In 1881, the first official shōka songbook (Shōgaku-shōka-shū) was published. This book was mainly a collection of Western folk music tunes with Japanese lyrics and was developed with the collaboration between Japanese educator Isawa Shūji, American music educationist Luther Whiting Mason, and a team of language experts. The songbook recorded 33 songs in its first edition. However, only three of them were original compositions, with two composed by the court musician Fujitsune Shiba. The rest of the songs were chosen by Mason's National Music Course and other American music textbooks.
