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Early American music, unusual & unique American sheet music,
and ephemera collection.


Visit the Cider Press Home Page



Welcome, come on in and explore the wild and witty, creative, and often unpredictable world of early American humor... and more!


Good Humor Lodge





Creating Light To Sound

This unique music project, involves my using a solar cell array to transform light waves to sound waves to audio.

The music you will be hearing is the improvised
results of the movement and intensity of
the light sources and color filtering.

Light To Sound Page



A collection of unique and interesting scans of early American books and booklets on various subjects.

The Book Collection


The World's First
Multimedia Production?

The Music Of
Renaissance Alchemist
Michael Maier

Atalanta Fugiens

Atalanta Fugiens may well be one of the first multimedia productions ever created. The work was created in 1617, by Renaissance alchemist Michael Maier.The complete title is Atalanta fugiens, hoc est, emblemata nova de secretis naturae chymica. The publication is a complex early example of multimedia art made up of 50 sections.  Each section contains an engraved emblem and has a verse and an epigram associated with the emblem, and a short prose discourse which elaborates an alchemical interpretation of the symbolism in the emblem. Each of the 50 sections also includes a short and unique musical canon composed by Maier.
You can go to our Atalanta Fugiens page to learn more about this publication and about alchemist Michael Maier and to listen to MP3 samples of the music from Atalanta Fugiens and also download the music notation.


 

The Music Of The Spheres

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) published his work Harmonices Mundi, in 1619. This work, in which he attempted to explain the harmony of the world, was a series of five books and contained what is known today as his third law. The work was founded on geometry, from which Kepler derived first a theory of musical harmony and then a cosmology of the heavens and the earth. Kepler was attempting to find common rules between music and movement in the solar system. His music of the spheres is based on the relative maximum and minimum angular velocities of the planet measured from the sun. Using his theories, Kepler allotted to the planets musical intervals and musical motion.

You can go to our Music Of The Spheres page and listen to MP3 samples of Kepler's theories and download the Music of the Spheres music notation and MP3 samples of various planetary audio combinations.


2 MP3 collections of bird songs
transcribed in different ways.

 

This latest Language Of The Birds MP3 collection consists of 20 recordings of bird songs transcribed using special software and then arranged with unique background instrumental accompaniments.

 

This earlier Language Of The Birds MP3 collection consists of 32 field recordings of bird songs adapted using 4 specially designed software programs and accurately slowed down and lowered in pitch so that the bird songs can be clearly heard. The audio is then prepared using various solo instruments, and occasionally groups of instruments where there is more than one bird in the recordings (for example - the sax ensemble performing the Canadian Geese flock landing on a lake gives a new meaning to "free jazz."

 

For more information go to:
The Language of the Birds Page



The World's Most Mysterious Book
The Voynich Manuscript


The American Guitar Collection

In 19th Century America, guitarists, composers and publishers were all very busy producing guitar sheet music of all kinds. From classical compositions, to jigs, reels, songs, arrangements and even transcriptions from operas for solo guitar. We are now making much of this often forgotten American sheet music for guitar
available again.

The music of two interesting guitarists in the collections:
1. Vahdah Olcott-Bickford (October 17, 1885 – May 18, 1980) was an American astrologer and guitarist, composer, arranger and teacher, sometimes known as "the Grand Lady of the Guitar".

2. Justin Holland an African American who was one of the first American classical guitarists, and he was a teacher and a composer.
Included also are two unique collections of what may be the earliest arrangements for guitar of Sousa marches, and Stephen Fosters own arrangements of his classic songs for guitar accompaniment.
This page also has large collections of old sheet music and instruction books for banjo, mandolin and ukulele.

American Guitar Collection


In past centuries, more poets and writers than you might imagine created poems to and about their guitars, and to and about players of guitars. So many poems, in fact that many have the same titles! We have created a PDF with many of these unique poems gathered from quite old books published in the 1800s and early 1900s.

Poems About The Guitar


The World's Most Haunting Melodies

Haunting:
Continually recurring to the mind....
"haunting memories";
"the cathedral organ and the distant voices have a haunting beauty"
Beautiful, but in a sad way
and often in a way which cannot be forgotten:
"a haunting melody
"

The world's most haunting melodies,
chosen by people from all walks of life.


This experimental music has been developed over three decades using a variety of special music generating software programs. Some of the more primitive programs and early experiments go back as far as the early "DOS" operating system computers... all the way to custom modern music software and artificial intelligence (AI) software developed and/or adapted here at Amaranth Publishing.

Music created by
software & artificial intelligence

 


Projects using music & sound from
old publications

This is a 60 page book containing simple parlour magic tricks using music and sound, many simple projects using music and sound, and even a section about learning ventriloquism and instructions how to build an "aeolian harp". We gathered these interesting projects from old books, published in the 19th century.

The Music Magic page


 

Hannah's Song
The art & music of
Shaker mystic
Hannah Cohoon

Hannah Cohoon is the most famous of the many artists from the mystical Shaker communities in 19th Century America. What is not widely known is that she also composed interesing songs .
Hannah's Song

Music from the Ephrata Cloister

The Ephrata Cloister or Ephrata Community was a mystical, communal religious community made up of both men and women members. It was established in 1732 by Johann Conrad Beissel at Ephrata, in what is now Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Beissel taught music at the Cloister and wrote hundreds of songs and choral works. The music of the Ephrata choir has been described as “sacred” and “alchemical.” Many of the other members of the cloister also devoted themselves to poetry and music and art. Their choir became widely known in early America for their ethereal and unique music, created in a musical notation system created by Beisell. We have created arrangements using melodies from Ephrata....

Music from the Ephrata Cloister


Unusual, Amazing, Magical,Wonderful
& Often Unexplainable Events
In Early America

The Early American X-Files


The Music of Fairies, Druids, Spirits (and more)

Throughout history, in every culture, there have been tales and legends about supernatural music, the music of fairies, spirits, music with powers to enchant, heal, charm, mystify and cause mischief.
We have prepared a PDF collection of such tunes as music notation.

Also PDF collections of old stories, legends and tales of fairies and music.

Music of the Fairies Page


New: We have also now created an MP3 collection of many of the fairy tunes for those of you who may learn by ear, or for those who may be interested in hearing these tunes. Listen to samples on the Music Of the Fairies page...

Even Newer: Three new collections:


Tales and Tunes about the Leprechaun
and his Treasure


The Music of Magic and Enchantment
A collection of tunes related to
mystery, magic, wonder etc..

Happy Go Lucky Tunes
The music of luck and laughter.

 


The Music Of The Gow Family

Fiddler Niel Gow
& His Sons

The Gow Family -
Some of Scotland's most skilled and famous fiddlers and composers


A bit of entertaining history about fiddling and fiddlers and a unique collection of fiddle tunes...

The fiddling page


A PDF collection of ancient melodies that were found by research in various quite old books.
The melodies are arranged with guitar chords and a basic piano/harp accompaniment. You can use these basic arrangements as the basis for making your own arrangements of these pieces.

Music of the Ancient World



No kidding, this page has music composed for the infamous
Illuminati conspiracy
,
by one of the original members of that famous organization, including.....

"The Illuminati Anthem".

Apple Cider Music & Poetry
5 collections related to apples,
apple cider and autumn


Poetry and prose,
traditional apple and autumn tunes,
19th Century aple/cider American sheet music
and traditional Halloween tunes

Apple Cider Music & Poetry

Robert Fludd, also known as Robertus de Fluctibus (17 January 1574 – 8 September 1637), was a prominent English physician with both scientific and occult interests. He is remembered as an astrologer, mathematician, cosmologist, Qabalist and an early Rosicrucian apologist.

There is an old manusript that contains a piece of music attributed to Robert Fludd..... we have transcribed that piece and offer the original 3-part music as well as a piano and guitar transcription.

Listen to MP3 samples at:

Robert Fludd's Dream

The Song Of Seikilos
The World's Oldest Love Song?

In ancient Greece a man named Seikilos inscribed a funeral pillar with an epitaph, poem and song for his deceased wife.

 

 

Athanasius Kircher
and the
Arca Musurgica

The "Arca Musurgica", designed in 1650 is a unique device with which a musician or a non-musician can compose music in both contrapuntal and homophonic settings using prearranged musical fragments inscribed on inserts and arranged in columns inside the box. Each type of insert corresponds to a particular metrical unit and on each section there were examples of counterpoint on one side and more simple note settings on the other. There are a few of these devices still in existence.

The Arca Musurgica was described in a publication Musurgia Universalis by Jesuit Father Athanasius Kircher.

Arca Musurgica - description and music samples

The early American Shakers practiced a celibate and communal lifestyle and pacifism. They are also known for their simple living, architecture, technological innovation, and furniture, art and music.
They also composed thousands of songs, and also created many dances; both were an important part of the Shaker worship services. In Shaker society, a spiritual "gift" or "vision" could also be a musical revelation or a musical dream, and they considered it important to notate such musical inspirations as they occurred.

Shaker Visions


The
Hutchinson Family
Singers


America's first
protest singers


5 Ebooks about the Folkore, Legends,
Myths, Fairy Stories and Tales
about Music and more...

Book #1

Book #2

Book #3

Book #4
16 musical excerpts from


Book #5
A fifth ebook not about music
but still interesting...

Ebooks page with descriptions


The music of one of the
"Last Hereditary Bards"

James William Carling, poet, artist, musician, painter, philosopher, songwriter...... referred to himself as one of the "last hereditary bards".

He was born into a very poor family on New Year's Eve in 1857 to Rose and Henry Carling in the "Irish Quarter'' in Liverpool.

His father Henry was a singer and composer of songs, ballads and poems, and by trade a blacking maker, as was his father before him. There was music, song and talent in the family, both in the present and the ancestors.

I have arranged 6 pieces of music from the handwritten (often difficult to decipher) music notation of James Carling, as he says, "one of the last hereditary bards".

Music of the "last heriditary bard"



The creative queen who was a talented composer. Her nation was overthrown by the normal profit/power rogue types. She was imprisoned when she resisted. The nation later became the state Hawaii.

The music of Lili’uokalani

 


Celestial Melodies

We have taken 9 melodies from Indian ragas (often referred to as "celestial music") notated by the legendary Indian poet, musician and artist, Rabindranath Tagore and prepared each to be played by western instruments. Each piece includes the raga melody, guitar chords, a basic piano (or harp) part and can be used as the basis for creating your own pieces of music and also as the basis for improvising using these melodies.
Celestial Melodies


The Music Of Gurdjieff .

George Ivanovich Gurdjieff, (January 13, 1866? – October 29, 1949), was a mystic, teacher of sacred dances, and a spiritual teacher.

Born in the Caucasus, crossroad of Asia and Europe, Gurdjieff traveled for many years in India, Perse, Afghanistan, Turkestan and Tibet, with a group of people known as the "Truth Seekers", made up of archeologists, interpreters, doctors, engineers and more.
As a result of these travels, he had access to schools, monasteries and brotherhoods which had preserved various types of spiritual teachings.

Gurdjieff was also interested in and collected and remembered music from his travels. We have created 6 arrangements using Gurdjieff's melodies...

The Music of Gurdjieff


Geronimo's Medicine Song

In the words of Geronimo:


"The song that I will sing is an old song, so old that none knows who made it. It has been handed down through generations and was taught to me when I was but a little lad. It is now my own song. It belongs to me. This is a holy song (medicine-song), and great is its power. The song tells how, as I sing, I go through the air to a holy place where Yusun (The Supreme Being) will give me power to do wonderful things. I am surrounded by little clouds, and as I go through the air I change, becoming spirit only."


Geronimo's Medicine Song



Traditional Masonic Music

A collection of MP3 arrangements of traditional music related to Masons.


Masonic Music In 19th Century America

In 19th Century America, the Freemasons were busy publishing all kinds of music related to their organization, instrumental, choral, songs, you name it.

19th Century American Masonic Music


Llibre Vermell
and the
Legends of Montserrat

 

The medieval music of pilgrims to the
legendary monastery of Montserrat, Spain

Beethoven's 10th Symphony
Music From The Notebooks Of Beethoven
(and a way you can work with
Beethoven's ideas for a 10th symphony)

Throughout his life Beethoven used many notebooks and sketchbooks to write down musical thoughts for pieces he was working on and for ideas that inspired him. Many of these ideas and fragments of music were either never completed or never published.

Beethoven's 9th Symphony that includes the world known "Ode To Joy", is course known across the world. What is not as widely known is that was working on ideas for a 10th Symphony and had made a few notation sketches for it in his music notebooks.

Beethoven's 10th page

In an old book we discovered a transcription of an ancient Chinese melody from a chant called a "Taoist Incantation"

We have created a PDF file with a basic notated arrangement using this melody, with various accompaniment, including guitar chords, keyboard and harp accompaniment, cello (or bass) line.
We have created an MP3 sample of this basic arrangement, with add improvised percussion track added.

You can uses this arrangement as a basis to create your own arrangements of this melody. You can download this arrangement below...

A Taoist Incantation

 


The swan song is a metaphorical phrase for a final gesture, effort, or performance given just before death or retirement. The phrase refers to an ancient belief that swans sing a beautiful song just before their death, having been silent (or alternatively, not so musical) during most of their lifetime. This belief, whose basis in actuality is long-debated, had become proverbial in ancient Greece by the 3rd century BC and was reiterated many times in later Western poetry and art..

An early 19th Century periodical had a mysterious letter to the editor that contained a description and notation for the legendary swan song, entitiled "Gath nah cala, or the Song, or Note of the Swan" Read about it here:
"Swan Song page"

Baseball in Song and Music


"Build it, and they will come"

Go to our page Baseball in Song and Music where you can download PDF collections of old sheet music and traditional tunes, and old baseball ephemera. There is also a baseball screen-saver created from dozens of early baseball images and a collection of classic baseball MP3s. Go and listen to Bob Dylan sing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame", acapella.....

"Nothing flatters me more than to have it assumed that I could write prose-unless it be to have it assumed that I once pitched a baseball with distinction."
- Poet Robert Frost

Some Of The Dumbest and/or
Strangest Music Ever Published!


In 19th Century & early 20th Century America, literally many thousands of pieces of music were composed and published. Some of this music was was odd, some funny and some probably rates as the dumbest or strangest music ever published.

Dumbest & Strangest
Music Ever Published




Considering the crazy ways things seem to keep happening after we send the politicians from both political parties to Washington D.C., a new kind of candidate for President might not be a bad idea. Or, we could revive an old campaign.
Listen to the original Howdy Doody For President campaign songs..........

Howdy Doody For President

 



In old books such as "Witchcraft and Superstitious Record in the
South-Western District of Scotland, by J. Maxwell Wood", there is information about a quite old song called "The Witches Gathering".

We have created a piece of music using these lyrics and also arranged other traditional tunes related to witches.

The Witches Hill

Brief biography of the Author:

" A few years back I thought I was past my “best before” date and I needed the spiritual support my grandfather had always given me. My memories of him and his tales form the basis of these stories. Montreal (and Weir in the summers) was my home for about two decades. The stories ended when my grandfather died on August 3, 1960. I was twelve.

Over the years I was able to record two vinyl LPs and two CDs (all my own work) and one LP with other musicians and writers. I earned a bachelor’s degree in education (secondary) and taught for twenty-two years, became an emergency medical responder for six years, a volunteer firefighter for fifteen, and a town councilor for two year"

The music career of TB Murdoch, known to the music world as "Bruce Murdoch" included recording for Elektra Records and performing at many forums and coffee houses during the heyday of the folk revival and the singer/songwriter movement in Greenwich Village during the 1960s that produced Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Peter Paul & Mary, Eric Andersen, Patrick Sky, Phil Ochs and many more. He also performed at the Newport Folk Festival, in Carnegie Hall and recorded an album produced by Richie Havens for his label and an album produced by Radio Canada.
He has recently recorded 2 new collections of his latest songs.

 

"The Grampy Tales and Stories"

 



 

Sun Ra (May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993) was an amazing American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player (one of the first to use an electric piano and synthesizers for jazz). He was a poet, and was known for his "cosmic" ideas, large output of music, experimental music and colorful and often dramatic mythical and theatrical performances.
Sun Ra made many recordings of his work, many of which re available for download, and as CDs and classic vinyl LPs.

Requiem for Sun Ra page

 

The Halloween Tunes

A collection of traditional tunes related to Halloween, arranged with guitar chords and a basic harp (or keyboard) backup, that you can use as a basis for creating your own improvisations and arrangements.



The Halloween Tunes



The Oldest Christian Hymn?
Oxyrhynchus is an archaeological site in Egypt, one of the most important ever discovered. For the past century the area around Oxyrhynchus has been continuously excavated, yielding an enormous collection of papyrus texts. Among the texts discovered at Oxyrhynchus are plays of Menander and the Gospel of Thomas (an important early Christian document), and the oldest known music notation and lyrics of a Christian hymn



Calling The Muse

In the 2nd century, a lyric poet
Mesomedes

composed the most complete existing examples of ancient Greek music.

 

Music transcribed in Africa in 1920

We found these fascinating pieces of music in the appendix of an old book that was seriously damaged in the front of the book, but these pieces of music were in near perfect condition. The book was published in 1920 and these pieces of music were transcribed from live performances in Africa.

We have scanned the original music (68 pages) and prepared it as a PDF file, that is easy to read and print on standard size paper.

The Music of Africa

 

Ron Bankley, Canadian guitarist, poet, songwriter, recently passed away.

This page is our memorial for Ron....

 

The Last Song

 

 

Rince na h'Eireann

A 48 page book, published in 1907, giving simple and clear diagram instructions for Irish dances, and a list of the tunes to use with the dances.



We have scanned and prepared a PDF file of this entire book for easy and high quality printing on standard size paper.


Price - $3.50

After your payment is processed you will quickly be sent by email the download link.





Will Kemp's Jig

How many people have danced 80 miles in 9 days?
Well, Will Kemp did; and you can read his story and listen to a MIDI arrangement of Will Kemp's jig.

Being both musicians and printers...
we have prepared the following collection:

Music of the Early Printers

Information about many of the first Renaissance printers who were also music publishers and composers featuring MP3 collections of examples of this early music printing.

Music of the Early Printers



Bamboo, and the art of making bamboo flutes....

 

Guān Yīn (literal meaning: "Observes the sounds (of the world)"), also written Kuan Yin or Kwan-yin, is the bodhisattva of compassion as venerated by East Asian Buddhists. Guan Yin is also reverenced by Chinese Taoists as an Immortal.

In Japanese, Guan Yin is called Kannon or more formally Kanzeon; the spelling Kwannon, resulting from an obsolete system of romanization, is sometimes seen. In Korean, she is called Kwan-um or Kwan-se-um.

Guan Yin is one of the most beloved deities and Asian peoples have been worshipping her as the Goddess of mercy and compassion for many centuries.

We have created a free MP3 arrangement for ethnic harps and choir using the lovely traditional Buddhist "Song for Guan Yin" melody.

Song For Guan Yin

 

A Gaelic Blessing
Gaelic Blessing
This is something the world
could use a whole lot more of...

 



A musical memorial for Canadian First Nations
activist, songwriter and filmmaker Willie Dunn.


 


Sketches of Freedom
Ron Bankley
poems & other sounds
Sketches of Freedom is a combination of printed book and compact disc featuring the reading and musical interpretation of all fifteen poems.

 



Meet the CEO of Amaranth Publishing and
The Creator!

And learn who you should contact if you know of a
Golden Retriever that needs to be rescued or needs assistance.

Musikalisches Würfelspiel
(Musical Dice Game)


An interesting musical game, Musikalisches Würfelspiel (musical dice game) has often been attributed to Mozart. On this page you can download an old free Windows program you can use to create hundreds of Minuets in the style of Mozart!

 

An Unknown Mozart Improvisation?
For the Mozart fans and music history fans out there, here is an interesting piece of music that we recently discovered that was published in Baltimore in 1874. The editor of this piece claims that this music was improvised by Mozart, and later written down. An interesting story to say the least! You can listen to an MP3 excerpt and download the sheet music for free.

A Relic - Fantasia Impromptu

In 1972, after 15 years of research Prof. Anne Kilmer (professor of Assyriology, University of California, and a curator at the Lowie Museum of Anthropology at Berkeley) transcribed one of the oldest known pieces of music notation in the world. Click here to go to our page about this unique song and to hear MIDI arrangements of various transcriptions of this song.