I've a particular fondness for Tin Pan Alley, Ragtime and similar songs from the Edwardian era through to the start of WWII, often considered to include many of the tunes most associated with the ukulele. These are songs you'll have heard covered by all manner of artists, including Cliff Edwards, Tiny Tim and Leon Redbone, the sheet music for which often includes ukulele chords.
Ian Chadwick's excellent digital collection formed a solid backbone for my own, after which I've bought numerous copies of sheet music, both physical and digital, downloaded from archives such as the Levy Collection and picked things up from various ukulele groups. What I'm looking for now are published (or curated) books/collections of music from roughly the above period (I was mortified to find that a search for "vintage music" brought back 1970s tunes…), thinking that a good collection is likely to contain songs I don't know or haven't thought of searching for individually.
One frequent problem is something common to fake books and publications like The Daily Ukulele: severely shortened versions. It's been normal to make changes to the tunes right back from their first publication (listen to a few Cliff Edwards numbers and compare the recordings to the sheet) but fake books and ukulele group collections almost always cut the intro section, admittedly often with good reason, and ideally I'd like to find the songs presented as originally written. Chords would be massively helpful as I don't read music (although I'm looking to change that).
Any suggestions?
Ian Chadwick's excellent digital collection formed a solid backbone for my own, after which I've bought numerous copies of sheet music, both physical and digital, downloaded from archives such as the Levy Collection and picked things up from various ukulele groups. What I'm looking for now are published (or curated) books/collections of music from roughly the above period (I was mortified to find that a search for "vintage music" brought back 1970s tunes…), thinking that a good collection is likely to contain songs I don't know or haven't thought of searching for individually.
One frequent problem is something common to fake books and publications like The Daily Ukulele: severely shortened versions. It's been normal to make changes to the tunes right back from their first publication (listen to a few Cliff Edwards numbers and compare the recordings to the sheet) but fake books and ukulele group collections almost always cut the intro section, admittedly often with good reason, and ideally I'd like to find the songs presented as originally written. Chords would be massively helpful as I don't read music (although I'm looking to change that).
Any suggestions?
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