn’t play themselves as were music boxes.
Your article would make more sense if you titled it:
“Before The Phonograph (1895), If You Wanted Music, You Had to MAKE It Yourself”
Composers used to make a living selling sheet music, and only a very few actually broke even through performance. Schubert in particular was always asking, “Take me to your lieder.” (OK, stolen from Tom Lehrer...)
Of course these days, you can program a piano to play stuff that’s not humanly possible.
So let me get this right, people would just break out in song just like they do in musicals? (Sorry, just joking.) Seriously, this is quite interesting. Maybe we need a little group entertaining in our lives and less social distancing.
You could also back then make a good living tuning pianos and sharpening knives.
May I suggest that the subject has multiple subsets.
There is a difference between vocalizing, playing an instrument and the the psychological dynamics of performing live.
I have been in situations many times where I had to stand up in front of groups and talk. I have no problem but I would have to say that, at a guess, at least 50% of my peers are terrified of talking to crowds and another 25% percent are reluctant to do so.
Singing in public is even worse. For a good par of my life I could not do it. The local artist’s group of which I’m a board member used to go out after meeting and, when it was somebody’s birthday, celebrate at lunch. Singing Happy Birthday was a part of things.
Oh what a hot mess ‘o stuff that was. Everybody was trying to sing as quietly as possible, hesitant to stand out, people were out if synch, there was no leader.
Me, I’m a big fellow and I’ve found that I sound best when I let go and belt out a tune in a type of controlled yelling. While I too had no desire to sing in public I also cringed at the quiet cacophony erupting at the lunch table, so...
The next time we got together for a birthday I let loose with all my basso-profuseness and shocked my companions. It sounded much better and at times our subsequent performances were even applauded by patrons and staff.
My controlled bellowing found a use when bringing a meeting to order. I don’t know how many of you reading this have ever been in a similar situation, but everybody is jibber-jabbering with their friends and paying no attention at all to the person standing at the from t of the room trying to get things started, at least ‘till I I hit upon a somewhat novel solution.
After standing in front of the group for a few minutes with no results I gave a five second countdown on my fingers and let loose with the first few bars of “Ride of the Valkyries”. The room suddenly became dead quiet as though I had flicked a switch. My next words were “Now that I’ve got your attention...” and proceed to start the meeting.
My point to all this is that, up until a few years ago I never would have done any of this. Maybe it goes with being over 60 and just not giving a flip anymore what other people think.
Live performance on a musical instrument I’ve found to be similarly affected by the fear of failing in front of strangers. Over the years I’ve gained some proficiency on the keyboard but my skills are such that I comp together a piece from several takes. I do, however play a number of iPad instruments and have performed in public, in part because I can do a passable job playing them. Many of the same people on the board have iPads and iPhones but want nothing t do with performing as an ensemble.
I would posit that one look at the psychological differences between playing or singing in an era where there were far more amateurs with similar skill levels as opposed to a time when everybody could compare themselves to recordings of professionals and find themselves wanting. “I’m never going t be as good as Fats Waller so why even try ?”