Special Finds- Music Books From Decades Past that you can still get today!

 I just wanted to share some special finds that have come up over the past 4 years either hidden away in a file cabinet at my school, or found at an antique store.  All of the books mentioned in this post are AT LEAST 35 years old- the oldest is almost 100.

Starting with the oldest, I got for Easter last year (2012) this Third Year Music from from the Hollis Dan Music Course, published in 1915. My mom found it hidden away in a resale shop for $3.99.  The book is split into ROTE singing songs (with accompaniments for the teachers), and SIGHT-SINGING songs.   The sight-singing songs are mostly diatonic, but also typically move stepwise.  Some have lyrics with them, and some just the starting solfegge. (I use them more for 5th grade and 6th).   Some of the songs are cross-curricular and some are used to teach specific pitches or musical concepts, while others just have fun lyrics (many are about or mention fairys) :)  This a great little book- so great, in fact, that it was reprinted last year! You can get all the levels on Amazon here.

The next oldest is the Fireside Book of Folk Songs edited by Margaret Bradford Boni, published in 1947.  This one was found hidden in the back of a filing cabinet in my classroom- a gift from a professor to the past music teacher at my school .  It is split into a few chapters: Ballads and Old Favorites, Work Songs, Marching Songs and Songs of Valor, Christmas Carols, and Old Hymns and Spirituals.  There is also an index in the back listing songs in alphabetical order by song title AND first line.  I recognized a a lot of the songs in this book, unlike the Hollis Dan one- where I didn't recognize any.  All of the songs have the melody as well as a simple accompaniment part.  This book is available on AMAZON if you want to check it out.


Sing It Yourself is a book of 220 Pentatonic American Folk Songs, published in 1978.  This book splits the songs up by the range- it starts with songs with notes in the range of a third or fourth, and goes all the way up to songs with a range of a tenth or 11th.  There is also a song index and a subject index.  many Kodaly favorites are in this book.  There are no games listed- but it does give a list of sources and place of origin for all songs.  Amazon sells this one both in paper back AND as a kindle version! Get it here.


All three of these books I try to use as often as I can.  I have analyzed songs from all of them and put them into my folk-song collection to teach a variety of musical concepts.