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Thread: The US government has tunes

  1. #1

    Default The US government has tunes

    Here are Civil War era tunes. I can't read music very well anymore but maybe you can.

    https://www.loc.gov/collections/civil-war-sheet-music/

    And if you cut off the civil war sheet music from the URL there are more things.

    https://www.loc.gov/collections

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  3. #2
    Mando accumulator allenhopkins's Avatar
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    Default Re: The US government has tunes

    We sometimes forget what an amazing resource the Library of Congress is. I've enjoyed listening for years to the singing of Joe Hickerson, who was billed as "the man who knows more folk songs than anyone." No surprise: he was librarian of the Folk Song Archive of the Library of Congress!

    Think of all the collectors who recorded and documented traditional blues, hillbilly, ethnic, and regional music for the Library of Congress, and what we've preserved and passed on as a result. Also, consider that for copyright purposes, as well as archival, nearly every piece of music composed in the US ends up in the Library of Congress. Between the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian, we have governmentally-supported archives of our musical traditions, on which we can draw for material -- and for inspiration.

    Fashionable as it is to say that "government can't do anything right," this is one area where the US government has done lovers of music a great service.
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    Still Picking and Sawing Jack Roberts's Avatar
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    Default Re: The US government has tunes

    I just printed out "I'm Blind" and am adding it to my playlist.
    Ha, ha! keep time: how sour sweet music is,
    When time is broke and no proportion kept!
    --William Shakespeare

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    poor excuse for anything Charlieshafer's Avatar
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    Default Re: The US government has tunes

    Quote Originally Posted by Jack Roberts View Post
    I just printed out "I'm Blind" and am adding it to my playlist.
    I'm doing the same with "Angel Mother, I'm Coming Home" only because of the novelty aspect of it being sung by a dead soldier. The amount of sheet music that was published by all the publishers during those years through the 30's is astonishing. I'm not even sure that one person in an entire lifetime could go through it all and pick out the hidden gems.

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    Still Picking and Sawing Jack Roberts's Avatar
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    Default Re: The US government has tunes

    Quote Originally Posted by Charlieshafer View Post
    I'm doing the same with "Angel Mother, I'm Coming Home" only because of the novelty aspect of it being sung by a dead soldier. The amount of sheet music that was published by all the publishers during those years through the 30's is astonishing. I'm not even sure that one person in an entire lifetime could go through it all and pick out the hidden gems.
    When I was a young man, there was a great musician, Herbert Khaury, who made it his life's work to learn the Great American Song Book of tunes from 1890 to the '40s. He hit it big as "Tiny Tim" playing "Tiptoe Through the Tulips". I have always admired Tiny Tim and his efforts to keep older tunes alive and bring back some of the great forgotten music of the past.

    I get a lot of pleasure after learning a really fun tune from some obscure internet or printed source and then googling it and finding there is no recorded version of it anywhere. No youtube version, nothing. These aren't the kind of tunes you can call out at a jam session, but they are very rewarding to learn. Music lives on as long as someone keeps playing it.
    Ha, ha! keep time: how sour sweet music is,
    When time is broke and no proportion kept!
    --William Shakespeare

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