Please note that this songbook is available only in the USA. We can not ship Pooh Songs outside the United States.
The writings of the timeless children's book series about Christopher Robin's lovable teddy bear, Winnie-the-Pooh, are now available in the first of three dulcimer tab books containing arrangements of poems from A.A. Milne's first Pooh book, When We Were Very Young, and set to music by H. Fraser-Simson in 1924.
Volumes Two and Three (release date TBA) will contain more musical settings of poems from Milne's other writings, including Winnie-the-Pooh and Now We Are Six.
Each song has been lovingly and carefully arranged for mountain dulcimer from Fraser-Simson's original piano music, and includes all the lyrics from the original poems. The original illustrations were done by E.H. Shepard, and are the same ones used throughout Milne's first book.
Fraser-Simson set 14 songs to music in his own first Pooh music book, Fourteen Songs from 'When We Were Very Young,' but I was inspired to try to write music in the exact same style, using some poems Fraser-Simson had skipped. Those songs are "Twinkletoes" and "The Doctor and the Dormouse."
The book has 16 songs in all, each one of varying levels of difficulty, but certainly suitable for intermediate players and up. The lyrics are written between the melody and tab lines, making it easy for you to perform these in any setting you choose. More lengthy poems either have the lyrics on adjacent pages, or are in a stretched-out version of the song over several pages. One does not need to be a singer to enjoy sharing these songs with others -- my own style of performing is to speak-sing the songs, much as if I were simply reciting the poetry while playing some musical background. (Rex Harrison did the same when he was cast as Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady.)
A special feature of this book is the availability of supplemental materials on a special page on the arranger's website. There you'll find videos of recent YouTube postings, and some demonstrations of how to play the tricky bits. Visit http://www.musicladycarol.com/poohsongs.html for these supplemental materials.
43 pages.
