|
Rook Manuscript
The Rook manuscript, a music manuscript compiled by John Rook, of Waverton, Cumbria in 1840, is "A Collection of English, Scotch, Irish and Welsh tunes, containing upwards of 1260 airs". These include many tunes, or versions of tunes, not found elsewhere. It is a particularly valuable resource for the study of the traditional music of Northern England, and specifically of music for the Northumbrian Smallpipes. John Rook An edition of the manuscript edited by Rob Say has recently been published. This includes transcriptions of all the music, as well as much that has been learned about the compiler, his life and work. The extended Rook family came from Waverton in Cumberland. Joseph Rook, a surveyor, was born in 1750, and is known to have played the violin and other instruments. His son John, also a surveyor, moved to North Shields, then in Northumberland in about 1804. His son John, the compiler of the manuscript, was born there in 1806. John worked with his father working a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect of all human societies, a cultural universal. While scholars agree that music is defined by a few specific elements, there is no consensus on their precise definitions. The creation of music is commonly divided into musical composition, musical improvisation, and musical performance, though the topic itself extends into academic disciplines, criticism, philosophy, and psychology. Music may be performed or improvised using a vast range of instruments, including the human voice. In some musical contexts, a performance or composition may be to some extent improvised. For instance, in Hindustani classical music, the performer plays spontaneously while following a partially defined structure and using characteristic motifs. In modal jazz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fenwick Manuscript
The J.W. Fenwick manuscript, compiled in the second half of the 19th century, is a compilation of Northumbrian pipe music, together with other material associated with the instrument. Fenwick was a tailor, who lived in North Shields from about 1841. The same town was the home of the Reid family of pipers and pipemakers, and several other prominent pipers lived nearby. By 1894 Fenwick was described as "one of the oldest and best-known small pipes players in the county"; by this time he seems to have been playing for about 50 years. The manuscript was apparently being compiled throughout this period. Significance This source is particularly important, in that for many of the tunes Fenwick is careful to indicate his source for the version he gives. For instance, in some cases Fenwick gives a provenance from Cornelius Stanton, and occasionally via Stanton to John Peacock. Two of the tunes from Stanton, in Stanton's own hand, ''Little wot ye wha's coming'' and ''Blackett of Wylam'' wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Folk Music
The folk music of England is a tradition-based music which has existed since the later medieval period. It is often contrasted with courtly, classical and later commercial music. Folk music traditionally was preserved and passed on orally within communities, but print and subsequently audio recordings have since become the primary means of transmission. The term is used to refer both to English traditional music and music composed or delivered in a traditional style. There are distinct regional and local variations in content and style, particularly in areas more removed from the most prominent English cities, as in Northumbria, or the West Country. Cultural interchange and processes of migration mean that English folk music, although in many ways distinctive, has significant crossovers with the music of Scotland. When English communities migrated to the United States, Canada and Australia, they brought their folk traditions with them, and many of the songs were preserved by i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scottish Folk Music
Scottish folk music (also Scottish traditional music) is a genre of folk music that uses forms that are identified as part of the Scottish musical tradition. There is evidence that there was a flourishing culture of popular music in Scotland during the late Middle Ages, but the only song with a melody to survive from this period is the "Pleugh Song". After the Reformation, the secular popular tradition of music continued, despite attempts by the Kirk, particularly in the Lowlands, to suppress dancing and events like penny weddings. The first clear reference to the use of the Highland bagpipes mentions their use at the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh in 1547. The Highlands in the early seventeenth century saw the development of piping families including the MacCrimmons, MacArthurs, MacGregors and the Mackays of Gairloch. There is also evidence of adoption of the fiddle in the Highlands. Well-known musicians included the fiddler Pattie Birnie and the piper Habbie Simpson. This tradition ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1840 Books
__NOTOC__ Year 184 ( CLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Eggius and Aelianus (or, less frequently, year 937 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 184 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years. Events By place China * The Yellow Turban Rebellion and Liang Province Rebellion break out in China. * The Disasters of the Partisan Prohibitions ends. * Zhang Jue leads the peasant revolt against Emperor Ling of Han of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Heading for the capital of Luoyang, his massive and undisciplined army (360,000 men), burns and destroys government offices and outposts. * June – Ling of Han places his brother-in-law, He Jin, in command of the imperial army and sends them to attack the Yellow Turban rebels. * Winter – Zha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Passamezzo Moderno
The passamezzo moderno ("modern half step"; also quadran, quadrant, or quadro pavan), or Gregory Walker was "one of the most popular harmonic formulae in the Renaissance period, divid nginto two complementary strains thus:" For example, in C major the progression is as follows: : The progression or ground bass, the major mode variation of the passamezzo antico, originated in Italian and French dance music during the first half of the 16th century, where it was often used with a contrasting progression or section known as ''ripresi''. Though one of Thomas Morley's characters in ''Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke'' denigrates the Gregory Walker, comparing unskilled singing to its sound, it was popular in both pop/popular/folk and classical musics through 1700. Its popularity was revived in the mid 19th century, and the American variant (below) evolved into the twelve bar blues. Examples Listed in : *several in ''The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book'' *"Up and Wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Niel Gow
Niel Gow (1727 – 1 March 1807) was the most famous Scottish fiddler of the eighteenth century. Early life Gow was born in Strathbraan, Perthshire, in 1727, as the son of John Gow and Catherine McEwan. The family moved to Inver in Perthshire when Niel was an infant. He started playing the fiddle when very young and at age 13 received his first formal lessons from one John Cameron. In spite of being something of a musical prodigy, he originally trained as a weaver, but eventually gave up that trade to become a full-time musician. He was widely considered the best fiddle player in Perthshire, an area which was renowned for its musicians—the story goes that at age 18 he entered a competition that was being judged by John McCraw, a blind musician, who awarded him the first prize and then went on to claim that he "would ken his bow hand among a hunder players" (detect Niel's style among a hundred players). This attracted the attention of the Duke of Atholl, who became Niel's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Peel (huntsman)
John Peel (13th November 1776? – 13 November 1854) was an English huntsman who is the subject of the nineteenth century song " D'ye ken John Peel" - "ken" meaning 'to be aware of' or 'to know' in some dialects of the North of England and Scotland. Peel's life Peel was born at Park End, near Caldbeck, Cumberland; his family moved a short time after to the Greenrigg farm. He was baptised on 24 September 1777, but most sources suggest he was born the previous year. Peel married in 1797 to Mary White. Some of the White family's property at Ruthwaite (near Ireby) passed into his hands, which secured Peel a comfortable income. However, he was, as many of his friends admitted, prone to dissipation and he devoted himself primarily to hunting. Peel was a farmer by profession, and kept a pack of fox hounds. Peel hunted pine martens and hares in addition to foxes. By the end of his life (13 November 1854, most likely due to a fall while hunting) he had accrued large debts, which his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Moffat
Moffat ( gd, Mofad) is a burgh and parish in Dumfriesshire, now part of the Dumfries and Galloway local authority area in Scotland. It lies on the River Annan, with a population of around 2,500. It was a centre of the wool trade and a spa town. Moffat is around to the southeast of Glasgow, southwest of Edinburgh, northeast of Dumfries and northwest of Carlisle. The Moffat House Hotel, located at the northern end of the High Street, was designed by John Adam. The nearby Star Hotel, a mere 20 ft (6 m) wide, was listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the narrowest hotel in the world. Moffat won the Britain in Bloom contest in 1996. Moffat is home to Moffat toffee. The town is held to be the ancestral seat of Clan Moffat. The Devil's Beef Tub near Moffat was used by the members of Clan Moffat and later the members of Clan Johnstone to hoard cattle stolen in predatory raids. Early tourism as a spa town From 1633 Moffat began to grow from a small village into a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northumbrian Minstrelsy
''Northumbrian Minstrelsy'' is a book of 18th and 19th century North East of England folk songs and pipe music, intended to be a lasting historical record. The book was edited by John Stokoe and the Rev John Collingwood Bruce LL.D., F.S.A., and published by and on behalf of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1882. It was reprinted in 1965 by Folklore Associates, Hatboro, Pennsyslvania, with a foreword by A. L. Lloyd. Details ''Northumbrian Minstrelsy'' was written with the intention of providing a historical record of some of the North Country songs and music. "A book for the collection and preservation of the old music and poetry of the North of England" was what Algernon Percy, 4th Duke of Northumberland had suggested. The book is divided into two sections; the first giving the lyrics (with some music) of local, now historical songs, and the second part giving the music to many Northumbrian smallpipe tunes with very few lyrics. The book was edited by John ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Border Pipes
The border pipes are a type of bagpipe related to the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe. It is perhaps confusable with the Scottish smallpipe, although it is a quite different and much older instrument. Although most modern Border pipes are closely modelled on similar historic instruments, the modern Scottish smallpipes are a modern reinvention, inspired by historic instruments but largely based on Northumbrian smallpipes in their construction. The name, which is modern, refers to the Anglo-Scottish Border region, where the instrument was once common, so much so that many towns there used to maintain a piper. The instrument was found much more widely than this, however; it was noted as far north as Aberdeenshire, south of the Border in Northumberland and elsewhere in the north of England. Indeed, some late 17th-century paintings, such as a tavern scene by Egbert van Heemskerck, probably from south-eastern England, show musicians playing such instruments. Other names have been use ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Bewick
Robert Elliot Bewick (1788–1849) was the son of the engraver Thomas Bewick. He was trained in engraving by his father, but is primarily remembered now as a player of the Northumbrian smallpipes. Background Thomas Bewick had wished to encourage the Northumbrian smallpipes, and to support the piper John Peacock; in his autobiographical ''Memoir'', written in the 1820s, he wrote ''Some time before the American War broke out, there had been a lack of musical performers upon our streets, and in this interval, I used to engage John Peacock, our inimitable performer, to play on the Northumberland or Small-pipes; and with his old tunes, his lilts, his pauses, and his variations, I was always excessively pleased.'' William Green, piper to the Duke of Northumberland, considered Peacock to be the best small pipes player he ever heard in his life. He was probably the first player of the instrument to play an extended keyed chanter. Such chanters were developed in the first decades of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.png "Click for more on -> English Folk Music")
copy.jpg "Click for more on -> Robert Bewick")