Very Vout (with Bounceroo)

I've archived about fifteen more pieces which brings me to 114.

One of the pieces I archived is the song, "Cement Mixer (Put-ti, Put-ti)", and it has the most bizarre tempo marking.

Very Vout (with Bounceroo)

I watched a video about him, and I can easily see where the Bounceroo comes from. Slim Gaillard is a whimisical sort of piano player, and it makes sense that he would have fun with every aspect of the music, even in the more mundane elements of transcription. And frankly, the beat that piece has is not just bouncy, it's bounceroo-y, though I'm hard pressed to describe what that means totally. I know what it feels like, though!

But what on earth does Vout mean?

Edit: Further research has revealed to me that vout is Slim's form of jive. I can't fully wrap my head around it, so I'll let this website explain it for me.

Still... I guess my question still remains valid. What is a vout tempo?

The Art of Hap Hadley

Amazing! I have sheet music with art done by "Hap" Hadley!

Archive # 101

I amazed because I was under the impression that he primarily did artwork for old silent movies. Unfortunately, that's about all I know about him. I should say, however, that doing a google image search of him will give you a pretty good idea of what he's done.

At first, I was surprised by the lack of color. But, after some thought, I realized that all sheet music is pretty lacking in the color department. Color, attracted the consumer, for sure, but it was also pretty expensive, therefore, you wanted your lithography to have as few layers as possible but still entice the potential buyer.

In any case, I'm incredibly pleased with the find, and I'm in love with the artistic styling of the cover.

On an only semi-related note, the publisher, Harms Incorporated, comes up in my archive only once, with a black and white Spanish piece called "Jalousie". I assume that it wasn't a big name publisher, so I wonder how it got Mr. Hadley. Also, as most publishers have gone, Harms is now apart of Alfred. It's amazing how many companies that place has absorbed.

In which I Am Exceedingly Stupid

Sometimes, I really just don't know what's wrong with me. Why was I subjecting my sheet music to the bright light of a scanner? Apparently, having friends who studied archival, library sciences, and anthropology, and listening to them rant about proper storage techniques, I didn't feel the need to actually practice what they preached, even though I agreed with them.

Stupid me.

Why not just use my digital camera without a flash? It looks just fine, and is legible, which is the part that matters most.

Just look how nicely Alexander's Ragtime Band turned out:

The color is even more true than my scanner. All those wasted hours! I shall never let myself live it down.

Listen: Signs of Spring

I recorded this forever ago, but didn't put it up owing to the fact I seemed to want to ramble on about a million other topics. In any case, this is a very easy song that is written in a huge font, so I imagine it's meant for a beginner. It's a very sweet song, all 43 seconds of it, but the dynamics are a bit counterintuitive. I was tempted to record how I think the dynamics should go, and how they are written, but in the end I decided to let what is written prevail over my hubris.

98 Archived. Random Notes.

As you may have inferred from the title, I have now archived 98 pieces.

After seeing a post on another blog about early American patriotic music, I've decided to dedicate a post to the ones in my stack. I'm a bit late doing it for any special date, since Veteran's Day has passed, but I guess I could say my posts will be in preparation for the anniversary for Pearl Harbor and the Battle of the Bulge next month. Yes... that TOTALLY makes sense...

Anyway, this is my favorite cover from my recent archival efforts:

Archive # 87

I've been avoiding foxtrots up until this point simply because I've never played one before, and I'm a sucker for waltzes. I think it's time to man up*...

*After I finish learning to play the waltz, "On the Shores of Italy" of course.

Adverts

Almost every piece of sheet music has an ad of some sort. This is by far my favorite.

Just Arrived!! Get them NOW!

A Zepp-Load of Zippy Uke Ditties brought in by the zephyrs of demand. The Funniest and Most Unique Uke Pblications ever offered the American Ukeist. From the House that gave you "HANK'S EUKADIDLES", "WENDELL HALL'S UKE-SONG and others. Expertly Arranged Books, employing the Popular and Simple System of Diagrammatic Ukulele Chords.

This ad is my favorite for a few reasons:

1. It has an AWESOME design.

2. It keeps saying uke, which I assume is prounounced "yook". However, uke (pronounced oo-kei) in Japanese is the opposite of seme (pronounced sei-mei). Those terms apply to those who are top and bottom in a male/male relationship (it comes from the names for the dominant and submissive positions in judo). So... that sort of makes me laugh.

3. There are grammatical errors, one of which is a forgotten closing apostrophe. Another is that there is an oddly conspicuous sentence fragment. Also, there are so many random capitalizations it would confuse a German. There appears to be no rhyme or reason for it what is capitalized. No matter how I try to rationalize a pattern, nothing really makes sense.

4. The word "Eukadidles" IS. BRILLIANT.

5. All of the Z-words. Zepp-load, zippy, zephyr. You guessed it, this was published in 1924, the heyday of civilian zeppelinry, and about twelve years before the infamous Hindenburg disaster. It's a bit odd to think of a time when zeppelins were cool, instead of death-traps.

Forgetting its Roots

One of my favorite things to do is the read the names on my sheet music.

Some are good ol' fashion American names, though I'd be hard pressed to tell you why I think they are. The rest... well, they are far more fascinating.

I was searching for renditions of Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair by the parlor king, S.C Foster, and on a youtube video the comments were fighting about what nationality the song could best be described by. Irish? American? Irish-American?

Does it matter?

Well, the names on my music say most definitely not.

I wonder when surnames became such a drab affair. Things I that I know. That I don't think odd. Wood. Affleck. Smith. Names whose orthography make sense in a way I can't explain.

Piantadosi - Italian.

Friml- German.

Boguslawski - Polish.

Di Capua - Italian.

Verhey - Dutch, possibly German or Austrian.

I get uncomfortable when people tell me that I "live in America" and "should speak English", and this is largely because this is America... and there is no national language. But also, this is because of the names. My own family tree is populated with Grosts, Albrechts, Hoppes and Schmidts, and it was only until very recently that the German speakers had stopped speaking German. My dad tells me that it started in WWI. Wisconsin, due to its high German population, had always had a strong connection to the Fatherland. After WWI, it broke down a little. WWII killed it. According to him, there were German newspapers as he was growing up, as well as German church services.

Would you find that today in Wisconsin? Not since I've been alive.

Sometimes, I feel like America is in too big a hurry to forget its roots.

I suppose that's why I started this project.

So, then, what is Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair? It's American, of which the Irish play a huge part, of which all of the immigrants play huge part.