Customer Reviews

The American Song Treasury: 100 Favorites (Dover Song Collections)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When my little girl was born, I found myself trying to remember the words to all of the songs I used to sing with my family when I was growing up. My memory just couldn't come up with some (most!) of them, though. Fortunately, this book has them all: Sweet Betsey From Pike, Oh Susanna, I've Been Working on the Railroad, Bicycle Built for Two, She'll be Comin' Round the Mountain, and so many more. What's even better is that the book also contains standard sheet music with each song, plus guitar chords, plus a brief history of each song. A great find and one I'm so glad I bought!

This book was originally published in 1964 and includes some (now nostalgic) references to typing up and making carbon copies of lyrics and such. I don't mind that it hasn't been updated.

A great collection of songs with some nice historical background. Includes very simple piano arrangements with chords identified above the piano notation, along with diagrams for chords on the guitar. Some songs are followed by words for several verses. The emphasis seems to be on encouraging everyone to sing in unison. Those who want to sing a harmony part may need to invent their own.

It's a fairly thick book. I wish it came in a sturdy spiral-bound version.

I highly recommend this songbook, not only for the 100 wonderful songs, but also for the introduction to each song. Though each intro is brief, each tells a bit about the author or the song or the times in which it became popular. A great potpourri of Americana!

This is an excellent book. The editor writes in his introduction that most of the arrangments are at the Grade II level, and I am able to sight read pretty much everything here. Still, it all sounds awesome. These songs are so much fun to play it's almost a guilty pleasure, and each one includes an interesting and informative introduction of its own. I am really enjoying the chance to rediscover some of this music which I haven't heard in years. The only criticism I have would be directed at the publishers, because the book is difficult to keep flat on the music stand, and the newsprint or the ink has an unpleasant smell.

This is a very nice collection of classic American songs, arranged chronologically with a little introduction. I wanted a book like this as I'm just learning to play the guitar - I liked that it has the chord fingerings right in the song. My one complaint is minor - hopefully soon I'll be a better guitar player and this won't matter, but a lot of songs are in the key of F which I find a tricky chord still. I had to transpose lots of the songs into D or G or something else I could handle better.

This is probably the best bargain you'll ever run into. I got it under a week ago and am still swooning at how many new things I've learned in so short of time. I play a Les Paul Standard electric guitar, but have gotten rusty over the years. This songbook has completely reawakened my interest in the instrument as well as in singing. I have no idea if it works well for pianists, but can vouch that it's one of the best guitar books I've ever encountered.

Ages ago, I would pick up a songbook of some sort or other, and I (like many people) got used to finding all kinds of errors or cheesy chord approximations. This book has nothing but good stuff throughout. If you don't believe me, try playing Cohan's "You're a Grand Old Flag" exactly as shown. The inversions there are brilliant, especially if you use a plectrum and alternate the bass notes in a Luther Perkins style. There are several places where these lower notes within the chords quite magically provide a wonderful counterpoint to what the voice is doing.

As a rough estimate, I'd say that I want to learn at least 80 of these songs---that's how good the selection is and how rich the arrangements are. Even if I never play these songs for anyone, I'll be learning valuable guitar and vocal techniques, I think. Just as one example, there are tons of guitarists who dink around with nothing more than a small collection of major and minor chords. But this book is filled with tons of neat chords you might never run into otherwise. Even if you're familiar with diminished and augmented chords, I predict you'll find something here you've never seen before. As one example, I found a wild one in "After the Ball is Over" which I recognized by ear but had never played before (anyone for a C-seventh with a flatted fifth?) And there's lots of others. Someone ought to make a list of every guitar chord used in this collection.

So, what I'm getting at is that this is a fantastic book for learning valuable guitar technique in the context of songs you probably already know unconsciously or from childhood. My interests lie primarily in acid rock and hard rock from the sixties, but seriously this is the book I'm getting the most out of.

Finally, I've just got to comment on what a couple other reviewers have mentioned. First, the key of F makes sense guitar-wise for many of these songs. A brief strum-though will show you why; the various open chords used sound ideal and aren't some sort of chintzy approximation. And then, one person complained that the book won't lie flat on the music stand. Well, notice the emblem on the top-left of the cover. It reads: "Lay Flat, Sewn Binding." That says it all. This book, like everything from Dover is a quality production using sewn signatures throughout. (I've done business with Dover for nearly forty years, first as a mathematician, then as magician and now as a musician). Do the old thing we all learned in grade school a half-century ago, where you break in a new book by degrees. Anyway, it lies flat on my music stand perfectly well so I don't know what this person was seeing. As for an odor, well, I have an overly acute sense of smell and haven't noticed anything untoward. My suggestion would be not to store it by the kitty litter box in between rehearsals.

Whew! This turned out longer than I expected. But I'm so enamored with the book that I wanted to share my delight with others (my first review ever for Amazon).

In a nutshell, this is the perfect guitar songbook for learning the instrument, I think. And at a bargain price, too.

I use this book frequently. I enjoy the song selection and the included histories about each song. The downside for me is that the songs span across several pages. Often, you can't read the extra verse lyrics without turning the page, so then the chords that go along with them are on the previous page. I've had to rewrite the chords on the following pages for many of these songs. The key selections were poorly chosen for guitarists. Many of the songs require constant barring (for example from F to B-flat) through the entire song. It would have been much better for guitarists to write the song changing from E to A. You an always transpose them yourself, but this is one more hand writing homework task that this book will put you through.

Overall, I recommend the book for the songs and stories, but just wanted people to be prepared for the extra work required to make it a functional songbook for performance.
If you want a book that is created with the performing musician in mind, I recommend the spiral-bound versions of: Rise Up Singing: The Group Singing Songbook [RISE UP SINGING -LP REVISE] [LARGE PRINT] or The Great Family Songbook: A Treasury of Favorite Folk Songs, Popular Tunes, Children's Melodies, International Songs, Hymns, Holiday Jingles and More for Piano and Guitar..

This a book of music we all grew up (if your in your 50s or 60s) loving in easy keys for almost any instrument. I keep coming back to it.

This collection has a nice historical introduction to each piece and the songs are presented in chronological order. The songs are well chosen and pleasant. As a pianist I found the arrangements to be quite simple, but nonetheless, enjoyable. I have to say, there is little music out there that is better than early American music, and this book is a nice foray into early America.

It seems to me that people don't sing around the piano as much as they did years ago. Americans are losing their connection to music their grandparents sang from memory. This book helps to keep alive musical oral histories by sharing the music and words in print. Thank you.