Databases

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Early American Songsters, 1734-1800: An Index

The Early American Songsters, 1734-1800: An Index, is an index of all of the known songsters currently available. The index draws heavily from Irving Lowens' Bibliography of Songster Printed in America Before 1821 (Worcester: American Antiquarian Society, 1976), for titles and other bibliographical information. Lowens defines a songster "as a collection of three or more secular poems intended to be sung." Most of the songsters do not include music, although many contain references to the names of tunes to which the song could be sung. This publication comprises those songs published through 1800.

Database housed by the Country Dance and Song Society 

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Dance Figures Index: English Country Dances, 1700-1827

The Dance Figures Index: English Country Dances, 1700 - 1827 is a guide to the basic figures in major English printed longways country dances in eighteenth and early nineteenth-century sources. This database only includes sources for dances with instruction for country dances, or dances that could be identified as such. It does not include other dance forms, such as Cotillions or Allemand or similar dances.

Database housed by the Country Dance and Song Society 

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Dance Figures Index: American Country Dances, 1730-1810

The Dance Figures Index: American Country Dances, 1730 - 1810 is a guide to the basic figures in all American printed and manuscript longways country dances in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century sources. It is drawn from a computer database of information that was gathered from 82 sources: 53 printed and 29 manuscripts. This database only includes sources for dances with instruction for country dances, or dances that could be identified as such.

Database housed by the Country Dance and Song Society 

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The Dancing Master, 1651–1728: An Illustrated Compendium

The Dancing Master, 1651–1728: An Illustrated Compendium is a compilation of all of the dances, tunes, and songs contained in The Dancing Master, from 1651–1728. It includes indexes for all of the editions, and a graphic image for each "unique" dance, with its printed music and dance instructions, 186 tunes without dances and three songs, (Dunmore Kate, Mr. Lane's Magot, and The Quakers Dance).

Database housed by the Country Dance and Song Society 

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Early American Secular Music and Its European Sources, 1589–1839: An Index

This is a series of indexes derived from a database of musical information compiled from primary sources covering the 250 years of the initial exploration and settlement of the United States. It consists of over 75,000 entries that are sorted by text (titles, first lines, recitatives, chorus, and burden), by music incipits (represented in scale degrees, stressed notes, and interval sequences), with additional indexes of names and theater works. Now in electronic format, the data can be fully searched, not only for initial strings but also for internal words and melody sections.

Database housed by the Country Dance and Song Society 

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The Performing Arts in Colonial American Newspapers, 1690-1783: Text Database and Index

The Performing Arts in Colonial American Newspapers, 1690-1783: Text Database and Index includes all references to music, poetry (lyrics), dance, and theater found by our readers in American newspapers, from the earliest extant copy (1690) through the end of the Revolutionary War (1783), including those in the French and German languages.

Database housed by the Country Dance and Song Society 

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Essays

Research from the Colonial Music Institute has enabled many to write essays about 18th-century music and dance.

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