Knowra Tin Pan Alley Tin Pan Alley Tin Pan Alley was a New York City district and songwriting industry that became the center of American popular music publishing from the late 19th to early 20th century.
Music publishing : The business of acquiring, licensing, promoting, and distributing musical compositions. Tin Pan Alley publishers turned songs into commodities through printed sheet music and licensing.
Union Square, Manhattan : A public square and surrounding commercial neighborhood in lower Manhattan. Music publishers clustered around this area, giving Tin Pan Alley its original geographic center.
Irving Berlin : An American songwriter whose songs include “Alexander's Ragtime Band” and “White Christmas.” Berlin became one of the industry's most successful songwriters and helped define its popular idiom.
Broadway theatre : The professional theater industry associated with productions in Manhattan's Broadway district. Stage productions supplied songs and performers that publishers could promote to a mass audience.
32-bar form : A popular-song structure commonly organized as four eight-bar sections, often following AABA. Tin Pan Alley songwriting helped make this concise, repeatable form a standard for popular songs.
Song plugger : A performer or promoter who demonstrated songs to publishers, retailers, and potential buyers. Song pluggers helped make newly published Tin Pan Alley songs familiar and marketable.
Twenty-eighth Street (Manhattan) : A Manhattan street whose music-publishing offices helped define Tin Pan Alley. The nickname became closely associated with the publishers and composers working along this street.
George Gershwin : An American composer and pianist whose work joined popular song with concert music. Gershwin emerged from the commercial songwriting world before composing works such as “Rhapsody in Blue.”
Vaudeville circuit : A network of theaters that booked touring variety entertainment across North America. Touring performers carried Tin Pan Alley songs beyond New York and introduced them to local audiences.
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers : A United States organization that licenses members' musical works and collects performance royalties. Publishers and composers organized collective licensing as songs spread through public performance.
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