Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Flight of the Airship


Imagine that you are living in the year 1900. You see birds fly. You would like to fly too. Airplanes have not been invented or designed. How would you fly? Attach wings to your body? Build a flying ship? What would it look like? How would it work? Where could it take you? To visit the moon? The stars?

"The AeroShip" is a musical piece with no lyrics but the cover of the sheet music illustrates a flying contraption that looks like an invention of Dr. Suess.....wings, balloons, a boat-like body, .....could it possibly get off the ground?
The key to understanding the significance of this piece of sheet music is knowing how to read the copyright years written in Roman numerals. this was copyrighted in 1903. Humankind is still in the dreaming stage of flying. This sheet music gives us an insightful glimpse of their dreams. These dreams of human flight are what eventually led to the invention of the airplane. If you can dream it, you can do it.
It would be a decade or more before the word "airplane" became part of our vocabulary. The Wright brothers (Orville & Wilbur) learned how to fly before the word "airplane" became part of the English language. Orville & Wilbur referred to their first invention as a "Flyer". At the time that this sheet music was published, the Wright Brothers' "Flyer" had not gotten off of the ground.
Thanks for your interest.

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