William Sidney Mount
Artist and Musician

William Sidney Mount (1807-1868), was a man of many talents. As well as being a fine artist, he was also a musician, composer and collector of the folk music of early America. And if that is not enough to impress......, he also invented a type of steamboat paddle wheel, a unique two-hulled sailboat, a traveling painting studio on wheels and a hollow back violin, named the "Cradle of Harmony".

Mount was an accomplished violinist and flautist, and was often invited to play the popular jigs, waltzes, and reels of the time at parties and dances. He assembled a large volume of dance tunes adapted for fiddling. In his notebooks, Mount would often write down many these tunes that he learned as he traveled and wandered about and the notebooks are a treasure trove of early American folk music. Mount also imported many types of traditional musical instruments from various parts of the world, such as Irish flutes.

The desire for a more powerful sound in a dance hall led him to work to create a new design for a fiddle. In his 1852 patent, Mount claims to "have invented a new and improved mode of constructing violins and other stringed musical instruments by which a greater strength of the parts is secured with a greater lightness of the material composing the instrument, and at the same time a superior quality and greater quantity of tone and sound are obtained." He displayed various models of his new violin design in 1853 at the Exhibition of Industry of All Nations in New York's Crystal Palace.

William Sidney Mount's musical talents were often combined with his talents as a painter. Many of the artist's paintings make visible, at times in an almost audible way, his unique blend of art and music.

 

Mount also participated is some of the non-traditional spiritual movements of his time, among them spiritualism and séances. According to Mount, he was able to communicate with deceased members of his family and also some of the great artists of the past. It is said that Mount felt that Rembrandt, a great Dutch painter of the 17th century, was helping him with his painting skills through the séances.

New- A PDF ebook with the music notation for some of the tunes in William Sidney Mount's notebook can be found in the collection below...

Folk Tunes from Early America 4 PDF Collections of music notation prepared for easy printing on standard size paper. 1. Captain George Bush Born in Wilmington, Delaware, Captain George Bush was an officer in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. As he traveled in the service Bush carried his fiddle and began to enter music, dance figures and song lyrics into a small pocket notebook. He wrote some tunes out by ear, but others he copied from a now lost fife tutor printed in 1776 in Philadelphia which included "Yankee Doodle", the first American printing we know of before 1794. 16 tunes from the notebooks of Captain George Bush 2. William Sidney Mount William Sidney Mount (1807-1868), was a man of many talents. As well as being a fine artist, he was also a musician, composer and collector of the folk music of early America. And if that is not enough to impress......, he also invented a type of steamboat paddle wheel, a unique two-hulled sailboat, a traveling painting studio on wheels and a hollow back violin, named the "Cradle of Harmony". 15 tunes from the notebooks of William Sidney Mount. 3. Colonial American Folk Music - 22 tunes from the time of the American Revolution. Thomas Nixon, Jr. Thomas Nixon, Jr. (1762-1842), from Frmingham Massachsetts, joined the Continental army in 1775 at the age of thirteen. Although now considered to be a quite young age to be in military service, it was common for teenage boys between fourteen and sixteen to join as fifers and drummers. Thomas saw action at Lexington and Concord in April of 1775. He went on to serve in more battles, and along the way added many pieces of music to a tune book.... 24 tunes from the notebooks of Thomas Nixon, Jr. Note: These 25 Thomas Nixon tunes have the addition of a basic keyboard or harp accompaniment, along with guitar chords. You can use these basic arrangments as the basis of your own creations. After your payment is processed you will quickly be sent by email the download link. Price - $4.50

 

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