Annotation:Prussian Quick Step (The)

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PRUSSIAN QUICKSTEP, THE. American (?), March (2/4 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. This somewhat garbled fife march was entered into the c. 1776-1778 music copybook of fifer Thomas Nixon Jr. [1](1762-1842), of Framingham, Connecticut. Nixon was a thirteen-year-old who accompanied his father to the battles of Lexington and Concord, and who served in the Continental army in engagements in and around New York until 1780, after which he returned home to build a house in Framingham. The copybook appears to have started by another musician, Joseph Long, and to have come into Nixon’s possession.

The melody is different than the "Prussian March in Abelino" that appears in several of Nixon's contemporaries' manuscript collections (often shortened to "Prussian March."

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