The History of American Music Printing & Publishing

Course Description

An historical introduction intended both for those with institutional responsibilities for American printed music, and for collectors and scholars with a personal or professional interest in the subject. The course includes an overview of the history of music printing and publishing in the U.S. from its beginnings to about 1970. Topics include the crafts of printing and engraving music, and illustrating music covers; bibliographical description; distribution, as defined geographically and by medium; preservation; changing tastes, in repertories and in musical instruments (parlor piano, guitar), and reflecting the impact of European practices and styles and of the commercial forces of radio, movies, and other media. The course will be built around Rare Book School’s extensive collection of music printing surfaces and materials, and packets of original copies of sheet music arranged by topic. Applicants should have a basic knowledge of music history and some fluency in reading music, as well as experience in work with original copies of American music. In their personal statements, applicants should describe their background and interest in the field, and mention topics they would particularly like the course to cover.

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Advance Reading List

1. American Music

Previous to the class, this very general background is expected:

Rather than specify a single source, let me suggest that you will want to have a very general picture of the field, such as can be provided by any of the following:

Crawford, Richard. An Introduction to America’s Music. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2001, or its abridgements.

Kingman, Daniel. American Music. New York: Schirmer Books, 1979.

Hitchcock, H. Wiley. Music in the United States. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1969.

Chase, Gilbert. America’s Music. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1958.

Howard, John Tasker. Our American Music. New York: T. Y. Crowell & Co., 1954.

2. American Printing

Previous to the class, this very general background is expected:

I wish there were a better summary than parts II–III (pp. 63–419) of Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt’s ancient The Book in America (Revised edition, Bowker, 1951), but respected colleagues say there isn’t. I’ll need to cover much of this in class. The new History of the Book in America (American Antiquarian Society, Cambridge University Press; five volumes) may eventually help, although the first volumes in this series, edited by Hugh Amory and David D. Hall, The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World (2000), however splendid, emphasizes publishing more than printing, and alas has next to nothing on music. Some background will need to be provided in class.

3. Music Printing in General

Previous to the class, this very general background is expected:

The essays by H. Edmund Poole and D.W. Krummel in The New Grove Dictionary (either the 1980 edition, or the second edition, which is also online) present the basic background. (Much of the discussion of European topics, in the “Publishing” article in particular, can be skipped.) For further reading, the following items in the Bibliography are recommended:

• Reference Sources: Fuld (1971, and later eds.)
• General Histories: Barksdale (1957) and King (1964)
• Technical Accounts: Gamble (1923) and Ross (1971)

4. American Music Printing

Previous to the class, this very general background is expected:

• Hitchcock, H. Wiley and Stanley Sadie, eds. The New Grove Dictionary of American Music. New York: Macmillan, 1996. Read the articles on “Publishing and Printing Music” (Volume 3, pp. 650–54) and “Bibliography” (Volume 1, pp. 205–12).
• Krummel, D. W. Bibliographical Handbook of American Music. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1987. Look over Chapters 2–4, 6, 13, and 16.
• A detailed course bibliography from 2004 is available as an Adobe PDF file. An updated version will be distributed at the first class.

 

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Course History