(Dan) Emmett's Standard Drummer Manuscript - In the Gilderoy

[joewhitney]

Re: (Dan) Emmett's Standard Drummer Manuscript - In the Gilderoy

I really don't think we have nearly enough information yet to make firm conclusions about what was played, how often, and whether the manuals reflected what was played or contributed to it. A comparison of the manuals is tricky too. After all, did Howe rip off Keach, or were both showing the same beats commonly played? I agree with Sue: Why make up stuff nobody was using when it was easier to put in what most were already playing?

The music publishing world then was pretty small, often with stores not far apart from each other. Most of the publishers were turning to a small circle of the best brass band and military background musicians in the north east. So similarities would be expected, I would think.

Another thing to consider is that the music in the fife manuals was undoubtedly being played on many instruments, almost every instrument. Much of the music had been used by Howe for decades for tutors for flutes, clarinets, violins, you name it. It also was extremely common for musicians to not concentrate on one instrument, but to play many instruments. Ned Kendall for example ("Ned Kendall's Q.S. in B&E) was a great fifer, a great drummer, and probably the world's greatest keyed bugle player that ever lived. And, of course, there was the multi-talented Dan Emmett.

Speaking of whom, there was a beautiful Firth Pond presentation drum up for auction a few years ago that was taken to war by a young federal drummer. They wanted like twelve grand and it didn't sell, so I got to see it for sale at a relic show a few months later. Along with the drum was the manual he carried, and in it a handwritten list of daily beats he was to play, and the time to beat them. The manual was Bruce & Emmett's. So you never know.

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

[Sue]

Re: (Dan) Emmett's Standard Drummer Manuscript - In the Gilderoy

It's like the house that Jack built The part we see is only the tip of the iceberg, the surviving part of the part that was written down. Hopefully we can find enough to indicate a pattern or trend.

Dang, I miss all the good stuff!! Did you get a chance to thumb through the manual? Was there any marginalia? It came out 4 times, you know, all with an 1862 copyright date on one page and then either 62, 65, or 1880 or 1885 on the title-page. Hopefully you had your fancy I-phone or whatever with you and you photographed the list of daily beats. . . do tell more!

Susan Cifaldi

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: (Dan) Emmett's Standard Drummer Manuscript - In the Gilderoy

The more you know, the more you realize how little you know. But you can find a few surprising things if you really stare at this stuff for a long time. Howe's Fifer's Delight and Wrecker's Daughter beats made their way into Gus Moeller's 1925 book. And the Wrecker's Daughter beat is pretty much the same one played today in Connecticut, minus the bass drum solos. Then again, Moeller's Book states that the reveille is "as played on Frederick Fennel's record" or something like that. So how much did he really pick up from the aging drummer-veterans?

There's something I'd like to see more than that copy of B&E-- the son of a prominent rope tension drum-maker (the one who owns Gus Moeller's drum-making equipment and his Spanish-American War uniform) supposedly has Moeller's notes from his trips to the old soldiers' homes where he interviewed the aging drummer boys from the war.

[Sue]

Re: (Dan) Emmett's Standard Drummer Manuscript - In the Gilderoy

I must have missed the Fennell/Moeller connection. Moeller died in '59, I think, lemme check. . . . . .nope, November 1960. Fennell's recordings came out in December of that year. They may have corresponded about things prior to publication, I don't know, but if they did I haven't come across any of it.

Moeller's 1925 cross-country trip is well-documented and did indeed occur. He stocked up on such things as cigars and whiskey and used them as bribes to get the old fellows to talk. There is some reference to this in the Acton Ostling Papers at the Museum of Fife and Drum, and I do believe that the late Bill Reamer (sp?) had acquired Moeller's original notes from Soistman some years ago. . . don't know where they are now, though.

Ed Olsen used to call Gus Moeller "the last of the gentleman drummers." He was stern, ornery, and set in his ways, though. He made a fine set of drums for the old Lancraft corps back in the '50s, I think, and when he arrived for a visit (to hear them in action), he was enraged to find they had put mufflers in them--so enraged that he threatened to take them back. ;-) He was incensed that his good friend J. Burns Moore appeared on the cover of his drum instruction book with a rod-tensioned drum and fretted about that, but above all, he distrusted the NARD (he thought it stood for Now Advocating Rope Drums). He railed about it in a letter to Ostling, saying "can you imagine a man depending on it for reputation?" and begged him to start an organization for "regular drum corps guys." Ahh, Gus. . . wish I could have been there, but I was barely a gleam in my daddy's eye at the time. . . ;-)

So, start with Reamer's family, whoever inherited his shops records must have gotten the Moeller papers. Maybe the PA State Historical Society? And if you find them, do let us know!!!! (This is after you do the quartermaster research at Carlisle, of course!) :-)

Susan Cifaldi

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: (Dan) Emmett's Standard Drummer Manuscript - In the Gilderoy

I was looking on worldcat. I should probably get the original edition of Moeller's book. The later Ludwig edition (the one I have) might have cut out some stuff (and added the Fennel junk). Here's one on microfilm:

http://www.worldcat.org/title/instructor-in-the-art-of-snare-drumming-with-chapters-on-the-fife-the-bugle-and-the-corps/oclc/36464629&referer=brief_results

I think Andy Reamer has his dad's old stuff. That's who I was talking about.

[Sue]

Re: (Dan) Emmett's Standard Drummer Manuscript - In the Gilderoy

I found my original in somebody's trash. No kidding. (It pays to jog early in the morning sometimes!)

Susan Cifaldi
"More music, please."

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: (Dan) Emmett's Standard Drummer Manuscript - In the Gilderoy

The one at the New York Public Library must have more than mine, and possibly more than yours. Mine doesn't have anything about the bugle

Instructor in the art of snare drumming [microform], with chapters on the fife, the bugle and the corps, written and compiled by Sanford A. Moeller.

How many pages is your copy? Does it say anything about Fennell right before 3 Camps?

[Sue]

Re: (Dan) Emmett's Standard Drummer Manuscript - In the Gilderoy

++rummaging through piles of books and papers++

I need a secretary!!! :-( oh, here it is: Same title as NYPL, 174 pages. "The Camp Duty of the United States Army," p. 135 [essay...wow, he really loved that music, I guess people were complaining that it was too simple. He says this about the camp duty "Its persecutors, who do not understand, die, while it lives on. Time proves it a classic, its worth being more and more appreciated by the lovers of art." Guess he told THEM! ;-) but nothing about Fennell]

next page, 135: [reminds me of Ashworth]: "The Camp Duty. The several calls and their uses and the proper time and place.. . etc. . . 1st Camp, Three Camps, or Points of War" followed by music. Nothing about Fennell.

Bugle part starts on p 125. I looked over the text and didn't find any Fennell mention. Funny, Moeller wrote over and over again about how if he never heard another bugle it would be too soon, but he did a nice job on this section of the book (and also taught the CW Dickerson corps, including their bugle line, since it was a Boy Scout corps in '29. . . )

Maybe what you have is "The Moeller Book" reprint that Ludwig put out in 1982. 95 pp, and no bugle stuff. Lots of other stuff missing, too, with new stuff interpolated. . . oh, here it is. P 70 "The Camp Duty for Fife and Drums As recorded and played by the Eastman Wind Ensemble directed by Frederick Fennell - Mercury Record No. MG 50111 - "Spirit of '76." Is that what you have?

Egads, I can hear Moeller bi&chin' about it now. . .

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: (Dan) Emmett's Standard Drummer Manuscript - In the Gilderoy

Yeah, I have the Moeller book. I would really like to look through those extra pages mine doesn't have. Does yours have a table of contents or index of tunes?

Fennell probably used Moeller's book as a source, so that's why it was mentioned in the later edition of the book.

Other than the Camp Duty the "Moeller Book" has some stuff pulled from B&E: Hog-Eye Man, Hell on the Wabash. Fifer's Delight and Wrecker's Daughter look like they were pulled from Howe but that might just be a coincidence. I don't have it in front of me right now, but I don't think there were many more Civil War tunes. Any other "Civil War tunes" in yours?

[Sue]

Re: (Dan) Emmett's Standard Drummer Manuscript - In the Gilderoy

Not sure, of course, but the reissue may have been a last gasp of the NARD. Of the new offerings, most are from CT.

There's got to be a way to get this online. I will offer my copy to anyone who wants to do that.

P.S. When they reissued the NARD Solos book in 1962 they also interpolated CT things.

Susan Cifaldi

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: (Dan) Emmett's Standard Drummer Manuscript - In the Gilderoy

What do you mean by "get it online"?

I could scan it and upload a PDF, but is it copyrighted?

[Sue]

Re: (Dan) Emmett's Standard Drummer Manuscript - In the Gilderoy

It's copyrighted 1925, no? The 1982 book was not the same one (obviously) and even has a different title ("The Moeller Book. . . " and not "Instructor in the Art of. . . "). I think copyright is 75 years from date of issue unless renewed. . . ? Unless my math is wrong, we just make it.

I'll do some checking.

Susan Cifaldi