Early blackface songs often consisted of unrelated verses strung together by a common chorus. In this pre-Emmett minstrelsy, the music "jangled the nerves of those who believed in music that was proper, respectable, polished, and harmonic, with recognizable melodies." It was thus a juxtaposition of "vigorous earth-slapping footwork of black dances … with the Irish lineaments of blackface jigs and reels." Similar to the look of a blackface performer, the lyrics in the songs that were sung have a tone of mockery and a spirit of laughing at black Americans rather than with them. The minstrel show texts sometimes mixed black lore, such as stories about talking animals or slave tricksters, with humor from the region southwest of the Appalachians, itself a mixture of traditions from different races and cultures. Minstrel instruments were also a mélange: African banjo and tambourine with European fiddle and bones In short, early minstrel music and dance was not true black culture; it was a white reaction to it. This was the first large-scale appropriation and commercial exploitation of black culture by American whites.