Although most auctioneers do not self-identify as musicians, the practice of auctioneering in the United States reveals a sophisticated musical approach to metric improvisation based on the establishment of musical expectation and the strategic thwarting of that expectation through flexible treatment of meter. Auctioneers establish a “referential” meter wherein a consistent organization of the pulse returns repeatedly, alternating with expansions or contractions of that primary meter. Listeners are entrained to expect musical consistency, but through disruptions of familiar musical patterns, the auctioneer focuses bidder attention on the chant rather than the realities of the economic transaction in progress. Thus, meter is employed as an improvisational tool that unites the listening and bidding audience within a musical space and plays with expectations just enough to keep bidders alert and engaged.

Central among Lou Harrison's pioneering East-West fusions, the works for gamelan and Western instruments are frequently cited either as exemplars of the composer's Californian, postmodern musical sensibility or as noteworthy instances of cultural hybridity. Close examination of Main Bersama-sama (1978) and Bubaran Robert (1976, rev. 1981), however, shows that these pieces can and should be understood for what they tell us about Harrison's deep engagement with melody. A self-proclaimed “melode,” Harrison has mistakenly been regarded as a West Coast musical dabbler, writing tuneful pieces that lack the complexity that characterizes the work of his East Coast contemporaries. Yet analysis of the pitch structure of Main Bersama-sama and Bubaran Robert reveals intricate compositional “games” similar to the pre-compositional strategies of composers more typically associated with algorithmic compositional methods. Because these intricacies lie beneath the melodic surface of the music they have largely been unheard and unappreciated in Harrison's work. The melodic nature of these games not only challenges the widely accepted depiction of Harrison as a mere “tunesmith,” but also shows that Harrison explored the ability of melody (as opposed to large-scale tonal or harmonic schemes) to create form and serve a central generative function in his music.

Since the early 1900s, song-poem entrepreneurs, often referred to as “song sharks,” have fueled a diffuse and largely hidden American industry that produces music to accompany the poems and lyrics of amateur writers. These entrepreneurs have long been demonized in the popular media for preying on the naiveté of their clientele. Yet despite charges of exploitation, this musical equivalent of the vanity press has survived for over a century. Although the vast majority of song-poets and their song-poems have remained in obscurity, in the 1990s, song-poems developed a cult following among record collectors; as “anonymous collaborations,” these recordings highlighted tensions between poignant personal expression and impersonal commercial rendering that appealed to listeners with a penchant for the obscure. This article draws on advertisements, sheet music, media coverage, and personal interviews to piece together a history of the song-poem industry, with particular focus on the gendered dimensions of the practice, the role of technology in the production process, and the multiplicity of meanings embedded in song-poems for both song-poets and collectors.