GAR Photo with Fife and Drum

[cprljohnivey]

I always hear talk about cheaters being added to fifes for the GAR as with age, the vets had difficulty playing without them. Found a nice GAR photo that has some field musicians (on the right) and what looks to be a cheater on the fife. Enjoy.

http://cgi.ebay.com/large-PHOTO-GAR-Civil-War-vets-fife-drum-60-men_W0QQitemZ290386461928QQcmdZViewItemQQptZArt_Photo_Images?hash=item439c61c4e8

[Hardtack Herring]

Re: GAR Photo with Fife and Drum

Looks to be a cheater.

The bass drummer also has only one beater.

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: GAR Photo with Fife and Drum

Or maybe many of them never learned to play without a cheater. Here's a wartime photo of a fifer with a cheater.

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: GAR Photo with Fife and Drum

Here's some more GAR fifers and drummers. Some of the bass drummers do have 2 beaters, but anyone who has actually played a bass drum with the buckskin covered beaters can tell you that it is difficult to play the "rudimental" style of bass drumming with all the paradiddles, etc. since the covered beaters are much heavier than uncovered solid wood beaters. Therefore bass drummers probably played a lot more quarter and eighth notes than sixteenth notes unless they used the solid wood beaters. I have never seen a period photo of a bass drummer with 2 solid wood beaters, although the rudimental style of bass drumming is documented in Hart's manual. Based on the photographic evidence, the style of bass drumming used today by 99% of drummers would have been very rare.

[David Fox]

Re: GAR Photo with Fife and Drum

With my peculiar talent for changing the subject, it's interesting to me how very few kepis there are amongst the Old Boys pictured in this thread; only a couple and those in what appears to be the earliest photo taken. I always think of GAR members wearing either kepis or black slouch hats. In the original thread photo there's evidence of substantial adoption of the U.S. army M.1895 uniform cap, at least among members of the Post or group photographed. By the 1920s the aged vets often mixed slouches with bowlers sporting the GAR-in-a-wreath and variations of the Army's 1912 service cap. Those vets kept up with fashion!

[robert-m]

Re: GAR Photo with Fife and Drum

IMHO, The idea to me of a felt covered beater during the war would have been few and far between in a fife and drum corps. Now concert or a brass band of the time it would have been ideal. I am making this assumption because I am a music education major, with a concentration in percussion with a brass secondary. I march drum corps in the summer, well not any more due to age out. But even now we use hard felt headed bass mallets and on a rainy show day or night we get new mallets the next day. The felt gets wet and they puff up and fall apart, the same goes for the key board mallets, they are made of yarn and felt. So I think sense the picture is of a post war veteran fife and drum corps that it's possible that its what they had on hand to use. So to me a all wood beater is more likely to be used in the field music area of the war time music.
Robert

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: GAR Photo with Fife and Drum

The beaters of the period were not covered in felt. They were wrapped in string and covered with buckskin. There are a large number of beaters of this type that have survived. Besides, you cannot play drums with skin heads in the rain.

Rumrille and Holton's 1817 drum and fife manual actually describes the bass drum beaters used at the time and mentions that they were wrapped in yarn.

The surviving bass beaters and period photos of drum corps from the 1860s (30th PA is a good example) show that the majority of bass beaters were large and appear to be covered with string and buckskin. There simply is not much actual evidence of solid wood beaters being used.

[robert-m]

Re: GAR Photo with Fife and Drum

Now string and buck skin beaters I can see being used. I was only saying that it is more practical for wood beaters than felt covered. I am not saying at all that wood beaters were the choice of the musicians. The research is clear and clean cut.
Robert