Vintage Sheet Music

At last, some "notes" from A Woman of Notes. You were wondering about that ... weren't you?

These are some of my Nanna's old piano pieces, which were by our piano as I was growing up, and are in our music cupboard now. Some of them are just beautiful. This is one of my favourites:

I love the tinted photo of the girl on the cover, and the rose frame. This song dates from 1921 and boasts "Ukulele Accompaniment". Well that's fine, at least one ukulele here. maybe two.

I love how they advertised other pieces in the centre margin of the music.

This is another favourite cover, I'm tempted to frame it:

And the music itself? Well it seems that the fashion of the day was the "chime effect" - chords made up of 6 or 8 notes rolled upwards and moving parallel to create the sound of chimes. Hmmm not really my style ... but it is lovely to play them and think that Nanna once played them and loved them. And guess what? I just found a site where you can hear these songs here.

Nanna signed her name on the front of each one. And what is not to love about the publisher's label?

Today the girls and I bought flute music, and they begged for High School Musical. I was reluctant to buy music from one movie, which will date. But even as I walked around the shop I remembered my own sheet music from my teenage years ... Man from Snowy River, Chariots of Fire, Star Wars, The Rainbow Connection ... maybe it is not such a bad idea after all ... music carries such memories in its melodies. But instead we found a big book of flute melodies from Disney to the Beatles to jazz to Broadway, and ... as it turned out ... even a song from High School Musical. So we were all happy. Lots of fluting going on here.