Fife and Drum : Glory Hallelujah 6/8

[Alan Lloyd]

Friends

Does anyone know where the practice of playing Glory Hallelujah in the Key of D and in 6/8 came from?

The Civil War sources that I have found have it in G in 4/4. If memory serves, even AVF has it in G and in 2/4 o 4/4.

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: Fife and Drum : Glory Hallelujah 6/8

The general practice of fifers playing tunes in a different key than the printed sources goes way back.

In practice, a dotted 1/8 note, 1/16 note, dotted 1/8 eighth note, 1/16 note pattern in 2-4 time is played like a 1/4 note, 1/8 note, 1/4 note, 1/8 note pattern in 6-8 time.

Playing Breakfast Call literally as written with dotted notes would sound very choppy. Same applies to dotted notes in 4-4 time.

Often times, especially with drum music, the notation is an approximation of how it is really played.

Getting back to John Brown's Body, ancients play it with Army 6-8. That is why reenactors play it that way. They are influenced by modern day fifers and drummers from New England. There is a specific beat in a period manual, but no one plays it. But the majority of drummers during the war may have played it with Army 6-8. Sometimes tradition better represents actual practice than the printed source. Army 6-8 after all was a very common beat during the war.

[eric marten]

Re: Fife and Drum : Glory Hallelujah 6/8

If I remember correctly, Battle Hymn (Glory Hallelujah) originally published in 4/4, key of B flat, (but that was for vocals and string instruments) Transpositions for various instruments fairly common.

[eric marten]

Re: Fife and Drum : Glory Hallelujah 6/8

I found the published version I was referring to: published by Oliver Ditson & Co. 1862 - 4/4 (Common Time) and, yes, key of B flat, entitled "Battle Hymn of the Republic", or "Glory Hallelujah", for piano and voice, and , also by the same publisher, as "The popular Refrain of Glory, Hallelujah" as sung by the Federal Volunteers Throughout the Union, arranged for voice, piano and guitar, also in the key of B flat, and 4/4 time, this one published in 1861. This doesn't answer when it became used in Fife and Drum, or what key, but it is of interest.

[Alan Lloyd]

Re: Fife and Drum : Glory Hallelujah 6/8

Will
Thanks for your reply, but I am confused. There is another guy named Will Chappell who argues against the modern method of playing Army 2/4...and who examines the 19th century sources to discern the likely way it was played in the Civil War. That seems at odds with your statement here.

Anyway, I am having a hard time thinking of any actual examples of "tradition" better representing actual practice than the printed source. Can you be more specific?

You did get right to the motive behind my question. I would propose that we try to stick to the period sources and rely less on the "Ancient tradition" as it is currenly played. That is what I thought you were arguing for in your website discussion of Army 2/4. Perhaps I was mistaken and you have a more nuanced argument.

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: Fife and Drum : Glory Hallelujah 6/8

Anyway, I am having a hard time thinking of any actual examples of "tradition" better representing actual practice than the printed source. Can you be more specific?

A perfect example is the beat given for Road to Boston in Keach, Burditt, and Cassidy's Army Drum and Fife Book. No one plays that beat today, and I doubt very many did back then. My guess is that beat was written as an exercise for beginners because it is only flams and rolls. There are two traditional beats for Road to Boston: Army 2-4 and "The General". Army 2-4 needs no explanation. The unfilled version of "The General" is almost identical to the Girl I Left Behind Me drumbeat in Hart's with the exception of a couple of measures of drag paradiddles, but that drag paradiddle "lick" goes way back as well. It's in the 2nd part of Farewell to Whiskey for example.

Here's the beat for Road to Boston from 1939 that I'm referring to:

http://www.fifedrum.org/resources/music/76/d24.shtml

You'll find my transcription of Hart's Girl I Left beat here:

http://www.nationalcivilwarbrassmusic.org/NCWFMS_Forms/Resources/FourthSet.pdf

Not much of a difference, right?

Will

You did get right to the motive behind my question. I would propose that we try to stick to the period sources and rely less on the "Ancient tradition" as it is currenly played.

I agree with you in general, but for John Brown's Body, I don't think 6-8 or 4-4 makes much of a difference. It's really just two ways of notating what's basically the same rhythm.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swung_note

Since Army 6-8 is in most of the period drum manuals, it's not much of stretch to think that drummers would have played it with Battle Hymn.

As far as key changes are concerned, look at what the fifers in the AVF did with Guilderoy and Jefferson and Liberty compared to what's in Howe's.

What's closer to the way it was played in 1862, the way actual veteran fifers recorded it in 1905 or the way it was printed in a manual? We'll never really know the answer.

[joewhitney]

Re: Fife and Drum : Glory Hallelujah 6/8

I have noticed in studying military traditions is that some things do change quite often, depending on the whims of the soldiers, especially officers, whereas some things haven't changed in literally centuries. For example, the ceremony of dress parade has been around since the time of the Middle Ages (although I'm sure it has been tweaked a bit here and there), whereas most countries' uniforms seem to radically change every generation or so.

Figuring out which traditions have changed over the years and which have not can be difficult. It is a similar situation with the issue of how fife and drum traditions in New England today compare to what beats and tunes were actually played throughout the country by drum and fife corps and military musicians 150 years ago. It is entirely possible, if not probable, that some traditions by the "Ancients" have preserved some actual military practices from the period, even though it may contradict what is found in printed sources from the period.

The problem is, while we can try to guess which of those traditions was in practice during the Civil War, you will rarely find any documented proof to confirm them. You may find an occasional mention in a memoir, or handwritten note by a Civil War drummer, as to what beats they played with what tunes, and this might match what is still "traditionally" played, but this would be extremely rare.

The truth of what was actually played will probably never be known until the invention of the time machine, but it probably lies somewhere between the printed manuals of the period and some traditions that have been handed down. The publishers cranked out a lot of manuals, because like most contractors they saw the war as a gold mine, and wanted to exploit it every way they could by trying to get a drum tutor or fife tutor in the hands of every new musician marching off to war. But we also know from memoirs that most musicians before the war learned by rote from other musicians, and recruit musicians probably learned by rote from principal musicians once they got to camp.

By the way, this same argument, whether we should only go by the documented printed and handwritten music from the period and postwar descriptions, or whether you can infer what they might have played by listening to old recordings, or just playing variations as they would have, can be heard in every forum involving re-creating historical music, such as the various minstrel banjo forums.

The fact that many of the period manuals claimed to be "the official system as played in the US Army", yet have significant variations between them, doesn't help. And all of them disagreed with the actual "official system as played in the US Army", which was the printed drum and fife music in Scott's Infantry Tactics before 1862 and Casey's after 1862 (and as replicated in the various militia manuals, such as Cooper's and Gilham's).

But by looking for similarities between the printed sources, even those earlier than the Civil War, you can glean some "traditions" that were in existence then. For example, the drumbeat for the Duke's Quickstep in Elias Howe's "Us Regulation Drum & Fife Instructor" is essentially identical to the version in B&E (where it was called King William), and was very similar to the Duke's March drumbeat in Daniel Hazeltine's 1810 "Instructor of Martial Music". The fife tune was in 16 fife manuals from Daniel Rutherford's 1756 "Compleat Tutor For the Fife" to the American Veteran Fifer in 1927. Now that's a tradition that endured! It was named after Prince William, the Duke of Cumberland, who commanded the British at Culloden (B&E notwithstanding, he never made King).

While what is played by modern and "Ancient" fife and drum corps in New England and elsewhere is interesting and valuable, it is very hard to point to much of the music that can be definitively authenticated as having been played during the Civil War unless it is documented in period sources. And since this is the "Authentic" Campaigner website, I think it's best when reenacting to try to stick with what can be documented and proven to be "authentic". But there's nothing wrong with speculating that some of the music played today in New England might be the same music that was played back then.

Joe Whitney
2nd SC String Band
Liberty Hall Drum and Fife Corps

[joewhitney]

Re: Fife and Drum : Glory Hallelujah 6/8

Forgot to mention, I think there is a difference between a dotted 4/4 meter and a 6/8, although probably a subtle one. The 4/4 music would sound a bit "choppier". You can hear the difference in the various 4/4 CW brass band recordings of Glory Hallelujah.

Joe Whitney

[eric marten]

Re: Fife and Drum : Glory Hallelujah 6/8

I think the easiest way to describe, in words, the difference between dotted 4/4 and 6/8, is that in the dotted, the longer notes are 3 times as long as the short ones, and in the 6/8, the long notes are twice as long as the short ones, though in practice this gets somewhat muddled, depending on the performers. In other words, a dotted eighth note is worth 3 sixteenth notes, (in 4/4 time) while a quarter note is worth 2 eighth notes (in 6/8 time).

[joewhitney]

Re: Fife and Drum : Glory Hallelujah 6/8

Yep, that describes it exactly. Unfortunately, most novice drummers and fifers are not taught how to play those marches correctly, even though they were a significant part of a martial musician's repertoire and duties back then.

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: Fife and Drum : Glory Hallelujah 6/8

Anybody heard the Fennell Fife (actually piccolo) and Drum album where they play all the double drags exactly as written in B&E, with straight eighth notes, when in practice they should be played dotted?

Then there's the breakfast call and reveille single drag pieces from the manuals that are sometimes written with straight sixteenth notes, when they are really more of a 6-8 or dotted 2-4 feel or somewhere in between.

I think with the slower 4-4 marches it is easier to get the 3:1 ratio as opposed to faster tempos where dotted notes are played more like a 2:1 ratio. Humans probably always play somewhere in between though.