Spicer, Richard C. "Aaron Thompson, His Book of Notes: First American Transcription of Five Country Dances From the Revolutionary War era." In Researching Secular Music and Dance in the Early United States: Extending the Legacy of Kate Van Winkle Keller, edited by Laura Lohman, 24-49. New York: Routledge, 2021.


Abstract:
A manuscript compiled between 1777 and 1782 by Revolutionary War fifer Aaron Thompson of New Jersey (Yale University, Misc. MS 72, Microfilm HM 44) provides an important window on several aspects of American music and dance in the revolutionary era. During his military service, Thompson compiled music instructions, 99 march and camp duty tunes, verses to 7 songs, a journal of company movements during the Sullivan expedition against the Iroquois, penmanship and arithmetic exercises, and miscellaneous accounts. Thompson also recorded both music and dance figures for five English country dances. His is the first manuscript by an American to do so. Thompson’s book helps us understand the interests of Revolutionary War musicians, the place of music and social dance in the revolutionary era, and how American social dance and melodies evolved in transatlantic and domestic circuits. After briefly surveying Thompson’s life and military service records, this chapter explores how Keller’s bibliographic and online indexes, particularly the National Tune Index and the Dance Figures Index, can provide extremely powerful tools in trying to address questions that arise from the examination of an intriguing but elusive early American music manuscript like Thompson’s and help place it in a wider context.