National News

OW OFTEN DO you hear a tune, or a line from prediction in 1910, The Battle’s On or Prohibition’s Bound a song, that rekindles personal associations? to Win, failed to eventuate. The Sentimental Bloke, Ginger H The richness of expression and meaning of music Meggs, Ned Kelly, Don Bradman, Skippy, Australia’s first can reach deep into our collective and personal memories at Holden, Aunty Jack, Johnny O’Keefe, Bananas in Pyjamas, a layer beyond words. Sheet music, in particular, can tell us The Boy from Oz: this cast of ratbags, rogues, idols, icons much about our past: what we valued; what we thought; how and national heroes are all immortalised in sheet music. we felt about important national events; whom we loved on The historical and artistic significance of these items is stage, radio, screen or on the sporting field; what we adver- captured in The Collector’s Book of Sheet Music Covers tised and sold through the medium of music; and how, when (NLA, 2001) and in the National Library exhibition Between and where we sang, danced, played or listened together. the Sheets, soon to tour regional Australia. The National The National Library holds more than 50,000 pieces of Library has also embarked on a major digitisation programme Australian sheet music as part of its collection of 200,000 to provide online access to its Australian sheet music. Over music items. The Library collects, 3500 items of Australian sheet holds and individually preserves music published before 1930 will ‘mint condition’ copies of all music be available through the National currently published in Australia, by Library’s website by mid-year, Australians or which are related to bringing this wonderful cultural Australia. But the National Library heritage to all Australians. View- also ‘hunts and gathers’ post-1830 ing the digitised music items is as treasures that, through serendipity, close as possible to the experience have survived those traditional of handling the original paper items: repositories: the piano stool or the users can turn pages, jump from box in the shed. Personal owner- front to back cover, or navigate to ship is often recorded on copies particular pages within a score. complete with hand-stitched bind- The Library is also assisting ing, scribbles, annotations, coffee other organisations, including state stains, even ripped edges. Each libraries and the Australian Music item betrays its own story — who Centre, to provide their music scores wrote it, performed it and made and audio recordings online so that it popular; who bought, sold and music can be found and accessed used it; who kept it and even, per- through a new cooperative web haps, loved it. In the days before service. Based on the phenom- television, sheet music was also enally successful PictureAustralia, a prime vehicle for advertisements, MusicAustralia is being jointly so perhaps we can add — those developed by the National Library who were the target of an earlier age and ScreenSound Australia, of marketing. Waltzing Matilda, for the National Screen and Sound example, was first issued in 1903 to Archive. MusicAustralia will move advertise ‘Billy Tea’, with Banjo from pilot to production mode in Paterson’s words changed to ‘billy boiling’ to reflect the late 2003, with users ultimately able to access and navigate product. a rich store of information on Australian music, musicians, The National Library’s collection includes historical organisations and services from a single access point. gems. Perhaps the Australian cricket team might consider Perhaps even more Australians will learn to value the adopting as its theme song Warren Russell’s 1896 Hurrah for extent to which music has recorded, expressed and reflected the Bat & Ball: The Universal Cricket Song. Taxpayers the breadth of culture we call ‘Australian’. And perhaps we might feel that Jack Lumsdaine’s wonderful Banish the Budget might all finally learn the words of Advance Australia Fair! Blues (1930) is as pertinent today as it was in Scullin’s day. The citizens of Gundagai might claim that The Road to www.nla.gov.au/digicoll/ Gundagai is the most famous song about a town, but www.musicaustralia.org hundreds of other location songs can rival it. School students www.pictureaustralia.org might be shocked by the Anglocentrism of the earliest versions of our national anthem, Advance Australia Fair, and Robyn Holmes, Curator of Music, National Library of Australia many will be glad that Ella Southworth Clark’s confident Marie-Louise Ayres, Project Manager, MusicAustralia

Archived at Flinders University: dspace.flinders.edu.au AUSTRALIAN BOOK REVIEW MARCH 2003 53