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FOREWORD
Your scientific men but seldom have much music in their souls, and concerning this Shakespere grows severe. Notwithstanding Shakespere, we shall forgive these unmelodious folk, since it is probably they who enable us to live to enjoy that which the scientist more or less disregards.
Since music is the temperamental pulse of a people, this collection of songs that every child should know may be accepted as a revelation as well as an entertainment. The songs have been selected not especially for their technical musical value, but by reason of several things. Many of the songs included here are almost without musical value; but when they have not music to commend them, they are at least a reflection of a time or period in the musical development of a nation; or they have been included here for that nameless quality which results in popularity. One and all, they are songs that every child should know.
If Mozart has been chosen for his loveliness, Dibdin and other English song-makers for their exuberance or superlative good health, or the Irish for a whimsical plaintiveness, so, also, could we wish to include " rag-time," because it may be honored as an extreme study in syncopation which has at one time prevailed in a certain locality. The omission |
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