Our Singing Country

Complete Text, Lyrics & Sheet Music

	Music Preface
	continue without break throughout an entire song, regardless of ex­tended or contracted tones or rests in the voice. (The duration of the short interlude has, as often as possible, been included in the notation— either in the form of rests (as in "Pretty Polly") or of long held tones (as in "The White House Blues"). It is more or less typical of that found between other stanzas throughout the song. For obvious reasons, durations of the longer interludes have not been indicated.) 14. Remember that most songs which begin with the chorus end with the chorus. In these as in all others, the end of the song is indicated by the heavy double bar* 1$. Do not "sing down" to the songs. Theirs are old traditions, dignified by hundreds of thousands of singers over long periods of time. 16. Listen to phonograph recordings of these songs and others like them. Ill EXPLANATION OF TERMS AND SIGNS The tunes have been transposed to a range suitable for medium voice. The original pitch of the last tone of each tune, as given by the duplicate disc used for transcribing, has been indicated at the beginning of the headnote to each song> by means of a letter in italics (see Explanation of Headnotes, page xxv). Keys of more than three sharps or-flats have been avoided. Excepting the part-songs, all tunes are represented in the G or treble clef, with which the general reader is most likely to be familiar. For simplicity in reading, instrumental notation has been used in place of vocal (as, for instance, instead ofwhen more than one tone is sung to a single syllable of text, this is indicated by a slur (as1). As often as space per- mits, the linage of the music follows the linage of the words (see "Lolly Too-Dum"). Key signature Most of the readers of this book will have been taught to sight-read in the conventional major and minor modes, and to judge the key (and hence, the tonic or key-tone) from the key signature at the beginning of the nota­tion. In these notations, therefore, that key signature has been chosen for each song which will enable the reader most easily to locate its tonic or key-tone. In tunes of 4, 5, 6, or 7 scale degrees, which do not employ, or [xxi]