Sheet Music as Graphic Art
Until around the middle of the last century, a very significant portion of popular music consumption involved buying sheet music and having your talented child play it on the spinet in the parlor. The covers of these pieces were often graphically arresting, for obvious purposes--the gaudier the cover, the more it stood out from the competition. They were the LP sleeves of their day, and were often quite creative with a one- or two-color pass over black type. Here is a random selection of sheet music my mother accrued throughout her long life. I'm scanning these before tossing them out, and before you call me a soulless philistine and culture killer, please keep in mind a few things: These are all originals, some date back into the 1930s and may have been printed in the 20s. They are disintegrating as we speak. Piano reductions, as nearly all sheet music of the popular songs of the day were, are nearly always terrible representations of the song--the melody has to be included, a