B and E PDF ?

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: B and E PDF ?

Correct if I'm wrong, but I don't think Strube specifically said always play 7 stroke rolls, or 10's or 11's or 15's for that matter, from left to right---he just showed them that way, and not the others, in the lessons.

Has anyone seen this blog? http://robinengelman.com/2010/06/24/...-1853-to-1869/

Anyway, it conveniently has a page from Strube, which helps me to continue to beat this dead horse. See how the 11s are in the middle of the staff? Top of the staff means start with the left and end with the left, bottom of the staff means start with the right and end with the right, and the middle of the staff means start with the left and end with the right



So to answer the question, yes, Strube showed in the lessons that 7s, 10s, 11s, and 15s are always played left to right, and indicated with his notation that they are always played left to right.

Now that I think about it...Strube is probably the only manual from 1850-1870 without errors.

Conclusion: don't play your 7 stroke rolls backwards, if there is a backwards 7 stroke roll in a manual, it is an error.

[joewhitney]

Re: B and E PDF ?

Well, It may be a dead horse, but it's an important issue: whether everyone should play something exactly the same way, or whether you allow that there were probably differences. Yes, by 1870, with Strube the official method, all US army and militia field musicians should have played the drum according to that system.

But we don't reenact 1870. Unfortunately we reenact a period when things were still in flux, and the manuals didn't agree, on a lot of things. Certainly, there were drummers who learned from copies of the manuals like Nevins that had the end of Drummers Call beat hand-to-hand. Maybe even most did. I don't think we can say for sure. If they followed those manuals, were they playing it "wrong"? If we copy them today, are we technically "wrong", but historically "right"?

When I started reenacting, the only tactics manual anybody ever used was Hardee's. Then a few people on the Confederate side did some research and said quite a few regiments were following the militia version of the old Scott system, especially the private manual published by ex-VMI instructor Gilham. Likewise, I was told Bruce and Emmett was the primary fife and drum manual of the war. But then people like Sue and me started coming a different conclusion, that things were not nearly as black and white.

So you may be right Will, and all of the drummers North and South may have played the ending of Drummer's Call that way, or at least were supposed to play it that way, unless perhaps they looked at the wrong manual. We'll just have to do more research!

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

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: B and E PDF ?

"it's an important issue: whether everyone should play something exactly the same way, or whether you allow that there were probably differences."

No, they didn't all play the same way, and I'm not advocating that. I'm just saying that some people get carried away with their literal interpretations of the manuals and forget that drummers back then had common sense too, so we shouldn't be performing the errors in beats in order to play it note for note from the manual. You have to be more flexible than that or you'll be reenacting mindless drummers who learned to play in complete isolation from other drummers sitting in a corner with sheet music. And I don't think there were many of those. There is a tradition of American drumming that goes back at least to the 1700s where every 7 stroke roll was played LLRRLLR. In fact, almost all beats start with a 7 stroke roll. It becomes a drummer's instinct very quickly. So if a drummer saw RRLLRRL in a manual (assuming he even had a manual) he would likely say...that's backwards and wrong and I'm going to play a normal 7 stroke roll.

"Yes, by 1870, with Strube the official method, all US army and militia field musicians should have played the drum according to that system."

The most important thing to realize about Strube is that he was a drummer in the 5th NY from 1861 to 1863 and eventually made a career out of drumming. You have to give more credence to his manual because it wasn't just slapped together in 1861 to make a buck, like some of the others did. Sure, it wasn't available until 1869, but chances are it is more accurate than, say, Elias Howe's manual, because Howe was not a drummer. It doesn't matter that Howe and Ditson were some of the biggest publishers in the country. If your manual doesn't represent what drummers were already playing, and if the drumbeats aren't good, they're going to be ignored. All of the manuals have good things to offer but a lot of it is just a waste of ink and paper. If several of the manuals really represent what a small group of drummers from Boston were playing before the war, are they really that relevant for reenactors or should that be taken into consideration? You have to take it all with a grain of salt.

We need to look at the manuals and ask ourselves...which beats and tunes in the manuals best represent what was actually played?...Which manuals represent what was being played by the musicians who had never even seen a manual(there were probably many of them)...Which beats and tunes in the manuals best represent what was already floating around and being spread from drummer to drummer by rote?"

"Certainly, there were drummers who learned from copies of the manuals like Nevins that had the end of Drummers Call beat hand-to-hand. Maybe even most did. I don't think we can say for sure."

No, we can't say for sure, but we can say what makes sense. As I mentioned before drummers generally don't play 7 stroke rolls backwards.

" If they followed those manuals, were they playing it "wrong"? "

If you're talking about the errors in the manuals, then in the sense of playing the traditional way, and the way that almost all drummers probably played it...Yes!

"If we copy [the errors] today, are we technically "wrong", but historically "right"?"

Probably both technically and historically wrong. You can't be 100% sure without a time machine, but the evidence is stacked up against playing backwards 7 stroke rolls.

"So you may be right Will, and all of the drummers North and South may have played the ending of Drummer's Call that way, or at least were supposed to play it that way, unless perhaps they looked at the wrong manual."

The point I'm trying to make is not just about Drummer's Call. If it were, I wouldn't still be talking about it. The point is no single manual is the bible of Civil War drumming. Even taking all the available manuals together doesn't make a bible of Civil War drumming. We should be open to the idea that a lot of what we're doing is wrong.

Luckily the camp duty didn't change much over time and is relatively consistent even among the manuals. So we're probably getting that right if your impression is musicians who played the old army duty and not Oh Susanna for reveille (which for some may have been more common). Some of the rest of the stuff, quicksteps, etc. in the manuals...I don't have much faith that the manuals did a very good job at capturing what was actually being played. And most reenactors totally neglect the camp duty and focus on the quicksteps. So how close do reenactors come to reproducing what was actually played? If the manuals aren't close to what was actually played, is playing straight from the manuals more "authentic" than people who aren't as selective about where their music comes from?

"We'll just have to do more research!"

Especially on who the authors of those manuals were, what their military drumming experience (if any) really was, and how likely it is that their music represented what was actually played.

Sue has done some great work on Bruce and Emmett and Hart, and finally the myth of B&E being the bible of CW fifing and drumming has about died. But the alternatives we're using have their own flaws and pitfalls.

Whatever we find, in the end we'll have to settle for "close enough".

[Sue]

Re: B and E PDF ?

"That article does support two facts, that the old time sticklers liked simpler, cleaner drum beats the soldiers could follow, without all the fancy "improvements", and Bruce's beats compared to other drum majors' were considered by some to not represent as well the true army beatings."

Give the man a seegar! They liked them because that's what they were used to hearing in the army.

Wow, you guys have been busy here. . . looking it over, I have time for only a brief comment (cut it out, you guys, I can hear you breathing sighs of relief!!), but this is it: As a researcher and as someone who enjoys fife and drum music of all eras but especially appreciates the historical re-creations, the chronology is only part of the picture. In the 1860s (and the 1870s for that matter), regionality ruled. Communications being what they were, I suspect it is only fairly recently, with the advent of inexpensive travel (relatively speaking), better widespread education (shifting the reliance of learning what you heard to book larnin'), mass media, and instant communication by radio, TV, and Internet that music has become global--back then, if you lived in Michigan and played Flowers of Edinburgh (and some did), it would probably be a whole lot different than the way they played it in Maine. In fact, this occurred with Ancient repertory until the explosion of corps created by the Bicentennial, hence the more-or-less standardization of the repertory via the Company Books.

I guess the short form is the I agree with both Will and Joe and that if we include references from diaries, letters, newspapers (!)--there's been some great newspaper stuff on this thread of late--and orderly books, etc alongside our music database, we are going to find out just how varied the (fife and) drum repertory was--short of relying on that time machine that I hear Joe is working on. . .

Susan Cifaldi
More Music, Please.

P.S. Will, thanks for the nice words!

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: B and E PDF ?

if we include references from diaries, letters, newspapers (!)--there's been some great newspaper stuff on this thread of late--and orderly books, etc alongside our music database, we are going to find out just how varied the (fife and) drum repertory was

Did you mean to say fife (and drum) repertory instead of (fife and) drum? Because I'm not too hopeful that we'll find specific references to drumbeats. I've found quite a few mentions of specific fife tunes, however.

In the 1860s (and the 1870s for that matter), regionality ruled.

And for that reason, unfortunately, I'm afraid we Virginia drummers will have to continue playing the Dixie drumbeat (as beat by George Bruce) that, for all we know, was probably only played by New Yorkers. And everyone not in a New England regiment will have to assume that the Connecticut Halftime was well-known by drummers who came from places much farther from Connecticut.

We have to be careful not to get in the mindset that all musicians in 1861 were completely ignorant and were completely clueless unless they had a copy of a manual. There were indeed experienced musicians who had served in the Mexican War or in the militia or regular army, even in the South, who were able to teach the new recruits. Tradition probably played a greater role than any manual, and that's something we often forget. On the other hand, I am sure there was some innovation in those 4 years. The account below illustrates this, although it is a few years before the war in the regular army:

"I met with one great disappointment on joining Company D. I had hoped to have as a companion a drummer-boy of about my own age, with whom I could chum. This desire was strengthened by the knowledge that the fifer was considered to rank the drummer and in the absence of special instructions could order the drummer to play such tunes or marches as he chose. But I found myself associated with a man who was a dozen years my senior. He was serving his second enlistment, and had been transferred from some other regiment and sent to Carlisle...My drummer was a tall, haggard man with a sallow face. I was still a few inches short of having attained the height of five feet, and when my tall drummer and I marched at the head of the company we were called the "long and the short of it," which greatly annoyed me as I was very sensitive to ridicule. Another annoyance was the fact that he was not a very good drummer, and would not take the trouble to learn any new and fancy pieces, as we boys did. Whenever I had to play with him alone I was obliged to content myself with the old repertoire. Aside from these differences, we managed to get along well enough, as he was a sober and solemn man who kept very much to himself. But I always missed the companionship of a more youthful spirit."

TEN YEARS IN THE RANKS. Augustus Meyers

[Sue]

Re: B and E PDF ?

I love that book. He wrote another one, A Drum's Story and other Tales (1909), but it doesn't have the appeal for me that the first book did.

You're right, it is hard to find references to drums and drumming, but I have to think they're out there. . .otherwise I would have to take up quilting or spend some time going to the mall (eww) and put the books and papers away, I suppose. . .

I guess climate and unfortunate pestilences (like Sherman's march!) destroyed the attics that would otherwise have held some of these Southern-produced-and-owned books and papers that we are looking for but we have to understand that, just like in the Rev War, the desire for enemy products was strong and they somehow got to them despite the embargoes. Obviously, despite its Northern origins, "Dixie" managed to make its way south, and according to one biographer Elias Howe unknowingly (?) sold much of his music, including "military band and drum and fife" music southward, where it "all went to the Confederate Army and was played there." The Root & Cady music also infiltrated the south, apparently in numbers large enough so that parodies and "answers" written from a Southern point of view appeared to such tunes as "Battle-Cry of Freedom." So just because it began up here doesn't mean it stayed up here. I am sure that in 1862, the Hart books were indeed sold to anyone with the cash in hand, not just to people in CT, even if CT people had already been playing stuff that Hart encoded in print.

Maybe the numbers of things that went south weren't in such large numbers, but once it got there it was more than likely spread around by people hearing other people playing and singing it. That's probably why in reading the WPA Slave Narratives you find mention of tunes like Henry C. Work's "Kingdom Coming"--not that any true Southern patriot would intentionally teach their slaves to sing that makes fun of the "master. . . [who] was six foot one way, three foot t'other" and who ran off at the sight of "Linkun's gunboats." Still, how else would the slaves have become familiar with such music unless they heard it enough times to remember it?

I don't think CT Halftime got that name until the early 20th c. At this time there were other halftime beatings, most named for the tunes they accompanied or just by the generic "halftime." Moodus had a halftime beat that they called simply "1/2 Time," but when Bob Von Deck came out to CT and heard it, he wrote it down and called it "Moodus Halftime." When J. Burns Moore published his instruction book in 1937 he couldn't just call it halftime, so I'm thinking that's probably when it became "Connecticut Halftime." (His book wasn't written for the Ancients--they were still learning mostly by rote at that time, which is why "halftime" didn't need a more specific name--his book was intended for his pals in the modern FD&B corps and the NARD who read music and who really didn't know much about the CT Ancients).

To me, the historical drum beatings are like money and closet space, you just can't have enough ;-). But hang in there, it will turn up, an din the meantime there's enough stuff here to enable you folks to do a fine job out on the field, at least that's what I hear you doing, anyway.

Susan Cifaldi

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: B and E PDF ?

I'm not saying Dixie, the tune, wasn't played in the South. It most definitely was! I'm saying that we don't know what Southern drummers (or drummers from Iowa) played for Dixie. The chances of Bruce's drumbeat spreading that far are slim to none. A drum corps could make up its own beat back then and not worry about it not being "authentic"! Tunes like Dixie can spread around from musician to musician even though they don't play the same instrument. A fifer could pick a tune up from a fiddler, for example. The only way for a drumbeat to become widespread is from passing from drummer to drummer (the most common way) or through sheet music (far less common).

The experienced musicians perhaps wouldn't have much use for manuals. Like the example from Augustus Meyers' book above shows, they can get set in their ways. The experienced drummers in both armies might have not cared how they did it in Boston or New York.

[joewhitney]

Re: B and E PDF ?

Good thing internet typing doesn't kill trees!

I looks like the existing sources are kind of like a Rorhshack test: for example, where some see order, I see chaos. I don't see much in the way of standardization among the sources. There often doesn't even seem to be agreement on how to play some of the basic rudiments, or even what their names are. And I see huge changes in drumming, not just from the 1700's but even between 1819 and 1853.

For example (take note Rev War/1812 reenacting drummers), the way double drag beats were played changed 180 degrees. American manuals in the early 1800's had them start with a 9 stroke roll not a 7, with the left hand coming down with the left foot on the first downbeat (seems odd to me, but I wasn't there). However, the British manual by Potter 1815 or 17 showed it beat as Civil War manuals showed, with the right hand coming down. So this may have been a case of the Americans being behind the curve and eventually following the latest British improvements, perhaps after exposure to them in the war.

By the way, Charles Robbins' 1812 "Drum & Fife Instructor" manual showed the B part of the double drag beat with 3 (always beat hand-to-hand) 9's, but with the comment below that "The learner can perform 7 stroke rolls instead of 9 stroke rolls, but the 9 is preferred." So it loks like he is saying beating hand-to-hand 7's is allowed, but if the player becomes proficient enough, 9's should be used instead.

Another example of change, on the fife side, is that during the Civil War, the fife part for Church Call was changing, with some Civil War manuals using "Bonny Christ Church Bells" while some still used the old British melody found in the song "Jim Along Josie". The British had switched to the church bells song in the 1850's, so it looks like yet another case of the Americans eventually changing their system to conform to a new British tradition. Unless new research determines otherwise, apparently for Civil War reenacting, either tune is appropriate.

Maybe there was the bare bones of a standard system most learned by rote from other players, but do we know exactly what it was? I'm sure there was a system officially (or at least traditionally) played at West Point, and perhaps VMI and the Citadel, but do we know what it was, or if they were the same? I wish to God someone there had written down some kind of drum manual!

If there was an official system of the army music in print, which technically should have been what West Point, VMI, Citadel, Governor's Island, Newport Barracks, and every militia field music should have been following, it would have been the music in Scott's Tactics. It shows Reveille starting Tap 7 7. According to every drum manual going back to the Young Drummer's Assistant in the 1780's those rolls were beat hand-to-hand. So were those 7's to be beat left-to-right, as per B&E, or hand-to-hand as per how Three Camps had always been beat?

Another issue I've run across is one man's error is another man's "fancy side beat"! I still think those two 7's crammed into three 8th notes of time in the end of the B part of Seely Simkins beat in B&E are an error, but George Carroll still insists to me they aren't, and that talented, experienced drummers can play it, even on calfskin. I'll have to find my Emmett's Standard Drummer and see what version he wrote down there.

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

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: B and E PDF ?

By the way, Charles Robbins' 1812 "Drum & Fife Instructor" manual showed the B part of the double drag beat with 3 (always beat hand-to-hand) 9's, but with the comment below that "The learner can perform 7 stroke rolls instead of 9 stroke rolls, but the 9 is preferred." So it loks like he is saying beating hand-to-hand 7's is allowed, but if the player becomes proficient enough, 9's should be used instead.

I still haven't convinced you about the 7s?! Three sevens is LLRRLLR LLRRLLR LLRRLLR. Three "hand-to-hand" 7s would be LLRRLLR RRLLRRL LLRRLLR, so actually that's not hand-to-hand at all!

If there was an official system of the army music in print, which technically should have been what West Point, VMI, Citadel, Governor's Island, Newport Barracks, and every militia field music should have been following, it would have been the music in Scott's Tactics. It shows Reveille starting Tap 7 7. According to every drum manual going back to the Young Drummer's Assistant in the 1780's those rolls were beat hand-to-hand. So were those 7's to be beat left-to-right, as per B&E, or hand-to-hand as per how Three Camps had always been beat?

You have to be very careful about the drum music in the tactics manuals. Remember it was all copied (or interpolated) from the French, and when the plates were first made, no one bothered to check if they were correct or if it was even possible for drummers to play that way, or if it fit into the American style. All those rolls with the 4s over them? Could be an example of errors being copied over and over again. The French may have played 4s but Americans probably stuck with what they had been doing for decades.

Strube was officially approved but it differed from Upton's Tactics, which used those same old plates. The reality probably was that drummers for decades played what they knew to be correct (originating with Ashworth), rather than that French junk in the tactics manuals.

There's regulations and there's reality. The official quickstep in 1812 was 120 beats per minute, yet it is practically impossible to play some of the quicksteps in Rumrille and Holton (1817) that fast. Jack's Quickstep for example.

I was looking in Strube the other day and saw that Merry Men doesn't have any double drags in it like B&E does. Much easier (or actually physically possible) to play at 110 bpm (the regulation tempo).

So you have to consider the source. Some knew better than others.

[Sue]

Re: B and E PDF ?

++raises hand to ask the teacher a question++

But doesn't that all depend on your definition of what is hand-to-hand? because I see the three sevens that Will gives

LLRRLLR LLRRLLR LLRRLLR

as "hand to hand" because as you end the roll with the right you begin the next with the left. Taking that one step further, would that "correct" Benjamin Clark's (1797) drags starting on the "wrong" hand (because if you did, you would end up playing them hand-to-hand).

++sits down and waits for teacher to answer++

Susan Cifaldi

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: B and E PDF ?

Hand-to-hand means if you play a rudiment that ends with the right hand, the next rudiment you play begins with the left, and vice versa. It is not always possible to do that, but rudimental drummers try to arrange their sticking so that you play hand to hand as much as possible. Occassionally you might have to end with a left and start with a left, for example.

The reason 7s are always played LLRRLLR is because if you begin with the left and end with the right, you are set up to repeat that sticking if you play another 7 after the one you just played. Same goes for 15s.

LLRRLLR LLRRLLR is hand-to-hand.

Benjamin Clark is weird because he starts the beat with a 9 LLRRLLRRL making the downbeat a L, when 99% of the time you want the downbeat to be a right hand. It makes a more sense to start the beat with a 9 RRLLRRLLR or with a 7 LLRRLLR.

Since you love Hart, Sue, I'll quote him for you:

"there is no actual neccessity of changing hands with the Seven Roll"

Strube was wise to teach the 7s, 10s, 11s, and 15s as always being left to right, because that's how they are played in practice, and there's no sense in learning them right to left if there is "no actually necessity" of playing them that way.

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: B and E PDF ?

If there was an official system of the army music in print, which technically should have been what West Point, VMI, Citadel, Governor's Island, Newport Barracks, and every militia field music should have been following, it would have been the music in Scott's Tactics.

Doesn't the language in Klinehanse seem to indicate otherwise?

"prepared under the direction of the adjutant general of the united states army, approved of by the commander-in-chief, and adopted for the use of the army of the united states. By George D. Klinehanse. Washington, D.C. 1853"

[joewhitney]

Re: B and E PDF ?

If Benjamin Clark was weird, then so were Charles Robbins, Rumrille & Holton, Isaac Day and Levi Lovering. That is how Double Drags were played in America up until at least 1819, and in print until Klinehanse in 1853.

15's are always beat left-to-right because as I recall they always end on the downbeat of the new measure. Not true for 7's.

I think we have a different definition of hand-to-hand, mine being back and forth between left and right, typically reversing the sticking.

You also can't apply "common sense" because there are many instances where the beating is purposely harder to play the way it is demonstrated than it could be played otherwise. I think some teachers just liked to make things a little more difficult to do. Or were they errors? I'm not making that call.

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

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: B and E PDF ?

You also can't apply "common sense" because there are many instances where the beating is purposely harder to play the way it is demonstrated than it could be played otherwise. I think some teachers just liked to make things a little more difficult to do. Or were they errors? I'm not making that call.

I'm not saying that if something is difficult to play or it's more logical in some drummers' opinions to play a different way, then it's an error. In the case of 7 stroke rolls, consider every historical drum beat from every single manual, and consider the fact that several drum instructors of the time stated that 7s are always played from left to right. Then if a single 7 stroke roll from a single beat is right to left, then that is highly suspect.

If you sat down and played every historical drumbeat in every manual from 1765 to 1865 in a row, in however many hours it would take you to do that, you would play a 7 stroke roll from left to right hundreds, if not thousands of times. You would play a 7 stroke roll from right to left exactly twice-- once for Klinehanse's Drummer's Call and once for Nevins' Drummer's Call, and only because he copied Klinehanse.

[joewhitney]

Re: B and E PDF ?

Not taking into account that most manuals didn't show you left and right hand sticking, I pretty much agree with that. Certainly by 1870 that was universal. In 1861, who knows, maybe not so much.

By the way, here's the original version from the 1831 "Ordonnance sur L’Exercice et les Manoeuvres de L’Infanterie"