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Very fine! I just did a concert where we played a version on hurdy gurdy and alto recorder. It's a tune that works in lots of combinations!

Hi, Neil,

I took a quick look at Stephen Morey's book Mandolins of the 18th Century, and while he does not have drawings of the bracing patterns, he does mention bracing in the description of the...

According to several posts on Facebook from his musical colleagues, John Goodin, composer, arranger, and fine mandolin player died yesterday. Very sad news for the mandolin world and the world in...

Here is a good intro to figured bass and realization from the music dept. at Earlham College.

Barry

Very nice, Martin! I agree that this puts it more in the gamba range. My wife is a gamba player and I have been looking through her music to find more of this sort of thing.

Best,

Barry

A great quote from John Playford's introduction to A Musicall banquet set forth in three choice varieties of musick the first part presents you with excellent new lessons for the lira viol, set to...

This also works really well on mandocello (transposed to Am). Thanks for sharing the music, John!

Barry

Very interesting. thanks for sharing, Eugene. I will be experimenting with these ideas at some point.

Barry

There are lots of books about early music performance practice, including some 18th century mandolin instruction books (all later than Bach in this case), including this one and this one, available...

If you enjoy crime novels with some musical background, here are a few from a book I wrote on crime fiction back in 2008:

Duchin, Peter, and John Morgan Wilson
Good Morning Heartache. Philip...

All good points here. Mandolins were certainly in use in 18th North America, though not as popular as other instruments, see this post from an old thread on mandolins in colonial America.

Barry

I would add:

Alison Stephens Music for Mandolin (1991) – CD-SAR53

Vienna Nocturne by the Mair-Davis Duo

Barry

Here is a quick and dirty search of OCLC's WorldCat database (a library of library catalogs) for musical scores, keyword "mandolin," published between 1900-1920. There are over 5000 results, with...

Hi, Mick, This is what I was trying to say, only stated more clearly!

Just because an instrument is a plucked, wirestrung chordophone does not make it a mandolin. English guitar is a lovely...

Sadly, Gualdo suffered some sort of misfortune, for Francis Hopkinson, prominent Philadelphia musician and composer, wrote to a friend on October 17, 1771 that "Sigr. Gualdo lies in Chains in one of...

I think that the thing that occurs to me is that an English Guitar is not really an "ur-mandolin," and even if one was made here in North America at some point that is not the same as a mandolin...

Anyone interested in the history of the English Guitar might find this dissertation useful, The Guitar in the British Isles, 1750-1810. My impression from my study of the English guitar and mandolin...

Lovely tunes. They got me thinking of a few arrangements of Playford pieces that I did for the all too short-lived Hampton Roads Mandolin Ensemble. In hopes that they might be of interest to other...

Hi, Jim

You might want to have a look at the Oxford Book of Sea Songs for some options on sailing music from various periods. As David points out above, the age of piracy was roughly late...

Old pieces (Emmanuel Barbella, mid to 3rd quarter of the 18th c.) on modern instruments, very nicely played. https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/skehancollins

Barry

There was a missing colon in the link, here is a working version, http://www.infinityluthiers.com/blog/archives/336

I was taking advantage of the hurricane-enforced day off to sort through a collection of mandolin music from the turn of the 20th century that was given to me by the children of a member of the...

In addition to the two very fine Paul Sparks books mentioned above, you may also want to have a look at Philip Bone's The guitar and mandolin : biographies of celebrated players and composers for...