Intermediate
Aloha Oe Syncopated Waltz
2:28
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Browse piano sheets by Will B. Morrison on Zen Virtual Piano. Will B. Morrison, who published as W. B. Morrison, was an Indianapolis-area composer, publisher and arranger. He was born in rural Seymour, Indiana. He had the capability to notate and arrange music. As early as the late 1890s Morrison was clerking in a music store, and the 1900 enumeration recorded him as a music dealer living in Jackson, Indiana, around 60 miles southeast of Indianapolis. Around 1907 he was placed in charge of the sheet music department at the Carlin & Lennox department store in Indianapolis, which gave him a direct line to publishers and print jobbers. Both jobs sat on the selling side of music, a vantage that may have shaped what he later chose to publish. After nine years of composing with only a handful of his pieces in print, one of them a children’s tune, he decided to try publishing again to help out a friend: he took on “Fluffy Ruffles” by Cecil Duane Crabb and put it into print in Indianapolis. Publishing a friend’s piece rather than his own suggests that his connections in the trade could serve other composers as well as himself. He may also have helped his friends Paul Pratt and May Aufderheide with the first edition of her tune “Dusty Rag,” though Pratt often gets the credit. He then began playing with more famous historical pieces, adding a few contemporary touches, and for a few years balanced this output with his own compositions. Arranging older pieces for fresh ears is a craft of its own, one that sits between composing and publishing. His last popular composition of note was “The Speed King” in 1914, a tribute in part to the “brickyard,” a nickname for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and after 1915 nothing more appeared under the W. B. Morrison logo. His 1918 draft registration gave his occupation as composer, and the 1920 census recorded him as a music arranger working from his home, likely making background contributions to one or more Indianapolis publishers, including the Superior Song Company. A racetrack tribute in 1914, and a census entry as an arranger working from home in 1920, suggest a shift from the front of the music business to the background.
Browse piano sheets by Will B. Morrison on Zen Virtual Piano.
Will B. Morrison, who published as W. B. Morrison, was an Indianapolis-area composer, publisher and arranger. He was born in rural Seymour, Indiana. He had the capability to notate and arrange music.
As early as the late 1890s Morrison was clerking in a music store, and the 1900 enumeration recorded him as a music dealer living in Jackson, Indiana, around 60 miles southeast of Indianapolis. Around 1907 he was placed in charge of the sheet music department at the Carlin & Lennox department store in Indianapolis, which gave him a direct line to publishers and print jobbers. Both jobs sat on the selling side of music, a vantage that may have shaped what he later chose to publish.
After nine years of composing with only a handful of his pieces in print, one of them a children’s tune, he decided to try publishing again to help out a friend: he took on “Fluffy Ruffles” by Cecil Duane Crabb and put it into print in Indianapolis. Publishing a friend’s piece rather than his own suggests that his connections in the trade could serve other composers as well as himself. He may also have helped his friends Paul Pratt and May Aufderheide with the first edition of her tune “Dusty Rag,” though Pratt often gets the credit. He then began playing with more famous historical pieces, adding a few contemporary touches, and for a few years balanced this output with his own compositions. Arranging older pieces for fresh ears is a craft of its own, one that sits between composing and publishing.
His last popular composition of note was “The Speed King” in 1914, a tribute in part to the “brickyard,” a nickname for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and after 1915 nothing more appeared under the W. B. Morrison logo. His 1918 draft registration gave his occupation as composer, and the 1920 census recorded him as a music arranger working from his home, likely making background contributions to one or more Indianapolis publishers, including the Superior Song Company. A racetrack tribute in 1914, and a census entry as an arranger working from home in 1920, suggest a shift from the front of the music business to the background.
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Will B. Morrison, an Indianapolis-area composer, publisher and arranger who published as W. B. Morrison.
Around 1907 he was placed in charge of the sheet music department at the Indianapolis department store, which gave him a direct line to publishers and print jobbers.
“The Speed King” (1914), a tribute in part to the “brickyard,” a nickname for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.