Authenticity in music : manuals verses oral history

[Danny]

... I am certainly no expert here, a very new banjo player really but having a great time with it.

John -

Thanks for the hands-on report. Would an authentic 1855 Briggs banjo instructor booklet (in a 3-part pdf download) help you in your efforts?

http://groups.google.com/group/Albert-Baur?hl=en

There's enough evidence that this and a couple of other tutors were in use by the CW, as such a best source for period technique and content. Regular 'ole farm boy soldier players probably hacked out their own method by raw reckoning, but at least this was what they were trying to mimick from stage players.

Dan Wykes

[dedogtent]

Re: minstrel Banjo website

Dan,

I have certainly heard of this booklet but haven't bought it. Thanks very much for the link. Looks like I have alot of studying to do.

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: minstrel Banjo website

There's enough evidence that this and a couple of other tutors were in use by the CW, as such a best source for period technique and content. Regular 'ole farm boy soldier players probably hacked out their own method by raw reckoning, but at least this was what they were trying to mimick from stage players.

Dan Wykes

It is very likely that the majority of banjo players (or musicians in general) did not use tutors or manuals in the 1860s. However, for a 21st century musician, using the manuals is the only option if one would like to play like they did during the 19th century. Surely many amateurs played differently than professional stage performers, but we simply do not have any record of what amateurs did play.

Thousands of army drummers learned to play without ever seeing a drum manual. But that does not mean that we should avoid using manuals today just because most did not have access to them during the war. If you are trying to play like musicians did during the war, you cannot simply make up your own quicksteps and camp duty calls just like you can't make up your own style of playing the banjo.

Anyone who wonders about how many banjo tutors or drum and fife manuals were published and actually used by army musicians is missing the point. We must use manuals and tutors not because musicians necessarily used them in the 1860s but because it is the only way to perform on period instruments in a period style.

On the other hand, just because it wasn't in a manual doesn't mean no one played it. Unfortunately this can lead to a very slippery slope for some.

[Danny]

Re: minstrel Banjo website

It is very likely that the majority of banjo players (or musicians in general) did not use tutors or manuals in the 1860s. However, for a 21st century musician, using the manuals is the only option if one would like to play like they did during the 19th century...

Did someone mention another option? I'm pretty sure I stated the same thing: "There's enough evidence that this and a couple of other tutors were in use by the CW, as such a best source for period technique and content."

Dan Wykes

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: minstrel Banjo website

Did someone mention another option?

Not unless we assume that a modern player's "raw reckoning" would result in the same style used by an amateur player 150 years ago.

I'm pretty sure I stated the same thing: "There's enough evidence that this and a couple of other tutors were in use by the CW, as such a best source for period technique and content."

I was simply stating that is doesn't matter if any tutors were actually in use during the war. We have to use them either way if we want a period correct sound.

We're not really saying the same thing. You say they are the best source because there's evidence they were used. I say they are the best source by default because they are the only source for period technique. Even if all the tutors were just personal manuscripts that were never published, virtually unknown to all banjo players, would that be a reason not to use them?

[Danny]

Re: minstrel Banjo website

Will -

To say that the only source for period technique is the tutors is to deny the folk tradition, techniques passed on and surviving in certain parts of this country (Appalachians, Michigan etc.) and Canada (Nova Scotia). Clearly, musicians in those areas were discovered and recorded early in the last century already knowing how to play five-string banjo in both stroke and three-finger styles, and other styles not mentioned in tutors ever.

The five-string banjo as we know it was, by all serious studies on the topic, invented in the mid-South and Carribean and was distributed from there to the rest of the world - the tutors not so much. Early recordings are a source for period technique that was passed via the folk tradition, in a time when many CW were still alive to remember their camp days.

Dan W

[Silas]

Re: minstrel Banjo website

Groan.

Welcome back to the forum, Danno. Let me repeat what I've told you before : on this forum, we like less conjecture and more fact.

You have reached your conclusions based upon unmeasurable, gut assumptions and without any evidence. Listening to a recorded version of the folksy Angeline the Baker doesn't tell me much about how folks played Foster's popular Angelina Baker before or at the time of the war. I love Jolsen - I'm listenting to him on Pandora as I write this - but his songs about Mammy and Californy don't tell me squat about how Big Daddy Rice sang Jump Jim Crow.

Will's assertion is solid : if you want to have an idea how people played at the time of the war, stick with the historical record which is quantifiable and stay away from the unquantifiable "folk tradition."

[rlhardingjr]

Authenticity in music : manuals verses oral history

Folks..,

Forgive me here as I may have missed the point of this thread started by Greg - to which I am very greatful. I am not a musician of any sort, nor am I versed in what is musically historically correct, etc., etc. I am afraid I have to follow this on "faith". The bottom line here is I checked out Marty's website, listened to samples of his playing and bought all three of his available albums. I "loved" what I heard and moved his albums over into what I call my "get-in-the-mood/mind-set" play list - right along side with my "Vaughn & Starbuck" collection. I can certainly appreciate the vast knowledge of those who can "debate" this, that and the other, but I am not sure that was in the intent when Greg opened this one. Maybe this should the the subject of another thread, to which I would be interested in following so that we may all learn something valuable here. If I have stuck my big pug-nose into a discussion where it doesn't belong, then my sincere apology. Just my two-cents worth...

[Silas]

Re: Authenticity in music : manuals verses oral history

Consider it done.

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: Authenticity in music : manuals verses oral history

Because some recent posts in the aforementioned thread were deleted by the mods, presumably for not meeting AC standards, it appears that I dug up a thread from 2008 just to pick on Danny when actually the 2010 posts on a 2008 thread are what brought it to my attention.

Sorry to have caused any confusion or inconvenience.

Thank you Silas for creating the new thread.

We can learn much from the aural tradition and from printed sources, but we will never be able to prove what musicians really played. We can only use the resources available to us today to play what we believe was possibly played. Even if video and audio recording technology were invented in the 1850s and we had 3 surviving recordings, they would only represent what 3 musicians played and only the tunes they chose to record. That is a very small sample. The same can be said of the manuals, but without them we would be completely clueless.

To attempt to reproduce the sounds of 1860s music, we have to make assumptions. We can either assume that the manuals have much in common with what was actually played or we can assume that 20th century styles of playing remained unchanged over the course of 50 years. They are both guesses. But which is more likely to be true?

A very popular fife and drum piece, the Road to Boston, appears in Keach, Burditt, and Cassidy's 1861 Army Drum and Fife Book. This is the only 19th century source for a specific drumbeat for Road to Boston. But any drummer can tell you that no one plays Keach's beat because it is one of the lamest beats every written down in a manual. Aural tradition shows that modern drummers and fifers play Road to Boston with Army 2-4, a very old and probably the most common drumbeat played during the 1860s. This would be an example where the aural tradition tells us much more than any manual. Versions of Army 2-4 can be found in drum manuals printed in 1817, 1853, and three manuals from 1862. There is footage of GAR vets playing Road to Boston with Army 2-4. But there is no manual that says that Army 2-4 should be played with Road to Boston.

Still, the modern version of Army 2-4 that drummers play today is different from the 1862 versions. So what do you go with, the modern version from the aural tradition or one of the versions from the manuals that relatively few drummers in the war actually had copies of?

[Silas]

Re: Authenticity in music : manuals verses oral history

No posts were deleted to create the current thread. The old thread is still around. I severed the more current messages from the old ones. This caused the old thread to drop to the bottom of the heap. Here's the link to the old thread. http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/...read.php?17245

I applied the knife where the thread ceased talk about Marty's website and commenced talking about songsters, tutors and oral tradition.

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: Authenticity in music : manuals verses oral history

I think there were at least two posts after the one dated 04-23-2008 and before my post, but it doesn't really matter. I think one of them was talking about the differences in finish, etc. between original and repro banjos.

No posts were deleted to create the current thread. The old thread is still around. I severed the more current messages from the old ones. This caused the old thread to drop to the bottom of the heap. Here's the link to the old thread. http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/...read.php?17245

I applied the knife where the thread ceased talk about Marty's website and commenced talking about songsters, tutors and oral tradition.

[Danny]

Re: minstrel Banjo website

...if you want to have an idea how people played at the time of the war, stick with the historical record which is quantifiable and stay away from the unquantifiable "folk tradition."

It's your call.

Dan Wykes

[RJSamp]

Re: minstrel Banjo website

How quickly we forget that the bugle call TAPS does not appear in any ACW manual....and we are going completely on aural/oral tradition that it was 'arranged' by Dan Butterfield and Oliver Norton in July 1862 at Harrison's Landing, 1862, played by Federal and CSA buglers alike, and passed on to the 'Western Theatre' when XX Corps came west to open up the Cracker Line (and ignoring the idea that Longstreet's Corps could have brought it to the West after Chickamauga.....).

Musician's face this issue all the time in performing written music from Centuries ago.....including the ERRORS in the music.......tempo's, phrasing, volume, virbato, even tuning takes part reading, part interpreting, part written primary/secondary/non musician history, and part oral traditions.....plus a fair amount of what just plain sounds right....to play Bach, Handel, you name it.......

There's WRITTEN PRIMARY evidence of the manuals and music.....there are plenty of diary quotes to the effect: I heard OUR bugler/fife and drum corps/fifer, you name it....... play/sound the Forward, "our call", Reveille, the Charge......

IF every musician played the manuals note for note the SAME.....how did they know it was 'OUR' bugler.... William Sargeants "Diary of a Cavalry Bugler" , Charles Perkins Diary at Carlisle Military Barracks, the 15th Ohio diary commented on the German Buglers in the 32nd IN, Story of a Cavalry Regiment (4th Iowa Cavalry).....the list goes on and on......something about the style, phrasing, lilt, edge, vibrato, pitch, errors, performance musicianship made the call heard "Our" musician's drum beat, fife playing (Ludolph Longhenry was recognized by many members of OTHER Iron Brigade Regiment's as to his musicianship and exceptional playing ability)......

Note for note playing from manual's.....bah humbug.


Thank goodness some of the officer's like Upton, Buford, Wilder, Rodes, Wilson.....DIDN'T follow 'our' beloved ACW manuals and dared to be different and do something different that WASN'T in the manuals........


Things like bugled PRELUDE Calls, using Lie Down for REST after a marching halt, the use of Skirmish calls for ordering Line units of Corps, Division, Brigade, and Regimental size don't appear in ANY manuals of the day.......but they are IN the diaries, AAR's, OR's, veteran's recollections, oral/aural history, etc. What's the page number and manual covering Skirmishing by the Bugle for a DIVISION. How about sounding To The Color at the head of a column every time the column went from a column of route to battle line (that the confederate's knew about McClellan's October 1861 order is documented in William Carson's Medal of Honor citation, Regular Army bugler, battle of Chickamauga September 1863).

I agree that conjecture/speculation is ripe for a bad interpretation of how they did it/played it/sounded it back then..... but trying to interpret the artistry of musician's by a note for note analysis of the musical notations (errors and differences in surviving manuals/song books not withstanding) can be in error as well......

Sometime you just have to read that in 1864 "we attended a minstrel show and heard John Henry play popular tunes of the day with a slap style twang twang on his mandolin playing left handed....." to start interpreting artistry and performance musicianship......

stand 1000 singers up in a row, have them each sing the Star Spangled Banner.....and I guarantee you that you will hear 1000 different variations on the same exact notes....and no telling which music manual/tutor/self training/woodshedding/ just tried to imitate Grand Pap's sound on the (name the instrument)/I used to sing in the church choir.... manner in which the musician learned how to sound and make music on his instrument.

That's the genius, that's the artisty...of music.

Only a non musician would expect that reading a primer/tutor/manual/how to book would tame Carlos Santana, Jimi Hendrixx, Leo Kottke, Les Paul, Peter Townsend, Eric Clapton, B B King.....all of whom learned to play a 6 string guitar and came up as different a playing style that differed from the written manual's/accepted playing styles of the day as could never be predicted.

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: minstrel Banjo website

How quickly we forget that the bugle call TAPS...was played by...CSA buglers

Where is the evidence of this?

Note for note playing from manual's.....bah humbug.

But where do you draw the line? We know that every tune/call was not always played exactly like the manuals, but how close are the variations made up by a reenactor or taken from a post-war sources to the variations played 150 years ago?

It is true that playing from the manuals is not 100% accurate but it is probably much closer to what was actually played than music from the aural tradition, which may have changed over time. Music is constantly evolving and the manuals are the closest thing we have to a snapshot of music from the period.

There is too much post-war influence in the aural tradition for it to be reliable without carefully comparing it to primary sources.

For example, the American Veteran Fifer, published in 1905 by Union army veterans, has many tunes identical to or very close to what is in the manuals, many tunes that are individual musicians' variations of period tunes, a few tunes that are definitely post-war, and several tunes that are found only in the AVF. Many are from the aural tradition, but not all of them were actually played in the war. One cannot assume that these tunes were played during the war just because these tunes were played by veterans.

Sometime you just have to read that in 1864 "we attended a minstrel show and heard John Henry play popular tunes of the day with a slap style twang twang on his mandolin playing left handed....." to start interpreting artistry and performance musicianship......

What diary are you quoting from?