Tune collecting and musical taxonomies in eighteenth‐century English tunebooks

Abstract Music collecting in the late eighteenth century was as much an intellectual practice as a practical one, therefore, the organization of tunes in manuscript tunebooks gives us insight into the worldviews of tunebook compilers. This article introduces some of the literature on tune collecting and categorization, and describes attempts by music historians in the twentieth century to categorize tunebooks. It shows that considering the categorization of tunes only as a practical matter ignores the intellectual function of categorization. It argues that to understand manuscript tunebooks better these sources should be approached as the product of collecting activity and not just as a by‐product of music making. An expanded methodological approach, incorporating the history of collecting, biographical methods, and material culture studies, can provide insight into how tunebook compilers used their collections to order their worlds.