Artificial compilations of sheet music that has been collected by an individual and bound into a single volume. The most common examples of these date to the early-mid-19th century, created when the owner, often a woman, had a personal collection bound for posterity. Many scholars consider the peak of this activity to be 1830-1880, though volumes of manuscripts or printed material are known since at least the 16th century. Binder’s volumes were most common in the 19th century because of advances in printing technology and the rise of a middle class. Around 1880, publishers began offering printed collections of music that could serve the same purpose as an individual’s binder’s volume, initiating the obsolescence of this object genre.
