1866 Fife and Drum book prices

[33rdaladrummer]

Here are prices for Fife and Drum books from 1866. Dealers were offered half price on most of these works, except for Bruce and Emmett's Drummers' and Fifers' Guide at $1.50. This means that dealers might have to pay 4 times the price for B&E than the Army Fife and Drum Book. I'd think it's safe to say that higher prices would lead to lower sales. Also interesting is that what appears to be Levi Lovering's Drummer's Assistant, or Art of Drumming Made Easy, originally published in 1818, was still being offered.

FIFE AND DRUM.

Oliver Ditson & Co.

Retail Price, To Dealers
Army Drum and Fife Book, 75 cents, 38 cents
Draper's Fife Melodies. By A. Draper, 75, 38
Howe's New Fife Instructor, 60, 30
Howe's School for the Fife, 50, 25
Fife without a Master. By A. Draper, 75, 38
Modern School for the Drum, 75, 38
Union Drum and Fife Book, 75, 38
Winner's Perfect Guide for the Fife, 75, 38

Lee and Walker

A New and Complete Preceptor for Fife 40, 20

Drummer's Assistant; or, Art of Drumming, 50, 25

Winner's Drum Book, 30, 15

Winner's Tunes of the World for the Fife, 60, 30

William A. Pond and Co.

Drummer and Fifer's Guide, $1.50

Uniform trade list circular: for the benefit of publishers, Volume 1 By Howard Challen, 1866

[Alan Lloyd]

Re: 1866 Fife and Drum book prices

Will
Thanks for the great post.

After checking the Chronologic list of Fife Tutors http://www.colonialmusic.org/Resource/FifeDrum.htm

I find the full names or authors of most of these books

Army Drum and Fife Book, 75 cents, 38 cents ( KEACH 1861)
Draper's Fife Melodies. By A. Draper, 75, 38 (DRAPER 1855)
Howe's New Fife Instructor, 60, 30 (? )
Howe's School for the Fife, 50, 25 (HOWE FIFE 1851)
Fife without a Master. By A. Draper, 75, 38 (DRAPER 1857)
Modern School for the Drum, 75, 38 ( KEACH 1861 see above)
Union Drum and Fife Book, 75, 38 (SIMPSON 1862)
Winner's Perfect Guide for the Fife, 75, 38 (? )

Lee and Walker (WINNER'S TUNES OF THE WORLD1863)

A New and Complete Preceptor for Fife 40, 20 (STEELE 1815)

Drummer's Assistant; or, Art of Drumming, 50, 25 (LOVERING 1819)

Winner's Drum Book, 30, 15 (?)

Winner's Tunes of the World for the Fife, 60, 30 (WINNER 1863 see above)

William A. Pond and Co.
Drummer and Fifer's Guide, $1.50 BRUCE AND EMMETT 1862

Some of these are available as reprints on Ed Boyles beafifer site.

Does anyone have access to copies of the others?
ie: Steele;
Winners Drum , Perfect Guide for the Fife, and Tunes of the World;
Howes New Fife;
Draper's Fife Without a Master;
and Simpson's Union Drum Book?

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: 1866 Fife and Drum book prices

Will

Does anyone have access to copies of the others?
ie: Steele;
Winners Drum , Perfect Guide for the Fife, and Tunes of the World;
Howes New Fife;
Draper's Fife Without a Master;
and Simpson's Union Drum Book?

I think Winner's Drum is at the Library of Congress. Never seen it.

Winner's Perfect Guide does not have much usable material. Seems to be mostly music for other instruments sold as fife music. This usually works for fiddle tunes (that is what Howe did a lot of, probably Emmett too), but did not work out so good in this case. Has a cool cover though (attached).

I have a copy of Winner's Tunes of the World. I'll try to scan it and upload it here when I get around to it.

Howe's New Fife is probably his 1861 Army and Navy Fife Instructor. His "old" fife book would be the 1851 School for the Fife. Yale has a copy of the 1861. I have written to them numerous times for a copy and never got a reply. I've attached some pages that were on a ebay auction a while back. A friend of mine compared those pages with Howe's Musician's Omnibus and said they were nearly identical. In the Omnibus, The Reveille concludes with Dawning of Day, Fifer's Delight, Prince Eugene, and Quick Scotch. Tattoo concludes with an unnamed Hornpipe and Yankee Doodle.

Draper's is much like the one that Ed Boyle sells. I think the other edition is also at the LOC and has the camp duty, but I've never seen it myself. Other than the camp duty it doesn't have much usable material because it was all composed by Draper as opposed to being taken from tunes that were actually played by fifers or fiddlers. I would like to see his camp duty though.

Simpson and Canterbury is almost identical to Keach, Burditt, and Cassidy's Army Drum and Fife Book, but has a few extra fife tunes and one cool beat called Simpson's Stick Beat for Drum Corps. I've attached my transcription.

Check www.worldcat.org for Steele or other books with the same title.