{"id":2319,"date":"2016-07-15T16:38:17","date_gmt":"2016-07-15T20:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/loebmusic\/?p=2319"},"modified":"2017-05-11T10:32:10","modified_gmt":"2017-05-11T14:32:10","slug":"colonial-mixtapes-music-manuscript-collections-as-a-peephole-into-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/loebmusic\/2016\/07\/15\/colonial-mixtapes-music-manuscript-collections-as-a-peephole-into-the-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Colonial mixtapes: music manuscript collections as a peephole into the past"},"content":{"rendered":"

A colonial New England context<\/span><\/h3>\n

Before beginning work under the Pforzheimer Fellowship, I hadn\u2019t dealt with manuscripts much \u2013 certainly not in the amount of detail required to create a catalog entry. One thing I noticed is just how unique manuscript materials are. The Hubbard manuscript isn\u2019t a collection of pieces, already existing in a set order, copied out one after the other by a dutiful scribe; it bears the marks of many hands and has a history of many years. It\u2019s certainly not as straightforward as most of the printed texts you or I deal with most of the time!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"MT870.W34<\/a>

MT870.W34 1746, seq. 162<\/p><\/div>\n

The Hubbard manuscript is actually a series of additions to a print book: the 1746 edition of Thomas Walter\u2019s popular and brief guide entitled <\/span>The grounds and rules of musick explained: or, an introduction to the art of singing by note. Fitted to the meanest capacities<\/span><\/i>. (Yes, that is the 18th-century way of saying \u201cReading music for dummies\u201d.) The print book has only 25 pages of instruction, followed by 16 pages of tunes for practice and enjoyment \u2013 small enough to prompt aspiring singers to copy out their own selections and have them bound at the back of the book.<\/span><\/p>\n

(You can see high-quality images of the entire book using the <\/span>Harvard Library Viewer<\/span><\/a>; you can see my catalog record of the manuscript portion in the <\/span>RISM database<\/span><\/a>.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Colonial New England being what it was, all the tunes, both in the original print book and in the subsequent manuscript additions, were for sacred texts. Most of them were intended to be sung to metrical psalms, which were commonly sung in Puritan and Congregational churches of the time. Books such as Walter\u2019s were created to help people learn to read music and sing in harmony and rhythm. Prior to this time, singing in church was a bit of a mess: the deacon would sing a line of psalm text (\u201clining it out\u201d) to one of a few well-known tunes, and the members of the congregation would follow at their own pace and with their own ornamentation. It took forever, and wasn\u2019t terribly true to the music of the psalm tunes. The music reformers of the day set out to fix this by systematically training people in musical literacy. Old habits die hard, however, and churches split over tension between the resulting factions. The introduction to Walter\u2019s book is actually a defense of the New Way, as it was called \u2013 or perhaps it is more of a polemic against the \u201cOld Way\u201d \u2013 and its case is strengthened by recommendations from prominent New England ministers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Thomas Hubbard served as deacon for Old South Church for 25 years, and as treasurer to Harvard College from 1752 to 1773. His daughter, Thankfull, was 14 years old at the time when she acquired the book: the present binding, which must have been of the print book together with (mostly?) blank manuscript pages, is tooled on the front with the words \u201cTHANKFULL HUBBARD 1759\u201d. The front pastedown has the words \u201cThankfull Hubbard her Book 1759\u201d in what is plausibly the hand of a fourteen-year-old.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"MT870.W34<\/a>

MT870.W34 1746, seq. 2 (front pastedown)<\/p><\/div>\n

It seems that 1759 was a big year for Thankfull. There is a record that the same year, she wore a hot-pink silk frock, presumably for the first time or for a special event. I discovered this by surprise, as I was researching Thankfull Hubbard, <\/span>on the blog of Holly Gates<\/span><\/a> \u2013 who currently owns the gown. (In fact, this gown resides in the same town as I do! Perhaps I will get the chance to see it this summer.)<\/span><\/p>\n

Thankfull\u2019s book<\/span><\/h3>\n

But to get back to the subject of Thankfull\u2019s book: there are at least two portions to the manuscript component of the volume. The first contains mostly \u201cplain\u201d (homophonic) psalm and hymn tunes in various hands, including (in my judgment) those of Thomas Hubbard and Mary Jackson Hubbard, Thankfull\u2019s parents. Many of the tunes have handsomely executed titles imitating the style of music engraving of the time; these may well have been copied out of one or more printed collections of psalm tunes. One tune has the name Thankfull Hubbard written next to it. This isn\u2019t an attribution of authorship to either the text or the tune; both of these existed before Thankfull was born. Rather, she may have been pleased with her execution in copying out the tune and text \u2013 which is quite nicely done for a young amateur!<\/span><\/p>\n

\"MT870.W34<\/a>

MT870.W34 1746, seq. 119<\/p><\/div>\n

The other portion of the manuscript, which follows twelve blank pages, must have been copied <\/span>after<\/span><\/i> the death of Thankfull Leonard (as she became known after her marriage in 1770). The tunes in this section are still sacred vocal music, but they differ from the tunes before it in a number of ways:<\/span><\/p>\n