The Colonial Music Institute(tm)
Bringing History to Life Through Music
Born in Wilmington, Delaware, Captain George
Bush was an officer in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War.
As he travelled in the service Bush carried his fiddle and in 1779, stationed
in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, he began to enter music, dance figures and song
lyrics into a small pocket notebook. He copied songs about being a soldier
and about love and women; minuets, marches, and other airs; and the figures
and music for a number of country dances, including Pluckemin, Soldier's
Joy, Successful Campaign, The Mason's Delight, and Stony
Point. Somehow he obtained a single sheet from a mid-century printed
collection of Scottish country dances and bound it into his notebook as
well.
CONTENTS:
Social Dances from the American
Revolution
by Charles Cyril Hendrickson and Kate Van
Winkle Keller
Sandy Hook, CT: The Hendrickson Group, 1992
ISBN: 1-877984-15-9
48 pages *SDAR-bk: $6.00
FULL MINUET INSTRUCTIONS ARE INCLUDED IN THIS
BOOK
For this publication, each of Bush’s dances, including the "Congress Minuet,"
was interpreted and reconstructed using period sources. Several pages are
devoted to the technique of 18th-century honors, the minuet step, and steps
for use with country dances. Chords are indicated on the music, a transcription
of his original dance notation, and historical background for each of the
dances is given, including lyrics to songs also set to the tunes.
Dances: Bonny Lassy Take A Man, Come
Haste to the Wedding, Congress Minuet, The Dutchess of Brunswick, The Dutchess
of Middlesex, German Dance, Kitty Will You Marry Me, Lads of Dunce, Lady’s
Breast Knot, The Mason’s Delight, Miss Moore’s Rant, Pluckemin, Soldier’s
Joy (two versions), Stony Point, Successful Campaign, Sweet Richard.
Also included: Eighteenth-Century Dance Technique: Positions of
the Feet, The Minuet, and Footwork