Books › Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937 › scan 110
Scan 110
Ayars, Contributions to the Art of Music in America by the Music Industries of Boston (1937) — the Squier, Farley, Rettberg, Rockwell and Elias Howe matter, 1937
22 lines. Read by computer on 27 September 2026. Printed page 88. See the scan on archive.org.
1from the plates was generally used until the invention of the lithographic process by Aloysius Senefelder in 1796, and for small editions until not long ago.
3In 1753 Christopher Sower of Germantown, Pennsylvania, printed what was probably the first book in the United States to be printed by the typographic method from music type. In 1770 Edes and Gill of Boston printed The New England Psalm-Singer by this method.
5The early sacred sheet music may have been printed from either engraved plates or music type, for William M'Alpine on page 406 of The Boston Chronicle of October 17, 1788, advertised as follows:
7"William M'Alpine
8Informs his customers and others that, being obliged to raise a sum of money in a few months—He intends to dispose of his stock under the common wholesale price if applied for soon. Most of the BOOKS are of his printing and binding, and will be warranted good.
10Among which are
11Watts Psalms and Hymns, bound as one volume or separately, with or without tunes; New England Psalms, with or without tunes. . . ."
13Music publications both engraved and typographical were comparatively rare in America until the beginning of the nineteenth century.
152. Present Music Engraving and Printing
17The hardened steel die stamps used in modern engraving for music notation and text letters are generally imported from Germany and are much better cut than formerly. Special hammers and iron plates are used to punch these stamps.
19Engraving is done by hand with the aid of cutters for the staff lines, slurs, leger lines, balkens, bar lines, etc., and steel stamps to imprint the clefs, accidentals, rests, notes and other music notations, and text letters on the composition plates. T squares and dividers are used in spacing the alignment of bar lines and rests according to their values. The chippers and scrapers made of softer steel
212 Statement of Oscar C. Henning of M. O. Henning & Son.
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.