William Bainbridge’s “The English and French Flageolet Preceptor”

Contents

1. Introduction
2. List of Pieces
3. Text of the Preceptor
4. Editor’s Note

Introduction

This preceptor is probably the earliest one published by William Bainbridge and dates from the earliest years of the 19^th Century, when he was still primarily working as a teacher and player, rather than instrument maker.

The work’s introduction is particularly noteworthy for mentioning the flageolet’s suitability for both men and women (many other instruments were thought fit for men only) and also for describing the English flageolet as having seven tone-holes on the front and one of the back; a design that is somewhat unusual and not used by Bainbridge when he started to produce instruments himself. The music is a combination of folk tunes and popular melodies arranged in a fairly easy way, although some of the first flageolet parts in the later duets are more challenging.

This Preceptor is available in various forms. It can be downloaded in its entirety as a PDF file (approximately 2.5MB in size). Alternatively, the individual pieces are available as PDF files below with the text and illustrations as a separate PDF File or on the page below.

List of Pieces

1. God save the King
2. Blue Bell of Scotland
3. Finale to Robin Hood
4. Go George
5. Rule Britannia
6. Tom Starboard
7. Young William
8. La Pipe Tabac
9. Life let us cherish
10. Une Petitte Fillette
11. The Favorite Fishing Duett
12. Happy were the Days
13. Margery Grinder
14. I’m quite the thing
15. O how Taffline
16. High on the Rock
17. Pleyels German Hymn
18. Old Ramchoondra
19. Croppies lie down
20. The Cuckoo
21. Maudlin
22. Tink a Tink
23. Dance in Fannys Love
24. Carolans Receipt
25. Scotch Air
26. No ’twas neither Shape
27. Go to the Devil and shake yourself
28. O that the Strains
29. Fa lal la
30. March in the Overture to Lodoiska
31. The Mid Watch
32. New Graces the thoughts of a Lover
33. Henry cull’d the flowret’s Bloom
34. Fair Rosale
35. Britannias Sons
36. Heres a health to all good Lasses
37. The Manly heart
38. Metastasio’s Hymn to Venus
39. Away with Melancholy
40. Be gone dull care

The Preceptor

The Flageolet Preceptor

The Flageolet has of late become very much in use, not only by Gentlemen but also there are many Ladies who play both French & English Flageolet very sweetly, & as frequent applications have been made for proper scales of those Instruments we now offer to the Public the following knowing them to be exactly what the Professors of those Instruments make use of as much depends on the goodness of your Flageolet for playing in tune as well as the sweetness of tone you must be careful in the choise [sic] of your Instrument.

The English Flageolet has eight holes seven before & one behind the Left Hand must cover the three top holes & with the thumb cover the one hole behind & the Right Hand cover the other four below the black dots means the holes that must be stop & the open dots are those which must remain open; the open dots which have a mark thus [O struck-through] means the thumb to cover half the hole which must be done by the nail, which is only used above the upper E [1] & you must be careful to cover the thumb hole below the D & be particular to cover only half the thumb hole for all the notes above E the compass of the English Flageolet is two Octaves the lowest note F much the same as the English Flute but as the key scale renders it impossible to play a many delightful Airs on the Flageolet which go lower than F without transposing them I would advise the Learner to study the transposition scale as they will find they will be able to play any piece of Music that go down to C Natural.

To make this work more valuable we have given the Key Scale.

The French Flageolet has only six holes four before and two behind the two first Fingers of the right Hand and left Hand, must cover the four front holes, the Left Hand above and the right below the two thumbs cover the holes behind. The black dots mean the holes that are stopt and the open dots which must remain open the open dots which have a mark thus [mark] are ment for the shakes be careful to keep the holes of the Left Hand shut after the E [1] thus to play the remaining Notes the [2] Thus require more exertion then the other Notes as the thumb hole must be more than half shut to make them sound clear.

Editor’s Notes

The music within this Preceptor has not required any significant editorial corrections to republish. Obvious rhythmic errors, usually caused by additional flags being added to the stems of notes in beamed dotted rhythms, have been silently corrected. An additional tie has been inserted to join the final notes of Life let us cherish; the Dal Segno at the end of Heres a health to all good Lasses has been removed and the penultimate note in the first part of Away with Melancholy has been changed from an A to a C.

The only unusual element is that three pieces divide the flageolet part into two, usually for only half a bar, with one part being a sustained note followed by rests and the other printed in a smaller type. This practice is usually used when a solo part might wish the cue parts of the accompaniment when playing alone. However, it somewhat unusual in an unaccompanied tutor (and when it appears in other works is often used far more extensively), perhaps suggesting that an unpublished accompaniment once existed or the music was reused from another work, unedited. The three cases are bars 18 and 19 of I’m quite the thing; bars 16 and 38 of Fair Rosale; and bars 38 and 42 of Manly heart. In each case, the first note has been halved in length and the cued notes restored to full value in the rests.