The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
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  1. #1

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    Hello,

    This is my first post to this forum.

    Over the last few years, I've made many lead sheets for songs that I like to play, so as not to have to turn pages, especially when recording myself.

    Awhile ago, I decided to make the lead sheets for all of the public domain songs available on the internet (links below). For songs first published in the US, public domain means published before 1926 (in Jan. 2022 it will be before 1927, and so on). So there are some jazz standards that have gone into the public domain, but most of them haven't. For example, for Rodgers and Hart, Manhattan, yes, Bewitched, no.

    They are part of a project of mine that I've uploaded to GitHub: It's a database application called "Songlist" for keeping track of songs. It is especially for my own needs, but I thought it might be useful to others, so I've made it available at GitHub. It contains SQL code for MySQL, a program in C++ and some other things. (I am a programmer by profession.)

    The individual lead sheets in the form of PDF files (A4 format) are located here: Songlist/lead_sheets at main * lfinston/Songlist * GitHub

    I've also put them together into "book form" with tables of contents, indexes and an explanation of the chord symbols used, which should mostly be familiar to users of this forum. I had to divide them into multiple files because the full version is too large to store at GitHub unless I pay for it. However, if you download the package, it's easy to generate the PDF file with all of the lead sheets. I'll put an explanation in the README file in that directory soon and if anyone wants to know, I'll explain it here.

    These are the "divided-up" files:

    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lf...c_domain_1.pdf
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lf...c_domain_2.pdf
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lf...c_domain_3.pdf
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lf...c_domain_4.pdf
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lf...c_domain_5.pdf

    Another document that might be of interest is here:
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lf...all_no_sep.pdf
    It shows what the "songlist" program does with the data in the database.

    The code for setting up the database is included in the package, and of course the source code for the program itself.
    If anyone is interested, the way to get it is like this:

    git clone git@github.com:lfinston/Songlist.git

    Of course, the data entries are for songs that are of interest to me, but the package could easily be adapted to other peoples' needs.

    To save anyone the trouble of looking, a list of the p.d. songs for which I've made lead sheets so far are at the end of this posting. Most but not all of them are jazz standards, or if not standards, then popular songs from between approx. 1890 and 1925.

    I hope someone here finds this useful. Any feedback would be much appreciated.

    Laurence Finston

    April Showers
    Barcarole
    By The Light Of The Silvery Moon
    Carolina in the Morning
    Chicago
    Cup of Coffee, a Sandwich and You, A
    Da geh ich zu Maxim
    Durch die Wälder, durch die Auen
    Five Foot Two, Eyes Of Blue
    Hello! Ma Baby
    How ’Ya Gonna Keep ’Em Down on the Farm?
    I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now
    I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles
    I’m Just Wild About Harry
    It Had to be You
    Là ci darem la mano
    Lied vom dummen Reiter, Das
    Lippen schweigen
    Lob des hohen Verstandes
    Manhattan
    Moonlight Bay
    My Melancholy Baby
    Oiseaux dans les charmille, Les
    Polowetzer Tänze ("Stranger in Paradise")
    Pretty A Girl is Like a Melody, A
    Rheinlegendchen
    Rock-a-Bye Your Baby
    Shine On Harvest Moon
    Somebody Loves Me
    Tico Tico no Fuba
    Toot Toot Tootsie, Goo’bye
    Wer hat das Liedlein erdacht?
    You Made Me Love You
    Last edited by Laurence Finston; 08-23-2021 at 04:05 PM.

  2.  

    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

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    This is a cool project, thanks for sharing your work.

    I think in by 2040 or 2050, enough of the Great American Songbook part of the jazz cannon will be public domain (unless copyright gets extended yet again) that we might see some pretty professional and well-edited free G.A.S. fakebooks.

    Some of the folks in the Musescore community have taken a stab at getting this going using the open source music notation program to produce decent-looking leadsheets that can be transposed to any key as needed (which is a big win for anyone working with vocalists, obviously, and makes life easier in other situations).

    Some Musescore charts for standards that were put up on the public site from 2015-2020 jumped the gun on copyright and have been removed, but you can get an idea of what's possible from this example below, which is public domain--"I'll See You in My Dreams", a favorite of Django-heads and other swing players:

    I'll See You In My Dreams Sheet music for Piano (Solo) | Musescore.com

    There are also a few full piano scores for public domain standards up on the site, such as this sheet music transcription for "I Cried for You". I imagine lots more of these will exist in 20-30 years:

    I Cried for You [piano / vocal sheet music score] Sheet music for Piano, Vocals (Solo) | Musescore.com

  4. #3

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    > This is a cool project, thanks for sharing your work.

    Thanks. My pleasure.

    Thank you for the reference to MuseScore. The examples you posted look nice. I checked and MuseScore is not only open source but also Free Software using the GNU General Public License, version 2.

    I've used MusixTeX for an arrangement of "Laura" but unfortunately I can't post it because the song is still under copyright. The results look good but it is substantially more work than writing out music by hand. I also like the look of hand-written music, although, of course, printed music is easier to read.

    I'm sure you're right that we will be seeing printed fake books of jazz standards and popular songs as they go into the public domain.

    Personally, I'm not really a fan of fake books. For one thing, they usually don't contain the lyrics. Of course, I hardly ever include the lyrics in the lead sheets I write, but they are mostly available on the internet. (I will put this on my "to do" list.) More importantly, fake books mostly don't include the verses. I always include the verses if they are available, unless I really dislike them, which has happened in 2 cases, if I remember correctly. Another problem with fake books is that the musical text is often not reliable. None of my lead sheets are copied from fake books.

    Since my original posting, I've added lead sheets for the following songs:

    Alice Blue Gown
    One I Love Belongs to Somebody Else, The

    In addition, I've written in the chords on the music for the Walter Donaldson song "My Little Bimbo (Down on the Bamboo Isle)" (Sorry about the offensive title) and included it in the appropriate PDF files. The sheet music is from IMSLP and includes diagrams for ukelele chords but no chord symbols.

  5. #4

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    All of your points about the shortcomings of fakebooks are opinions I agree with.

    The "I'll See You In My Dreams" chart actually addresses all of them...lyrics are there, verse is there, even an alternate set chord changes is included in case you want to play it as Django's band did.

    (And for folks looking for fakebooks with lyrics and verses, the Hal Leonard "Jazz Standards Fake Book" and the Chuck Sher "The Standards Real Book" both included verses and lyrics in most cases when they exist.)

    As this material transitions to public domain, a fakebook chart can be created that is much "richer" than commercial charts. We can put in everything, then players can take what they want, and with a few mouse clicks, throw away the rest, if it gets in the way. Even the "bad" verses could come along for the ride.

    The downside is quality may vary from chart to chart--not everyone will want to take the time to add in the extras, some folks may introduce errors into a chart.

    But the Wikipedia model encourages me...things can get improved by others, and if there's a central repository with some kind of versioning (a la Wikipedia), players in the future might have a great set of charts to work from. And there probably will be multiple charts of most songs floating around, so some kind of community rating would be helpful. (Musescore.com has this, though who knows how long that particular site will be around.) Different editors might get reputations for high-quality "editions" of any given song.

    Musescore definitely has a learning curve, but there are some users who are incredibly fast with it. This user linked below, "Œnanthic", publishes several multi-page public domain piano scores a month (lots of ragtime, early pop, and turn-of-the-century "parlor piano" pieces)--a lot more work per score than the average lead sheet, and the quality of his work seems pretty high. He gives me hope that a few younger, jazz-obsessed versions of him will emerge for leadsheets.

    Œnanthic | Free sheet music | Download PDF or print on Musescore.com
    Last edited by 44lombard; 09-02-2021 at 04:45 PM.

  6. #5

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    The lead sheets at Musescore definitely look nice and the idea with the add-ons is good, too. I'm not trying to do anything comparable to the Musescore project. Basically, I'm just making my personal stuff (software and public domain lead sheets) available, if anyone cares to use them.

    > Even the "bad" verses could come along for the ride.

    I didn't skip the verse on any of the p.d. songs. I did skip the verse of "Two Sleepy People", which I dislike so much I didn't even want to write it down. I thought I'd skipped the verse of "This Can't Be Love" but I didn't; I just don't play it very often.

    On the other hand, I like the verse of "The Man I Love" better than the refrain.

    As far as transposition is concerned, I'm a little old-fashioned. I think it's worthwhile learning to transpose at sight. I also don't find it hard to transpose when playing by ear; one just has to find the right place to start. However, I do see the use of being able to transpose music with software.

  7. #6

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    I've used MuseScore enough to get to where it is faster than working by hand, much faster actually.

  8. #7

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    The original sheets are interesting - WC Handy has St Louis is on IMSLP.org, which is largely a classical public domain site

    Category:Handy, W. C - IMSLP: Free Sheet Music PDF Download.

    Also some old samba
    Categoryonga - IMSLP: Free Sheet Music PDF Download

  9. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by Laurence Finston
    Hello,

    This is my first post to this forum.

    Over the last few years, I've made many lead sheets for songs that I like to play, so as not to have to turn pages, especially when recording myself.

    Awhile ago, I decided to make the lead sheets for all of the public domain songs available on the internet (links below). For songs first published in the US, public domain means published before 1926 (in Jan. 2022 it will be before 1927, and so on). So there are some jazz standards that have gone into the public domain, but most of them haven't. For example, for Rodgers and Hart, Manhattan, yes, Bewitched, no.

    They are part of a project of mine that I've uploaded to GitHub: It's a database application called "Songlist" for keeping track of songs. It is especially for my own needs, but I thought it might be useful to others, so I've made it available at GitHub. It contains SQL code for MySQL, a program in C++ and some other things. (I am a programmer by profession.)

    The individual lead sheets in the form of PDF files (A4 format) are located here: Songlist/lead_sheets at main * lfinston/Songlist * GitHub

    I've also put them together into "book form" with tables of contents, indexes and an explanation of the chord symbols used, which should mostly be familiar to users of this forum. I had to divide them into multiple files because the full version is too large to store at GitHub unless I pay for it. However, if you download the package, it's easy to generate the PDF file with all of the lead sheets. I'll put an explanation in the README file in that directory soon and if anyone wants to know, I'll explain it here.

    These are the "divided-up" files:

    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lf...c_domain_1.pdf
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lf...c_domain_2.pdf
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lf...c_domain_3.pdf
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lf...c_domain_4.pdf
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lf...c_domain_5.pdf

    Another document that might be of interest is here:
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lf...all_no_sep.pdf
    It shows what the "songlist" program does with the data in the database.

    The code for setting up the database is included in the package, and of course the source code for the program itself.
    If anyone is interested, the way to get it is like this:

    git clone git@github.com:lfinston/Songlist.git

    Of course, the data entries are for songs that are of interest to me, but the package could easily be adapted to other peoples' needs.

    To save anyone the trouble of looking, a list of the p.d. songs for which I've made lead sheets so far are at the end of this posting. Most but not all of them are jazz standards, or if not standards, then popular songs from between approx. 1890 and 1925.

    I hope someone here finds this useful. Any feedback would be much appreciated.

    Laurence Finston

    April Showers
    Barcarole
    By The Light Of The Silvery Moon
    Carolina in the Morning
    Chicago
    Cup of Coffee, a Sandwich and You, A
    Da geh ich zu Maxim
    Durch die Wälder, durch die Auen
    Five Foot Two, Eyes Of Blue
    Hello! Ma Baby
    How ’Ya Gonna Keep ’Em Down on the Farm?
    I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now
    I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles
    I’m Just Wild About Harry
    It Had to be You
    Là ci darem la mano
    Lied vom dummen Reiter, Das
    Lippen schweigen
    Lob des hohen Verstandes
    Manhattan
    Moonlight Bay
    My Melancholy Baby
    Oiseaux dans les charmille, Les
    Polowetzer Tänze ("Stranger in Paradise")
    Pretty A Girl is Like a Melody, A
    Rheinlegendchen
    Rock-a-Bye Your Baby
    Shine On Harvest Moon
    Somebody Loves Me
    Tico Tico no Fuba
    Toot Toot Tootsie, Goo’bye
    Wer hat das Liedlein erdacht?
    You Made Me Love You

  10. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by citizenk74
    Thanks!

  11. #10

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    It is nice to see them hand written. A dying art. You have good penmanship. I don't, which made MuseScore even more af an attractive option.

    Mostly I'm notating my own tunes.
    With MuseScore the ability to copy and paste and easy edits without an eraser is so beneficial. Especially true when adding measures in the middle of a tune already notated.

  12. #11

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    Quote Originally Posted by fep
    It is nice to see them hand written. A dying art. You have good penmanship.
    Thank you. I use the special fountain pen for writing music from the company Star and their black ink. As with anything else, it really helps to use the right tools. My earliest lead sheets are in pencil and after I bought the pen I was using other colors of ink because I'd had bad experiences with black ink with other fountain pens; the particles of pigment are fairly large. Eventually, I tried the black ink from Star and I've had no problems with it. It's a nice, deep black.

    I use their staff paper Nr. 313, which unfortunately only comes in blocks, not loose. I go through a lot of it. The staves on it are a little bigger than on their other kinds of paper which are white and in A4 format. I like the larger papers in manila color but they're not good for copying. It's really good paper, though, and a pleasure to write on. And the staves are really sharply printed.

    I recently discovered that the copiers I was using to scan the lead sheets can scan with 600 dpi. The default is 300 dpi. So the more recent lead sheets have a better resolution.

    I hope that wasn't too much "shop talk".

  13. #12

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    For lead sheets, I like this site: C-jam - New Orleans jambook A-L The notation is for Bb instruments, but it's not hard to transpose. The chord charts are for C instruments, so they can be read directly. The link is for titles beginning with A through L, with a link there to the rest of the tunes.

  14. #13

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    Tonight at midnight, songs published in the US in 1927 will go into the public domain. Of these songs, I have lead sheets for the following ones:

    Ain't She Sweet? by Jack Yellen and Milton Ager

    Bill, words by P.G. Wodehouse and Oscar Hammerstein II (actually just by Wodehouse, according to Hammerstein), music Jerome Kern,
    from the musical "Showboat".

    Make Believe also from Showboat.

    My Blue Heaven by Walter Donaldson and George A. Whiting

    My Heart Stood Still by Rodgers and Hart from the musical "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court".

    Thou Swell also from "Connecticut Yankee"

    All of the other songs from "Showboat" and "Connecticut Yankee" will, of course, also go into the public domain, if they were in the original score. In particular, this includes the song "Can't Help Loving That Man of Mine", for which I may make a lead sheet at some point. However, it unfortunately doesn't include the song "I Still Suits Me", which was sung by Paul Robeson in one of the films of "Showboat", but was not in the original stage version and is not in the vocal score. In fact, I've never been able to find sheet music for this song.

    I have scans of the lead sheets "Ain't She Sweet?" and the two Rodgers and Hart songs and will check them into the Git repository after midnight tonight, if I'm still awake, or tomorrow, if I'm not. Unfortunately, I don't have a scanner and the library where I scan documents is closed until Jan. 2nd. I'll scan the other lead sheets once it's open again.

    It turns out that I missed a couple of songs from 1926 or earlier, for which I have lead sheets. This is a list:

    Baby Face by Benny Davis and Harry Akst
    Somebody Loves Me by Ballard MacDonald and Buddy DeSylva, words, and George Gershwin, music
    Someone to Watch Over Me by George and Ira Gershwin

    I have checked the lead sheets for the first two into the Git repository and updated the generated files:

    Songlist/babyface.pdf at main * lfinston/Songlist * GitHub
    Songlist/smblvsme.pdf at main * lfinston/Songlist * GitHub
    Songlist/all_no_sep.pdf at main * lfinston/Songlist * GitHub
    etc.

    Another notable song from 1926 is "Blue Skies" by Irving Berlin. My sheet music for it doesn't require a page turn, so I haven't made a lead sheet. I may go ahead and do this anyway, or see if IMSLP has the original sheet music from that year.
    Last edited by Laurence Finston; 12-31-2022 at 04:08 AM.

  15. #14

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    Personally, I'm not really a fan of fake books. For one thing, they usually don't contain the lyrics. Of course, I hardly ever include the lyrics in the lead sheets I write, but they are mostly available on the internet. (I will put this on my "to do" list.) More importantly, fake books mostly don't include the verses.

    This is why I buy the Real Vocal books from Hal Leonard. These lead sheets typically include all the verses.

  16. #15

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    I'm not familiar with those. I have lots of songbooks, many of them from Hal Leonard. I also have vocal selections from musicals and some vocal scores. The vocal selections always have chord symbols while the vocal scores never do. There are some songs that are only published in the vocal scores. It's a considerable amount of work to figure out what the chords are and write them in, but I've done this in several cases. Notably, for some songs from Cole Porter's Kiss Me Kate. For Bernstein's scores and the scores by Kurt Weill, that he wrote in Germany, this is very hard. Apparently, the only score from one of his American musicals that is in print is Street Scene, which I ordered some time ago and which finally arrived a couple of weeks ago. However, all of the songs from it that I know are in songbooks with chord symbols. I've made a couple of stabs at songs from "The Three-Penny Opera", but didn't get very far.

    The original published sheet music, which is mostly what's in the songbooks, and the vocal score, if you can get it, generally have the most reliable texts. However, with very few exceptions, the texts are never really reliable. It's interesting that what was actually copyrighted in most cases was a lead sheet; after that, it went through many hands and very few of the composers of popular songs wrote their own arrangements. The way Broadway theater worked, there just wasn't time. Even Bernstein didn't do the arrangements for his Broadway musicals. He did have a lot of input, however, as did other trained musicians, such as Jerome Kern and Frederick Loewe.

    The only songbook I have that doesn't have chord symbols is the Steven Sondheim Songbook. However, I've never really warmed up to Sondheim. I may have done "Comedy Tonight".

    Of course, for all of the classical songs (in the wider sense), I had to figure out the chords (Mozart, Borodin, Strauss, Bizet, maybe a couple of others). That's not very hard, until you get into the late 19th/early 20th century.

  17. #16

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    They are quite good, although they sometimes feature what in my view are extraneous extensions/changes.

    I have the jazz standards volumes 1 through 4 series, plus blues, r&b, rock n' roll vols 1-2, pop, country, and Christmas song versions. As far as I know they don't have show tunes or classical tune versions.

    In any event, congratulations on this very worthy project!

  18. #17

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    Quote Originally Posted by Tim Clark
    They are quite good, although they sometimes feature what in my view are extraneous extensions/changes.
    Hal Leonard is a very good publisher, considering the standard for popular music, which is unfortunately a lot lower than for "classical" music. I'm not always happy with the bindings, but you can't do anything about that.

    I don't know this particular series, but I agree with you in general about extraneous extensions and changes. That's part of what I meant about reliable texts.

    I have the jazz standards volumes 1 through 4 series, plus blues, r&b, rock n' roll vols 1-2, pop, country, and Christmas song versions. As far as I know they don't have show tunes or classical tune versions.
    I don't know of any published lead sheets for classical music. I've done some for arias from opera and operetta. The only songbook with chord symbols that I know of for this kind of music is the vocal selections from Kismet, which I own. For anyone who doesn't know, that was a musical by Robert Wright and George Forrest based on music by Borodin. However, I used the piano reduction of the original from the opera "Prince Igor" for my lead sheet of the song from the Polovetsian Dances that they called "Stranger in Paradise" (with a bridge they composed themselves, which is presumably under copyright). They specialized in adaptations of classical music for Broadway musicals. There may be vocal selections for their "Song of Norway", based on the music of Grieg, but I never bothered to check. I agree with my mother, who said she'd rather hear the originals. Surprisingly enough, "Song of Norway" was also a hit. The whole idea sounds pretty trite to me. And the story of Kismet is unbearably awful, in my opinion.

    I've worked out the harmonies for a number of arias, but in the original, bound books (collections or piano reductions). If there was any interest, I could write them out or find public domain editions at IMSLP, write in the chords, scan them and post them. I've just never gotten much of a response about the lead sheets, not even for the jazz standards, although I see that people regularly download them, or at least view them. People who play jazz don't generally play arias from operas or operettas and conversely, people who play classical music often wouldn't know a chord symbol if it came up and bit them on the leg.

    By the way, a lead sheet for the "Barcarole" from Offenbach's "Tales of Hoffmann" is included among the public domain lead sheets. I asked at IMSLP if they would be interested in the lead sheets but I got a rather unfriendly response. So, it isn't just that there aren't any lead sheets for classical music to speak of, there doesn't appear to be much interest in them.

    In any event, congratulations on this very worthy project!
    Thank you very much and I hope you find something useful to you among the lead sheets, or in some other part of it.

  19. #18

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    By the way, just in case there's any confusion, what I mean by "text" is the musical text, not the lyrics. That's a whole other problem. For them, you really need to hear a recording from that time, because the songbooks often have censored texts. Unfortunately, they started making original cast recordings later than one might think. However, I'm in the lead sheet business and not the lyric business.

  20. #19

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    Happy New Year! I've added the following lead sheets:

    Ain't She Sweet? Songlist/aintsswt.pdf at main * lfinston/Songlist * GitHub

    My Heart Stood Still Songlist/mhrtstst.pdf at main * lfinston/Songlist * GitHub
    (particularly for any cardiologists who might be reading this)

    Thou Swell Songlist/thouswll.pdf at main * lfinston/Songlist * GitHub

    All of the generated files have been updated.

    I'll do Bill, Make Believe and My Blue Heaven tomorrow, when I have access to a scanner again.

    What I meant by the verses was again not the lyrics, but rather the introductory sections that are usually left out when performed or recorded, especially by jazz musicians. They are often 16 bars long, but not always, and aren't always interesting. Sometimes musicians worry about coming up for an introduction to a song, but the verse is the introduction. As I mentioned above (quite some time ago already), I almost always play them, unless I really dislike them.

  21. #20

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    Quote Originally Posted by Laurence Finston
    The only songbook I have that doesn't have chord symbols is the Steven Sondheim Songbook.
    This is incorrect. The Essential Noel Coward Songbook doesn't have chord symbols either. It contains reprints of old sheet music, so this isn't too unusual. It is unusual for music as recent as Sondheim's. The series 100 Years of Popular Music is the source of many of my lead sheets. In the Vol. "1900s", there are several songs without chord symbols. I've lived in Germany for many years and I also have many songbooks for German popular songs of the same era. It's pretty common for them not to have chord symbols. Once you get back to the era of Victor Herbert, it's more likely that there won't be any. Of course, there are none for Gilbert and Sullivan or any of the German (or Austrian) operetta composers.

  22. #21

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    I was visiting your Github account recently (through another thread IIRC) and I was wondering why a TeX-ie like you is not using Lilypond for engraving musical scores.

    LilyPond – Music notation for everyone

    LilyPond - Wikipedia

    The results are much better than MusiXTeX and better than Musescore while not as easy to use as the latter because it is text based. This means a steep learning curve for most, but you seem to be well versed in (plain?) TeX.

    Frohes Neues übrigens!

  23. #22

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    Quote Originally Posted by Bop Head
    I was visiting your Github account recently (through another thread IIRC)
    Could be. I've plugged, I mean drawn attention, to this project elsewhere.

    and I was wondering why a TeX-ie like you is not using Lilypond for engraving musical scores.

    The results are much better than MusiXTeX and better than Musescore while not as easy to use as the latter because it is text based. This means a steep learning curve for most,
    The quick answer is that I'm not doing any computer typesetting of musical scores. I like writing them out by hand and it's faster and easier for me. Certainly faster and easier than MusixTeX. I'm not really familiar with the output of Lilypond. I like MusixTeX and briefly met the author, Daniel Taupin, who died tragically not too long after that. If Lilypond uses a GUI, I'd probably continue using MusixTeX, because it allows one to "program" a score, like TeX allows one to "program" a document.

    but you seem to be well versed in (plain?) TeX.
    Yes, and definitely plain TeX as opposed to LaTeX. I'm also familiar with METAFONT and MetaPost. In fact, in case you or anyone else is interested, I have two articles in the most recent issue of TUGBoat: TUGboat 43:3, 2022 (tb135) - TeX Users Group (under "Graphics"). At that address, they're only available to subscribers, but I've made them available on the The GNU 3DLDF Website :

    An introduction to GNU 3DLDF: https://www.gnu.org/software/3dldf/D...ston-3dldf.pdf

    A graphical ellipse envelope construction with GNU 3DLDF: https://www.gnu.org/software/3dldf/D...on-ellipse.pdf

    GNU 3DLDF is a graphics-related project of mine (which I've now, er, drawn attention to).

    Frohes Neues übrigens!
    Danke, ebenfalls!

  24. #23

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    Quote Originally Posted by Laurence Finston
    [...] If Lilypond uses a GUI, I'd probably continue using MusixTeX, because it allows one to "program" a score, like TeX allows one to "program" a document. [...]
    According to Wikipedia LilyPond was originally developed by two former MusiXTeX developers.

    LilyPond - Wikipedia

    LilyPond does not havea GUI (there is a recommended editor called Frescobaldi). Similar to TeX and its derivatives like LaTeX and ConTeXt (which i use sometimes) the engraving is rendered from a *.ly textfile. There are examples for as well the text input as well as the compiled output further down in the wiki article.

  25. #24

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    Thanks for the link. I would certainly consider LilyPond, if I was ever going to typeset a score again. I just don't have any application for it at the present time. I'm more concerned with making recordings right now.

    It absolutely doesn't pay for me to typeset the lead sheets. I make them for my own use and am glad to make the public domain ones available in case anyone else might find them useful but I'm sure not going to go to the effort of typesetting them. The jury is still out on the question of whether it pays to post them or not. I mean, whether anyone finds them useful. I neither need nor want donations for any of my projects and don't solicit them.

    Returning to LilyPond, I'm nonetheless always interested in what's available and I may need to typeset another score someday, so it's good to know.

  26. #25

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    I've now checked the remaining songs for 2023 into the Git repository:

    From "Showboat":

    Bill: Songlist/bill.pdf at main * lfinston/Songlist * GitHub

    Make Believe: Songlist/makebelv.pdf at main * lfinston/Songlist * GitHub

    [Not from Showboat:]

    My Blue Heaven: Songlist/mybluhvn.pdf at main * lfinston/Songlist * GitHub

    I've updated everything that needed to be updated and created new versions of the generated files. So that's probably it for 2023. In 2024, the following songs for which I have lead sheets will go into the public domain:

    Button Up Your Overcoat
    Let's Do It
    Love Me or Leave Me
    Lover Come Back to Me
    Makin' Whoopee!
    She's Funny That Way
    Stardust
    When You're Smiling
    You Took Advantage of Me

    So definitely some good ones. Cole Porter, Walter Donaldson, Sigmund Romberg, Hoagy Carmichael and Rodgers and Hart. A couple of others whose composers I don't know off-hand. But definitely approaching more familiar territory. See you next year, maybe!