Intermediate
Argeers
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Browse piano sheets by John Playford on Zen Virtual Piano. John Playford was born in Norwich, the younger son of John Playford. He served an apprenticeship in London with the publisher John Benson from 1639/40 to 1647, after which he remained in the capital, opening a shop in the porch of Temple Church, where he was clerk. His shop became the meeting-place of musical enthusiasts. A shop in a church porch that became a meeting-place for enthusiasts shows a publisher whose business and community were one. Working as an English Civil War correspondent, he was captured by Cromwell’s men and told that, if he valued his freedom as a sympathiser with the King, he might consider a change of career. A change of career pressed on him by captors sits oddly beside the near-monopoly of music publishing attributed to him. A bookseller, publisher and member of the Stationers’ Company, he published books on music theory, instruction books for several instruments and psalters with tunes for singing in churches. Under the Commonwealth (1649–60), and for some years of Charles II’s reign, he almost monopolised the business of music publishing in England. Printing note-values so that quavers and semiquavers hang together in groups, and printing a book for teaching dancing, suggest a publisher thinking about the reader at the keyboard or on the floor. He is perhaps best known today for his publication of The English Dancing Master in 1651, during the period of the Puritan-dominated Commonwealth; later editions were known as The Dancing Master. The first edition contained 105 dances with single-line melodies and was designed for teaching dancing. A book designed to teach dancing and published during the Puritan-dominated Commonwealth stands in an interesting tension with its time. “Argeers” is a square set for two couples facing, in D major, played three times through AABB. In typographical technique, his most original improvement was the invention in 1658 of the “new-ty’d note,” quavers or semiquavers connected in pairs or series by one or two horizontal strokes at the end of their stems. By 1665 he and his wife had moved from the Temple to a large house opposite Islington Church, where Mrs. Playford kept a boarding-school.
Browse piano sheets by John Playford on Zen Virtual Piano.
John Playford was born in Norwich, the younger son of John Playford. He served an apprenticeship in London with the publisher John Benson from 1639/40 to 1647, after which he remained in the capital, opening a shop in the porch of Temple Church, where he was clerk. His shop became the meeting-place of musical enthusiasts. A shop in a church porch that became a meeting-place for enthusiasts shows a publisher whose business and community were one. Working as an English Civil War correspondent, he was captured by Cromwell’s men and told that, if he valued his freedom as a sympathiser with the King, he might consider a change of career. A change of career pressed on him by captors sits oddly beside the near-monopoly of music publishing attributed to him.
A bookseller, publisher and member of the Stationers’ Company, he published books on music theory, instruction books for several instruments and psalters with tunes for singing in churches. Under the Commonwealth (1649–60), and for some years of Charles II’s reign, he almost monopolised the business of music publishing in England. Printing note-values so that quavers and semiquavers hang together in groups, and printing a book for teaching dancing, suggest a publisher thinking about the reader at the keyboard or on the floor.
He is perhaps best known today for his publication of The English Dancing Master in 1651, during the period of the Puritan-dominated Commonwealth; later editions were known as The Dancing Master. The first edition contained 105 dances with single-line melodies and was designed for teaching dancing. A book designed to teach dancing and published during the Puritan-dominated Commonwealth stands in an interesting tension with its time. “Argeers” is a square set for two couples facing, in D major, played three times through AABB.
In typographical technique, his most original improvement was the invention in 1658 of the “new-ty’d note,” quavers or semiquavers connected in pairs or series by one or two horizontal strokes at the end of their stems. By 1665 he and his wife had moved from the Temple to a large house opposite Islington Church, where Mrs. Playford kept a boarding-school.
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A book published by John Playford in 1651, designed for teaching dancing, whose first edition contained 105 dances with single-line melodies; later editions were known as The Dancing Master.
Books on music theory, instruction books for several instruments, psalters with tunes for singing in churches and The English Dancing Master.
An improvement Playford invented in 1658: quavers or semiquavers connected in pairs or series by one or two horizontal strokes.