From Troubadours to Vaudeville

From Troubadours to Vaudeville

©2007 BRP

Traveling musicians have been “singing for their supper” for centuries.

INSPIRATION FROM AN UNLIKELY PLACE

The first traveling musicians known to write down their lyrics were the Goliards, clergymen and scholars who crisscrossed Europe during the 12th century, visiting famous teachers or great libraries. They sang in Latin, the language of the church, but their songs were often satirical or even profane. Their only surviving work, a collection of verses called the Carmina Burana, includes both reverent prayers and bawdy drinking songs.

Around the same time, and likely inspired by the Goliards, poets and musicians who called themselves “troubadours” took to the roads of southern France. Most were aristocratic men who composed playful songs mainly about love, chivalry, and heroism. The best-known was William IX, Duke of Aquitaine. Like most noblemen, he traveled with an entourage that included singers and instrumentalists who played the music he wrote. After awhile, though, the aristocratic troubadours stopped traveling – they wrote songs and sent their musicians out to play theses songs at different castles.

The troubadour tradition expanded to other parts of Europe, where the performers took on different names. In northern France, they were called trouveres; in Germany, minnesingers. But wherever they were, they continued to travel the countryside entertaining locals. Eventually, an entire industry built up around them. Regular routes were established and scribes followed the singers, writing down their songs. About 300 of those songs (out of an estimated 2,500) survive today.

ROAD SONGS

The troubadours lasted only until the 13th century, but their music and poetry deeply influenced Western culture. Not only were they among the first groups to flower artistically after the dreary Middle Ages, but they changed the way people looked at music. Music was no longer the austere domain of the church – it was becoming fun and popular among the common people.

IT’S TIME TO GET ORGANIZED

Another group that appeared around this time was the minstrels. Like troubadours, they sang, played instruments, and traveled from town to town. But minstrels were usually illiterate and less refined than the troubadours; they sometimes wrote their own songs, but often played songs or told stories composed by others. They could be male or female, and they traveled to castles, inns, festivals, and weddings – anywhere they might earn a hot meal, some money, or a good night’s sleep by a warm fire.

Despite their reputation as wanderers, the minstrels were the first musicians to organize. In the 14th century, a few “minstrel schools” were set up where they could learn new songs and techniques, swap gossip, and repair instruments. By the turn of the 16th century, they had set up musicians’ guilds, or unions, all over Europe. The guilds formalized training, provided steady employment, and required that all minstrels join a guild…or quit. Some independent minstrels continued to roam, never joining the guilds. Guild musicians complained that the independent minstrels stole their songs and undercut their prices. (Some Christian scholars and theologians went so far as to call them “ministers of Satan.”)

THE AGE OF EXPLORATION

Times were hard for the musicians who traveled from place to place, so to relieve the financial stress, some signed up for long sea voyages. Onboard, they played hymns during church services, marked the changing hours and shifts with trumpet calls and drums, and even went ashore to help make friends with the natives. The pay was decent, and shipboard musicians got the opportunity to travel to many exotic places: India, Africa, the Philippines, the Americas – Sir Frances Drake even took several musicians around the globe in 1580.

Once in the New World (they were among the first to get there), musicians were part of almost every colony. Some settled down, but others continued to travel…and they lived on the fringes of society. For that reason, historians didn’t pay much attention to them. But we know from diaries and letters that medicine shows and itinerant singers followed the wagon trains west, and musicians played at mining camps, pioneer villages, or anywhere audiences might gather.

HOORAY FOR VAUDEVILLE!

By the 1830’s, more people were working in cities and earning enough to have extra money for cheap entertainment. Theaters were built to host circus acts, minstrel shows, dancers, singers, and musicians for a few performances, then the acts moved on to the next town.

By the 1890s, these touring troupes and the theaters where they performed had evolved into an organized entertainment circuit: vaudeville. No one is sure where the word comes from, but one possible explanation goes back to a 15th century troubadour named Olivier Basselin. He traveled and sang his songs in Normandy, France, along the valley of the Vire River a place called the vau de Vire – which could be the origin of the word “vaudeville.”

Most of the performers who worked the vaudeville circuit never made it big. Like the troubadours of old, they lived hand-to-mouth and toured the country, playing in small clubs and theaters. Some did become stars, however, including Jack Benny, Judy Garland, George Burns, Bob Hope, Fanny Bryce, and Charlie Chaplain.

Vaudeville died out in the 1930s when movies took over as the most popular form of entertainment. Many of the theater chains that once hosted the traveling shows – places like the Fox in Detroit and the Orpheum in Los Angeles – converted to movie palaces. Some vaudeville theaters, though – like the Wiltern in Los Angeles or the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York – continued to host music groups and still do today. Everyone from Gwen Stefani to the Rolling Stones has played those clubs, proving that the tradition of the traveling musician is alive and well.

Questions for thought:

1.  Goliards, the first traveling musicians, traveled through Europe in the ______century.

2.  The language of their songs was ______.

3.  Another group, inspired by the Goliards, were groups of poets and musicians called ______.

4.  Troubadours helped people realize that playing and singing music was ______.

5.  A third group of musicians were called ______.

6.  These musicians organized themselves into ______, or musical unions.

7.  Why did some musicians sign up for long sea voyages?

8.  What enabled people to be able to afford entertainment in the 1830s?

9.  By the 1890s an organized entertainment circuit was developed called ______.

10.  Vaudeville died out with the advent of ______.