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While heavily featuring traditional Northumbrian music, the collection is highly eclectic. It includes country dances, jigs, reels, hornpipes, minuets, marches, and Scots tunes. It reflects how fluidly music traveled across borders and social classes.

The collection is notable for its sheer volume and variety, containing approximately .

The modern Great Northern Tunebook published by EFDSS is a copyrighted, commercial publication that is not legally available as a free PDF download. Expect to pay around for a new copy from specialist music retailers like Red Cow Music, the Northumbrian Pipers' Society, or the EFDSS themselves.

Today, the original pages rest in the , safely preserved as a testament to a nameless musician who wanted the North’s dances to live forever. The Great Northern Tune book The collection is notable for its sheer volume

The manuscript is written primarily for the , indicated by the clef and the range of the melodies. However, the phrasing of the tunes strongly suggests they were also played on the Northumbrian Small Pipes .

Traditional jigs and reels sit alongside complex pieces adapted from "high art" and foreign sources.

| Type of Tune | Approx. Count | |--------------|----------------| | Reels | 200+ | | Jigs | 150+ | | Hornpipes | 60+ | | Marches | 40+ | | Minuets/Airs | 50+ | Today, the original pages rest in the ,

: Digitised PDF versions of the original manuscript pages are often available through folk archives like the Farne website Folkopedia

The Great Northern Tunebook: William Vickers' Collection of Dance Tunes, c.1770 is a treasure of 18th-century dance music. Thanks to the open-access decision by Matt Seattle and the Northumbrian Pipers’ Society, a fully edited, scholarly version is freely available to all. This resource is invaluable for folk musicians, dancers, ethnomusicologists, and anyone interested in historical popular music of the British Isles.

In the mid-18th century, a musical treasure was born. William Vickers, a Northumbrian musician, compiled a magnificent collection of dance tunes that would become known as "The Great Northern Tunebook." This extraordinary manuscript, created around 1770, is a testament to the rich musical heritage of the North of England. Today, we can explore this remarkable collection, now available for free, and discover the beauty of traditional dance music. playing for dances

For anyone interested in the lineage of British folk music, the Great Northern Tunebook remains an indispensable, free, and deeply rewarding resource.

For those who struggle to read 18th-century handwriting, the TTA provides modern ABC notation and standard musical notation for individual tunes within the collection. Search for "William Vickers collection" on their platform. 3. The Session (thesession.org)

The manuscript itself is a large, oblong volume consisting of roughly 360 tunes. It was not published commercially in Vickers's lifetime; it was a personal "vade mecum" or reference book. Vickers wrote out the tunes by hand, likely for his own use in teaching, playing for dances, and preserving the melodies he heard.