In the discussions of "American music" that go on perennially in our newspapers and journals, now waxing in a wave of patriotic enthusiasm, now waning as popular attention is turned to something else, in war time much stimulated by an enhanced consciousness of nationality (unless indeed they are totally elbowed aside to make room for more immediate subjects), a sharp cleavage will usually be observed between those whose interest is primarily in the music for itself, wherever it comes from, and those in whom artistic considerations give way before patriotic ardor, and propaganda usurp the place of discrimination. One group, in uttering the challenging phrase, "American music," places the stress instinctively on the noun and regards the adjective as only qualification; the other, in its preoccupation with "American," seems to take "music" rather for granted. Unfortunately the former group constitutes so small a minority, and expresses itself so soberly, that its wholesome insistence on the quality of the article itself is likely to be quite drowned out by the bawling of the advertisers, with their insistent slogan "Made in America." All the advantages of numbers, organization, and easy appeal to the man in the street are theirs. Even if we ignore those venal music journals which make a system of exploiting the patriotism of the undiscriminating for purely pecuniary purposes, there remain enough enthusiasts and propagandists, indisposed or unable to appraise quality for themselves, to create by their "booming" methods a formidable confusion in our standards of taste. Inasmuch, therefore, as we are condemned, for our sins, to be not only producers but consumers of this "American music," it behooves us to make careful inspection of the claims for it so extravagantly put forth, and to assure ourselves that we are getting something besides labels for our money.
What, then, is the precise value we ought justly to ascribe to that word "American" as applied to music, and wherein have those we may call champions of the adjective been inclined to exaggerate it? If we analyze their attitude, we shall find them the prey of two fallacies which constantly falsify their conclusions, and make them dangerous guides for those who have at heart the real interests of music in America. The first of these fallacies is that which confuses quantity with quality, and supposes that artistic excellence can be decided by vote of the majority. The second is that which identifies racial character with local idioms and tricks of speech rather than with a certain emotional and spiritual temper. Both lead straight to the oft-repeated conclusion that "ragtime" is the necessary basis of our native musical art.
Listen, for example, to one of the most persistent, courageous, and often interesting advocates of ragtime, Mr. H. K. Moderwell. "I can't help feeling," says Mr. Moderwell,[59] "that a person who doesn't open his heart to ragtime somehow isn't human. Nine out of ten musicians, if caught unawares, will like this music until they remember that they shouldn't. What does this mean? Does it mean that ragtime is 'all very well in its place'? Rather that these musicians don't consider that place theirs. But that place, remember, is in the affections of some 10,000,000 or more Americans. Conservative estimates show that there are at least 50,000,000 copies of popular music sold in this country yearly and a goodly portion of it is in ragtime.... You may take it as certain that if many millions of people persist in liking something that has not been recognized by the schools, there is vitality in that thing." No doubt there is, just as by the same argument there is vitality in chewing gum and the comic supplements. The question is, of course, what sort of vitality? Yet if you raise this question of quality, you are immediately charged with being a "highbrow," "a person," in Professor Brander Matthews's already classic definition, "educated beyond his intelligence,"—a charge from which any sane man naturally shrinks. "The best American music is that which the greatest number of Americans like; the greatest number of Americans like ragtime; therefore ragtime is the best American music." This is a specious syllogism, which you may oppose only at the risk of being thought a highbrow and a snob.
Suppose, for instance, that you really do not happen to care for chewing gum, that just as a matter of fact, of personal taste, and not through any principles or sense of superiority to your fellows you prefer other forms of nutriment or exercise. You confess this peculiarity. Can you not hear the reproachful reply? "I can't help feeling that a person who doesn't open his heart to chewing gum somehow isn't human. Nine out of ten travelers on the subway, if caught unawares [with gum disguised as bonbons, let us say] will like it until they remember that they shouldn't. What does this mean? Does it mean that chewing gum is 'all very well in its place'? Rather that these punctilious people don't consider that place theirs. But that place, remember, is in the affections of some 10,000,000 or more Americans. The annual output of the chief chewing gum manufacturers"—etc., etc. Thus are you voted down if you happen to be in the minority. It does you no good to protest that you are really quite sincere and without desire to épater le bourgeois; that you can't help preferring Mr. Howells's novels to Mr. Robert W. Chambers's, Mr. Ben Foster's landscapes to Mr. Christy's magazine girls, Mr. Irwin's "Nautical Lays of a Landsman" to the comic supplements, and MacDowell's "To a Wild Rose" to "Everybody's Doing It." If you stray from the herd you must be sick. If you vote for the losers you must be a snob.
Such charges are the more dangerous in that they sometimes contain a half-truth. There is a kind of person, the simon-pure snob, who casts his vote for the loser just because he is a loser, because he is unpopular, who prides himself on his "exclusiveness," "excluding himself," as Thoreau penetratively says, "from all that is worth while." His is a sort of inverted numericalism, based on quantity just as essentially as the crude gospel of the "10,000,000 or more Americans," but on quantity negative and vanishing towards the zero of perfect distinction. It is from his kind that are recruited the faddists, those who "dote on Debussy," the devotees of folk-songs not for their human beauty but as curious specimens, those who invent all sorts of queer connections between music and painting or poetry, and indeed seem to find in it anything and everything but simple human feeling. It is not from these that we shall get any help towards the truth about ragtime. Indeed, they seem because of their unsympathetic attitude toward the spirit of music—its emotional expression—and their preoccupation with the letter of it, to be especially susceptible to the second fallacy of which we spoke—that of identifying racial quality with mere idiom rather than with fundamental temper.
Mr. Moderwell shall be spokesman of this view also. "You can't tell an American composer's 'art-song,'" he says, "from any mediocre art-song the world over.... You can distinguish American ragtime from the popular music of any nation and any age." Let us agree heartily that the mediocre "art-song" (horrid name for a desolating thing) is probably no better and no worse in our own than in other countries. Does this not seem an insufficient warrant for the excellence of types of art that can be more easily told apart? For purposes of labeling specimens earmarks are an advantage, but hardly for appraising modes of expression. If the important matter in American music is not its expression of the American temper, but the peculiar technical feature, the special kind of syncopation we call the "rag rhythm," then the important matter in Hungarian music is not its fire but its "sharp fourth step." Beethoven ceases to be Teutonic when he uses Irish cadences in his Seventh Symphony, and Chopin is Polish only in his mazurkas and polonaises. Of course this will not do; and Mr. Moderwell, to do him justice, after remarking that "ragtime is not merely syncopation—it is a certain sort of syncopation," adds "But of course this definition is not enough. Ragtime has its flavor that no definition can imprison." Our ultimate question is, then, not how many people like ragtime, or how few like it, or how easily can its idiom be told from other idioms, but how expressive is it of the American temper, how full an artistic utterance can it give of the best and widest American natures? This is a question not of quantity but of quality: of the quality of ragtime, the quality of America, and the adequacy of the one to the other.
II
Suppose, bearing in mind Mr. Moderwell's warning against snobbery, that "A Russian folk-song was no less scorned in the court of Catherine the Great than a ragtime song in our music studios to-day," we examine in some detail a typical example of ragtime such as "The Memphis Blues," of which he assures us that "In sheer melodic beauty, in the vividness of its characterization, in the deftness of its polyphony and structure, this song deserves to rank among the best of our time."[60] Here are the opening strains of it.