Rook Book: Subscriptions open!

Subscriptions for “The John Rook Manuscript” are now open. You can subscribe over here on the crowdfunder platform: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/the-john-rook-manuscript/

There are a variety of reward options available:

  • Player’s Manuscript – £16 (RRP £16 + P&P)
  • Hardback Subscription – £35 (RRP £45 + P&P)
  • Hardback + Player’s – £45

The crowdfunding rewards include postage (or personal delivery!) to the UK – if you want to subscribe from abroad, I’ll need to charge postage at cost. Simply support the crowdfunder and let me know and we’ll sort something out. Surface mail to the US is about £12 at the moment .. air mail is somewhere between £25 & £30!

Subscriptions are open until 3rd June – and copies of the book and the player’s manuscript will be available at the end of August at wallpapermusic.co.uk

The John Rook Manuscript

The Rook Manuscript was created in 1840 and consists of over 1260 tunes including over 80 sets of variations. One of the intriguing things about the manuscript was that the cover including an illustration of instruments (flute, fiddle, northumbrian smallpipes, flutina, bugle/trumpet) that Rook stated that he played (and the contents also referenced some of these instruments). The smallpipes in particular were puzzling as the form shown had only been invented 40 years earlier – and yet Rook gave his location as Cumberland; how was Rook, living in rural Cumberland, connected to the very small group of earlier pipers centered in North Shields?

The manuscript is only known through a photocopy – the original is now lost – but almost nothing was known about John Rook for the last 40 years. After much puzzling and research I’ve now finally found John Rook – and not only has he been found but he can now be placed in North Shields and we have details of his musical activities – in his own hand.

All of the information and the music has been compiled into a new book coming out 30th July. There’ll also be a spiral bound players manuscript of just the music (for playability). Subscriptions for the book open on the 22nd April and will run to the beginning of June.

You can also take a look at the photocopy here – and shortly you’ll be able to buy the book or the players manuscript here. The ABC transcription of the manuscript will also be made freely available in the summer.

New Music Book: Doon the Redewater

Over the last five years I’ve been helping out local mouth-organ player Don Clegg in transcribing all of his new compositions and now we’ve gathered them all together and published them in a proper book. “Doon the Redewater” is available at Core Music in Hexham and online

Doon the Redewater

Many of Don’s tunes are in the key of A, but he’s always happy to transpose for Northumbrian pipes – so we’ve also got a piper’s manuscript to accompany the book with all of the tunes arranged for NSP.

Don is also a wonderful dialect poet and storyteller and I’m currently compiling a book of poems & tales which should be available before Christmas.