Annotation:Guardian Angels
Tune properties and standard notation
GUARDIAN ANGELS. AKA - "Guardian Angels Watch Over Me." English, American; Air and Country Dance Tune (2/4 time). G Major (Keller, Sweet): A Major (Barnes). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Keller, Sweet): AABB (Barnes). The tune appeared with a song in Vocal Music or The Songster's Companion printed in London in 1775 and with a country dance in Charles and Samuel Thompson's Twenty Four Country Dances, also printed in London the next year. Later it appeared in Longman and Broderip's Entire New and Compleat Instructions for the Fife (London, 1780, p. 21), and in numerous instrumental tutors . "Guardian Angels (Watch Over Me)" was a popular song in the post-Revolutionary period in both Britain and America and was published in numerous instrumental collections and song sheets. As "Guardian Angel Now Protect Me" the title appears in a list compiled by Henry Robson of popular Northumbrian song and dance tunes, published around the year 1800. The melody appears in a few American music mansucripts of Revolutionary period, including the Greenwood MSS. (1775-76), Henry Beck's flute copybook (c. 1785), and Captain George Bush's fiddle book. It also appears in Thomas Nixon's commonplace book (Danbury, Conn., 1776), Eleazer Cary's music copybook (Mansfield, Conn., 1797), Elizabeth Van Rensselaer's music copybook (Boston, Mass., 1782), Peter Gansevoort's copybook (1778), and George White's commonplace book (Cherry Valley, N.Y., 1790).
Source for notated version: the music manuscript of Captain George Bush (1753?-1797), a fiddler and officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolution [Keller].
Printed sources: Barnes (English Country Dance Tunes, vol. 2), 2005; p. 54. Keller (Fiddle Tunes from the American Revolution), 1992; p. 16. Sweet (Fifer's Delight), 1964/1981; p. 73.
Recorded sources: