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Posted by: Pat Padua
In the Muse hopes our readers in the Northern Hemisphere are having an enjoyable summer. Things have been hot in Washington, and Morris S. Silver and Tom Confare’s “Sunbeam,” from the Historic Sheet Music, 1800-1922 collection in the Performing Arts Encyclopedia, may provide cool solace in the form of song. This illustration of a demonic sun — undoubtedly a …
Posted in: Sheet Music, Sheet Music of the Week, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
Composer Albert Gumble’s most popular song was “Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm,” but his IMDB entry has a surprising series of credits: more than a dozen cartoon and comedy shorts, including the Bugs and Daffy vehicle “Duck! Rabbit! Duck!” These soundtrack listings come from Gumble and Bryan’s “Winter,” a popular musical cue for snowy cartoon scenes. The …
Posted in: Sheet Music, Sheet Music of the Week, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
The following is a guest post from Senior Cataloging Specialist Sharon McKinley. Ah, Bastille Day! It’s a holiday that has such a nice, dramatic ring to it. It commemorates the 1790 Fête de la Fédération, held on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. And for some reason, über-French though it may …
Posted in: Guest bloggers, Holidays, Sheet Music, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
The following is a guest post by Senior Cataloging Specialist Sharon McKinley. Elias Howe (July 9, 1819-Oct. 3, 1867) was the recipient, in 1846, of the first American patent for a sewing machine using a lockstitch design. The new machines revolutionized the garment industry, giving rise to sweatshops, and ultimately to the International Ladies Garment Workers …
Posted in: Guest bloggers, Sheet Music, Sheet Music of the Week, Special Collections, Theater
Posted by: Pat Padua
In the Muse wonders how it got to be July already. To mark the latest turn of the calendar page, we present the most viewed blog posts from June 2011. Thanks to Elizabeth Fulford Miller for providing web metrics. And now, from our home office atop Independence Avenue, the top eleven blog posts for June …
Posted in: Pic of the Week, Sheet Music, Sheet Music of the Week, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
The following is a guest post by Senior Cataloging Specialist Sharon McKinley. The average person might think that cataloging is a dull job, but it most certainly isn’t here in the Music Division! Okay, so the umpteenth biography of Justin Bieber may get a bit old, but one of our primary jobs is making the …
Posted in: Guest bloggers, Newly Cataloged, Sheet Music, Sheet Music of the Week, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
On this day in 1924, Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act, which granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the United States. In the Muse remembers this day with American Indian Melodies, one of the first publications by the Wa-Wan Press. Arthur Farwell, who harmonized the traditional melodies, founded the imprint in 1901 as …
Posted in: Sheet Music, Sheet Music of the Week, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
The results of last week’s World Beard and Mustache Championship provides a hirsute backdrop to this week’s featured sheet music. Our esteemed colleagues at the Smithsonian Archives of American Art occasionally blog the praises of historical facial hair, and In the Muse has previously noted the Flickr meme, Great Mustaches of the Library of Congress . …
Posted in: Composers, Sheet Music, Sheet Music of the Week, Special Collections
Posted by: Pat Padua
The following is a guest post by Melanie Guitreaux, Reader Services. Louis Moreau Gottschalk (May 8, 1829 – December 18, 1869) was a Creole composer and performer who combined the syncopated music of Louisiana and the Caribbean in a manner that anticipated ragtime and jazz. As a child growing up in New Orleans, Gottschalk experienced many …
Posted in: Guest bloggers, Sheet Music, Sheet Music of the Week, Special Collections