At the request of another Chiffer I have laboriously scanned in the pages of this relatively rare manual from one of the (3) microfitch copies we were able to find nationally. It has over 200 tunes (some common and some rather obscure-not all ITM), period dictionary of musical terms, and a general guide for playing the simple system flute written back when the instrument was first in vogue. I’ve had it posted up on the flute board for about a week, but wanted to cross post here for those who don’t check both boards in case anyone might be interested in the download. In all it is 198 pages, so I set it up for duplex format. The file is still quite large, so I have it posted here: http://www.box.net/shared/0gcl3u8ad9
for download. I’ve not done any significant image processing, and the book was handwritten, then transfered to microfitch, so it is certainly noot up to modern publication standards. Still an interesting resource that is applicable to the whistle as well as flute in many cases.
This is great! Thanks for posting. I played many of these tunes as a kid in the 70s in a fife and drum corps. I would like to point out the setting of Cuckoos Nest on pg 55 of 99 (pdf page number, not manuscript page number) as a fun version to play. Then Maggie Lauder on pdf pg. 70 of 99 is another great tune. There’s many other great tunes. I only had select pages, its neat to see the entire manuscript!
Although the book spells the tune “Guardian Angels” on that tune’s page, in the Table of contents in the beginning of the book, the tune is spelled correctly (Angels). Thus, I think it’s simply a handwritten typo. Surely not enough to determine whether the book was American or English.
There is also however a tune page with the title with “Pensylvania Quick March”, which is listed in the Table of Contents as “Pennsylvania Quick Step” (with Pennsylvania spelled correctly)… so it seems the person who hand wrote all the tunes was not too particular about titles and spellings in general… not sure that means they couldn’t possibly be British. ??
However, the tune titles’ references to Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, General Washington, the Georgia Grenadiers, etc… in my mind would by itself suggest American origin.
Seems Beck was an American in Massachusetts who copied by hand a British book called “The Compleat Tutor for the German Flute.” Below is Beck’s entry in the bibliography from the website for the Colonial Society of Massachusetts. Link to the page “Music in Colonial Massachusetts, 1630 to 1820” is below. So the answer to “Were Beck and his book American or English?” appears to be “Yes.” Dastardly colonials. Ripping off the old countries with nary a thought of recompense. Makes one want to cast them out on their hindmost parts. Oh. Wait…
Beck, Henry. Copybook containing instructions for the German flute copied from The Compleat Tutor for the German Flute (London: Chas. & Samuel Thompson, [1775]); and 317 tunes. Manuscript, American, 1786. Library of Congress. (Figs. 6, 21, 22, 35, 38, 49, 56, 61. Pages illustrated: 7, 12, 13, 38, 44, 53, 55, 60.)
Henry’s book contains both an instructional section for the flute and then also a tune section. the above description:
"Copybook containing instructions for the German flute copied from The Compleat Tutor for the German Flute (London: Chas. & Samuel Thompson, [1775]); and 317 tunes. "
…this could easily be interpreted as: the instructional part of Henry’s book was copied from the English flute tutor book, and then he included also a large selection of tunes. The tunes, because of their titles, do make me think they are an American selection.
I should point out that the idea of their being a “right” and “wrong” way to spell a word didn’t exist in the 18th century. A person might spell the same word three different ways in the same paragraph. And this doesn’t imply an uneducated person, because highly educated people did that too, simply because the notion of there being a one-and-only way to spell a word had never existed.
This post got me to thinking about the recent spelling-and-grammar-thread, here. Are we going back to a more free-form version of written English? Is the new technology taking us back to someplace old?
I think with the rise of the internet people have been writing often but informally. Back when I would write letters, I would spellcheck, have a heading, signature line, etc. These days half of my E-mails are one line notifications not worth proof reading. Kind of like the difference between a conversation and a speech.
That said, many of the tunes in this book have straight up errors and I think that it lacked proper editing.
So . . . is the book still available for download somewhere?? The original link is broken. I figured the thread was revived because of continued relevance, so I thought I’d ask again!
