Folk Tunes from Early America

Folk Tunes from Early America

4 PDF Collections of music notation prepared for easy printing on standard size paper.

1. Captain George Bush

Born in Wilmington, Delaware, Captain George Bush was an officer in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. As he traveled in the service Bush carried his fiddle and began to enter music, dance figures and song lyrics into a small pocket notebook. He wrote some tunes out by ear, but others he copied from a now lost fife tutor printed in 1776 in Philadelphia which included "Yankee Doodle", the first American printing we know of before 1794.

16 tunes from the notebooks of Captain George Bush


2. William Sidney Mount

William Sidney Mount (1807-1868), was a man of many talents. As well as being a fine artist, he was also a musician, composer and collector of the folk music of early America. And if that is not enough to impress......, he also invented a type of steamboat paddle wheel, a unique two-hulled sailboat, a traveling painting studio on wheels and a hollow back violin, named the "Cradle of Harmony".


15 tunes from the notebooks of William Sidney Mount.


3. Colonial American Folk Music

22 tunes from the time of the American Revolution.

4. Thomas Nixon, Jr.

Thomas Nixon, Jr. (1762-1842), from Frmingham Massachsetts, joined the Continental army in 1775 at the age of thirteen. Although now considered to be a quite young age to be in military service, it was common for teenage boys between fourteen and sixteen to join as fifers and drummers.
Thomas saw action at Lexington and Concord in April of 1775.
He went on to serve in more battles, and along the way added many pieces of music to a tune book....


25 tunes from the notebooks of Thomas Nixon, Jr.
Note: These 25 Thomas Nixon tunes have the addition of a basic keyboard or harp accompaniment, along with guitar chords. You can use these basic arrangments as the basis of your own creations.