After playing for Queen Victoria, she presented him with a silver bugle. Johnson successfully rivaled white musical organizations, receiving patronage from the public in spite of the considerable racial discrimination of the time. Available accounts show that his composition and playing must have had qualities which cannot be reconstructed from the surviving manuscripts. Historical accounts suggest that his performances infused stylistic rhythmic changes, differing from the written versions, which were either inferred by performers or instructed verbally. This is presumed to be similar to the improvisations made by jazz musicians today, although the current practices and idioms are probably vastly different from the ones used by Johnson. He was able to create interesting music, harmonies, and effects that differed from the diatonic harmonies and triadic melodies that were popular at that time. Johnson also performed sacred music at black churches in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. He staged a performance of Creation in March 1841 at the First African Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, and later repeated the performance at a European-American church. Johnson served as a teacher to wealthy European-American students, one of whom wrote that the teacher's studio walls were covered with images of instruments, various instruments could be found around the room, and shelves were laden with thousands of musical collections. The student noted that Johnson's spot for composing contained unfinished manuscripts, with pen and ink ready for use. After Johnson's death, the Frank Johnson Orchestra continued to play under that name led by Joseph Anderson Sr. with music arrangements by Henry F. Williams. Music Musical innovations The Philadelphia Public Ledger newspaper reported that Johnson introduced the extended technique of singing while playing, which has become more common today as a way of providing wind instrumentalists a means of producing harmonies. The use of flute obbligato to imitate the chirping of canaries in his "Bird Waltz" was "so natural that the keenest perception cannot discover the difference." Composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel may have been influenced by Johnson's techniques. The orchestral version of Ravel's "Ma Mère l'Oye" (Mother Goose) features a similar effect in the "Tom Thumb" movement, where flutes depict the chirping birds that steal the breadcrumb trail. The work Philadelphia Fireman's Quadrille astounded audiences as Johnson's bugle was heard to "distinctly cry, 'Fire!' 'Fire!'" Johnson became associated with such dramatic effects, and imitations by his contemporaries were said to be far less effective. Program music