“I believe it is impossible to collaborate with anyone in writing a popular song.  I don’t believe one man can write the words and another the music.  A man can’t put his heart in another’s lyrics or music.  To set a musical note for each word of a song is not all—­the note must fit the word.”  But, while Mr. Harris’s words should be considered as the expression of an authority, there is also considerable evidence that points the other way.  Just to mention a few of the many partnerships which have resulted in numerous successes, there are Williams and Van Alstyne, who followed “Under the Shade of the Old Apple Tree” with a series of hits; Ballard MacDonald and Harry Carroll, who made “On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine” merely the first of a remarkably successful brotherhood; Harry Von Tilzer with his ever varying collaborators, and L. Wolfe Gilbert, who wrote “Robert E. Lee,” “Hitchy Koo,” and other hits, with Louis Muir, and then collaborated with Anatol Friedland and others in producing still other successes.  These few examples out of many which might be quoted, show that two persons can collaborate in writing song-hits, but, in the main, as Mr. Berlin and Mr. Harris say, there are decided advantages when words and music can be done together by one writer.

What is absolutely essential to the writing of songs which will make the nation whistle, may be stated in this principle: 

The words and music of a song must fit each other so perfectly that the thought of one is inseparable from the other.

And now before we turn to the essential elements of the words, to which I shall devote the next chapter, permit me to name a few of the elements of popular music that may be helpful to many modern minstrels to know.  In fact, these are all the suggestions on the writing of popular music that I have been able to glean from many years of curious inquiry.  I believe they represent practically, if not quite, all the hints that can be given on this subject. [1]

[1] Because of the obvious impossibility of adequately discussing syncopation and kindred purely technical elements, ragtime has not been particularly pointed out.  The elements here given are those that apply to ragtime as well as to nearly every other sort of popular song.

2.  One Octave is the Popular Song Range

The popular song is introduced to the public by vaudeville performers, cabaret singers, and demonstrators, whose voices have not a wide range.  Even some of the most successful vaudeville stars have not extraordinary voices.  Usually the vaudeville performer cannot compass a range of much more than an octave.  The cabaret singer who has command of more than seven notes is rare, and the demonstrator in the department store and the five-and ten-cent store usually has a voice little better than the person who purchases.  Therefore the composer of a song is restricted to the range of one octave.  Sometimes, it is true,