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Group of people in front of historic house.

House Music at Your House participants. L-R: Nicole Forsyth, Amy Moore, Matthew Stephens, Anna Fraser and Luke Byrne. Photo © Noni Carroll for Sydney Living Museums

House Music at Your House

Play along with us

For the past few months, all over the world, people have been participating in home activity in unprecedented numbers. Stuck indoors during the coronavirus pandemic, many of us have entertained ourselves, family and friends by making music, playing games and telling stories.

In many ways, this newfound focus on making and sharing music at home echoes life in 19th-century NSW. Imagine a world with no recordings, radio, television, phones or internet to pass the time! Just as we do now, people in 19th-century NSW enjoyed collecting and sharing their favourite songs. They bought sheet music from shops in town, spent hours copying out tunes by hand, or passed down songs from person to person in an oral or folk tradition. Some may have been able to afford a piano, or perhaps they accompanied themselves on a violin, whistle, accordion, guitar, flute or drum.

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Playing with music across time

We invite you to join us in a new musical experiment, bringing the music of the 19th century into the 21st century. We’ve delved into the hundreds of popular songs that survive in the collection at Rouse Hill Estate in north-west Sydney to bring you the top 20 hits of the 1840s and 50s – songs played across NSW, Australia and overseas. We’ve also asked some brilliant musicians to help you explore these pieces of music from their homes and in our historic houses.

Every week we’ll post online the music score of a song enjoyed by the Rouse family and their friends, along with a video, a sound file or guitar chords. The words of these 19th-century songs may seem strange and quaint today, but many of the underlying sentiments are familiar, touching on unrequited love, emigration, a longing for home, separation from loved ones, and even the experience of impatiently waiting for the postie!

We would love YOU to update these songs for the 2020s and make your own cover version of each week’s song, turning music from 19th-century Rouse Hill House into music at YOUR house in the 21st century. Watch this page as our selection of songs grows.

The Rouses of Rouse Hill: a family of music consumers

The sheet music shared online for the House Music at Your House program comes from an extraordinary collection at Rouse Hill Estate.

Webinar

Talking about Music at Your House

SLM donors and members were recently invited to join a webinar broadcast where they heard an animated discussion about SLM’s new online program ‘House Music at Your House’.

Share your musical or creative response

We invite you to share your response with us, and we’ll share the best responses across our website and social media. We want to highlight the ways in which music making at home is for everyone, by everyone – just as it has always been. The more ‘homely’ and amateur your recordings are, the better!

Make your version in any style or format you like – perform it straight or turn it into blues, country, rap, hip-hop, slam poetry, K-pop, Bollywood or any other style; rearrange it for different instruments, voices or electronics; sing it, play it, dance it, write about it, photograph it or paint it.

Share on Facebook or Instagram

Upload your video, or photo, picture, or written response of your response to your own Facebook or Instagram and tag us with @sydlivmus #SLMhousemusic
By tagging Sydney Living Museums on social media you agree for your work to be possibly shared across SLM’s website, Facebook or Instagram accounts.

Share via Youtube or Soundcloud

Upload your recording to your own Youtube or Soundcloud and share with us by completing the below form and provide links to the recording.

Please note: if submission is by someone aged under 16 years, a parent or guardian must complete the below form.

'Australian Flowers'

Given that much of the music played in Australia in the 19th century had been imported, one might ask what constituted an ‘Australian’ piece of music?

The term ‘Castles in the Air’ appears in many works of poetry, long form literature and song, from the late 18th century to today.

For many emigrants coming to New South Wales in the mid-19th century the notion of ‘home’ belonged to places far over the seas in the northern hemisphere.

Ornately patterned cover of music book with song title and composer name.

Even the simplest, shortest tunes could be a florid affair in the 19th century when a performer put their mind to it.

The tune to this ‘old’ ballad ‘Annie Laurie’ may not have been quite as old as the Rouse family thought.

This song reveals a cheeky disregard for copyright and how trying to identify the national identity of a tune can lead you down a slippery slope!

‘The Light of Other Days’ is from the opera ‘The Maid of Artois’, which premiered in London in 1836. Our version was found at Rouse Hill Estate in the Dowling Songbook.

Originally written for voice and piano, ‘The Letter’ is one of a dozen tunes from a series called the ‘Superstitions of Ireland’ originally published in London in the late 1830s.