wings and may
Quick: what arranger has more arrangements published in sheet music than any other person in history?
Give up? Try May Singhi Breen. She wrote the ukulele tabs that appeared on an astonishing majority of sheet music in the 20s and 30s. Rather than telling you what chord you're playing, the tabs are diagrams that simply show you where you should put your fingers on the four strings. Somehow, she convinced publishers that putting ukulele tabs above the written piano music would be a great idea. She achieved total market domination.
I'm finding all this out because Texas Public Radio has commissioned me to do an arrangement of the Love Theme from "Wings," the 1927 film that won the first Oscar. They're tying it in with the current pledge drive. So I'm looking at the original sheet music, cool old fonts and all. What's interesting to me at this point in history is that the music doesn't have chords written above the notes: just uke tabs. To a jazz and pop musician, this makes the music look like a snappily dressed person with no eyes.
So, in the heading, right along with the name of the composer (J. S. Zamecnick) and lyricist (Ballard Macdonald) appears the credit:
That credit appears on thousands of pieces of sheet music, from an era in which sheet music was the way most people heard most popular music on demand. Movies often introduced songs; radio played them, and more and more people in the 20s had radio; but sheet music was how you got to know a piece. You could play it in better-than-Victrola (actually, better-than-CD) quality on your piano. Or ukulele.
So I brushed up on my augmented chords, did a bit of surgery here and there, and turned out a non-uke version for TPR.
Give up? Try May Singhi Breen. She wrote the ukulele tabs that appeared on an astonishing majority of sheet music in the 20s and 30s. Rather than telling you what chord you're playing, the tabs are diagrams that simply show you where you should put your fingers on the four strings. Somehow, she convinced publishers that putting ukulele tabs above the written piano music would be a great idea. She achieved total market domination.
I'm finding all this out because Texas Public Radio has commissioned me to do an arrangement of the Love Theme from "Wings," the 1927 film that won the first Oscar. They're tying it in with the current pledge drive. So I'm looking at the original sheet music, cool old fonts and all. What's interesting to me at this point in history is that the music doesn't have chords written above the notes: just uke tabs. To a jazz and pop musician, this makes the music look like a snappily dressed person with no eyes.
So, in the heading, right along with the name of the composer (J. S. Zamecnick) and lyricist (Ballard Macdonald) appears the credit:
Ukulele Arr. by
MAY SINGHI BREEN
"THE UKULELE LADY"
MAY SINGHI BREEN
"THE UKULELE LADY"
That credit appears on thousands of pieces of sheet music, from an era in which sheet music was the way most people heard most popular music on demand. Movies often introduced songs; radio played them, and more and more people in the 20s had radio; but sheet music was how you got to know a piece. You could play it in better-than-Victrola (actually, better-than-CD) quality on your piano. Or ukulele.
So I brushed up on my augmented chords, did a bit of surgery here and there, and turned out a non-uke version for TPR.
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