THE GROUNDS AND RULES OF MUSICK EXPLAINED: OR, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ART OF SINGING BY NOTE. FITTED TO THE MEANEST CAPACITIES. Oblong 12mo (4 x 6 1/8 mm; 102 x 155 mm).  iii, 25 pages; 35 (of 44) engraved plates of music (reverse of each blank or lined). Oblong 12mo, front contemporary leather cover (detached); lacking title and other leaves.  The sixth edition of the first book printed in the American colonies with engraved music. Britton 523D.

This example with a number of ownership signatures to the first page, inside front board and first page of Preface. The earliest, dated March 16, 1769, appears to be that of Joseph Hurd (1756 - 1826) of Barnstable, MA. The most interesting, however, are apparently subsequent presentation inscriptions "The Donation of Tim Swann" and, three times, "The Gift of of Timothy Swann," and eleven iterations of the name "Daniel Gould."

An especially intriguing copy of this very important and influential early American tune book for nascent singing schools. Thomas Walter was a brilliant Boston minister and musician, grandson of Increase Mather and nephew of Cotton Mather. With this book, Walter hoped to improve congregational singing by teaching people to read music. Rare. ESTC locates 15 copies, but some are incomplete. "These books must have been worn out in service for there are few American books of the period of which it is more difficult to find a complete copy" (Matt B. Jones)

LITERATURE: Britton, American Sacred Music Imprints 519; Evans 5878; Matt B. Jones, Thomas Walter's 'Grounds and Rules of Musick Explained' pp. 8–9; Macdougal, Early New England Psalmody pp. 39, 42–43, etc.; Metcalf. American Psalmody p. 51; Sabin 101196

We might be able to call Timothy Swan one of the first American composers. Born in 1758, in the British colony of Massachusetts, Swan initially worked as a merchant in his youth and learned the trade of hatmaking. He had very little music training (three weeks of vocal music studies that we know of) and was not exposed to the European traditions of composition and voice-leading in any formal way.

But British tunes were all around him, whether he was hearing them in church congregational singing alongside homegrown New England compositions or in the Continental Army, where as a soldier he learned fife from a British fife player. He might have been able to play the fiddle as well. He tested out his compositions by writing them down and handing them out to his friends, who then sang them and he could hear how they sounded. In this way, manuscripts of Swan’s compositions found rather wide circulation, and in fact once he visited a town to find that his music was known there before it had appeared in print. The RISM online catalog lists just over 60 entries by Swan, with more of an emphasis on the handwritten circulation of his music rather than the printed. Swan’s manuscripts are today found exclusively in American libraries, mostly in New England where he lived all his life. He continued to compose while keeping his primary occupation as a hatmaker, and died in 1842.

There were many Daniel Goulds in MA during this period and we have not been able to positively identify which of them subsequently owned this volume.