Figure 1.-- The violin was perhaps the most popular individual instrument for boys during the late-19th and early-20th century. This began to change in the 1920s with yhe advent of the Jazz Age. Here we have a group of children, mistly boys with their violins. We suspect a violin teacher has posed all her students together. There was nothing like the Suzuki method at the time.

Mothers strongly incouraged boys to take intrumental music lessons. Piano was a popular first choice, but of course many fanilies could not afford a piano. Small instruments like violins were much more fordable. Many children took up the violin. The violin for decades was a primary instrumental choice. We seem to note more boys than girls learning the violin. We are not sure why. There was a major shift in instrumental music during the 1920s. The decade is of course known as the Roaring 20s and also the Jazz Age. Jazz as not born in the 1920s, but it is when it made the big time. Several factors brought this about. Commercial radio broadcasting began after World War I. In additionn RPM 78 records became popular. Another factor was the Great Migration wiyh rural soyhern blacks coming to the big cities of the Mid-West and North East, bringiung their music with them. The shocking improvisation, syncopation, and a strong rhythm was as shocking as the new fashions and bobbed hair. All of this affected the instruments boys chose to learn. Jazz relied more on brass and woodeind instrumnts than string instruments. Brass instruments were not new. They were popular with the marching bands at the turn of the century. Woodwinds like the clarinet were newly popular. Many parents did noit approve of the new music. So they often pushed the violin over other choices. But vgradually they all became accepable choices.

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Created: 9:46 AM 9/5/2017
Last updated: 9:46 AM 9/5/2017