Frank C. Bradbury Manuscript Collected By John E. Copeland

[Joel Hooks]

Here is a rare collection of manuscript music.  In fact, it might be the only copy extant!  This is a three ring binder that was owned by John E. Copeland (one of the founding members of the ABF).  It is jammed full of popular tunes arranged by Frank C. Bradbury (and it is no secret that I am a Bradbury fan).

Copeland was either paying Bradbury to do these, or this was part of a lesson plan.  I'm not really sure what the story is, but Copeland's music is 90% Bradbury arrangements so clearly he was a fan too.

All of theses are in Bradbury's unique style using his bag of tricks.  They are also very playable (if you can read his handwriting).

https://archive.org/details/frank-c-bradbury-manuscript-collected-b...

[Jody Stecher]

 Seeing Daisy Bell and Sidewalks Of New York  on adjacent pages reminded me of a guitar player I heard when I was about 12 years old. He'd play these two pieces simultaneously.  There was occasional discord but it mostly worked.  I was very impressed. But I was 12 and he was not much older.  Hearing these two  played one after the other was commonplace but one on top of the other played by a single guitarist was quite the event. It was in C major . I wonder if banjo players did that.

[Joel Hooks]

Bickford has Blue Bells of Scotland and Yankee Doodle, it is fun to play but I have not been able to consistently get through it without going cross-eyed.  

[Jody Stecher]

Ha!  So this was " a thing" in its time.  I'm going to try Blue Doodle. Wish me luck.  

[Joel Hooks]

Totally a thing!  The "two at once" was a standard vaudeville bit.

Here are a couple pages from the US School of Music course (BTW, I recently came into most of the rest of this course, just missing a few lessons, when I get a chance I will scan it all.  Also, I was totally wrong about who wrote the course-- it was not Bickford.  More to come on that later.)

[Trapdoor2]

Two at once is part of contrpuntal harmony, often called countermelody. Been going on since medieval times. Bach fugues are commonly listed as examples. Weaving known tunes together has been employed as a party trick since polyphonic instruments were invented. Not surprisingly, it is hard to make it work out well!

[Joel Hooks]

Oh, normally I don't like color scans with brown pages showing as it lowers the usability of the document and does not really add anything.  But I'll be color scanning Bradbury MS as he often uses red pen to add in alternate bits.  So, in this case color does add to the usefulness of the score. 

[Jody Stecher]

Of course. But when the two parts are well-known chestnuts it somehow changes it from highbrow to parlor trick or vaudeville.

Trapdoor2 said:

Two at once is part of contrpuntal harmony, often called countermelody. Been going on since medieval times. Bach fugues are commonly listed as examples. Weaving known tunes together has been employed as a party trick since polyphonic instruments were invented. Not surprisingly, it is hard to make it work out well!

[IAN SALTER]

This is from Turner's Banjo Budget n°66, 'Eight Banjo Eccentricities' by Ellis:

[IAN SALTER]

Note: the whole of TBB 66 is in the music library on this site, under Herbert J Ellis. The contents are all 'trick' pieces.