Brief tuneful melodies arranged for intermediate flutists and guitarists from early American (1817) popular music. Written in standard notation these delightful arrangements feature collections of popular melodies from that eraas well as airs and dances. In keeping with performance practice of the traditional music played during this time these arrangements are organized into sets of pieces as they may have been performed during this era. The setsinclude jigs slow airs and marches as well as melodies that were popular from the continent. These arrangements are appropriate both for background music as well as public concert performance. The arrangements are derived froma book of flute melodies entitled ?Riley?s Flute Melodies.? Published in 1816 and 1817 this book was possibly used as jazz musicians use lead sheets to develop spontaneous arrangements of pieces depending upon the occasion andthe musicians at hand. The guitar arrangements were modeled upon existing guitar practice during that time and use idiomatic guitar devices such as pizzicato and harmonics to provide an imaginative underpinning for the melodies.Many of the arrangements give equal treatment to both the guitar as a harmonic and melodic instrument.

Bill Bay asked me to write a follow up book to my last book ”The Bluegrass Pickers Tune Book (20233).' If you like Bluegrass music (232 songs) I'd recommend getting that book to add to your collection. The focus of this book 'The Acoustic Source Book' is on roots and old-time music. The book is focused on the time period from late 1800's until 1940's. There are a few songs from The Bluegrass Book that were too important to be left out. I decided notto use any patriotic and Christmas songs and came up with a list of about 400 songs which eventually was cut down to over 200. During the late 1800's and early 1900's there was an important evolution in American music; the birthof jazz ragtime and blues. This was also the period of the phonograph and early commercial recordings. Music from the Minstrel period as well as traditional songs were used as staple for the roots musicians. In the early 1900'sthere were rags blues gospel Tin-Pan Alley jug band spiritual old-time country and popular songs. I've tried to include some of the well-known songs from every genre to give you a big slice of Americana. There are some greatsongs that are popular roots bluegrass and old-time songs today that have never been published. There are also great songs that are not well known that should be played and enjoyed.