Conklin's Drum Beatings

[jkdrinkard]

Conklin's Drum Beatings - From "Col. H.C. Hart’s New and Improved Instructor for the Drum" by Col. H.C. Hart, 1862. Includes "Conklin's 2/4 Flam Tap Beat" and "Conklin's 2/4 Stick Beat." These were original drum beatings by Matthew Conklin, Drum Major of Dodworth's Brass Band, and were included by Hart at the request of an unnamed individual(s).

Parts of these were not obvious in transposing to modern notation so any feedback would be appreciated.

[pjdrums96]

Re: Conklin's Drum Beatings

Hart PDF.pdf

Kyle,

When looking at a specific drum manual, it is almost impossible to look at it through only one lens. What I mean by that is I would suggest looking at various manuals to compare beatings to look for similarities. Check out the corrections I made to the second beating.

Sincerely,

Patrick Jones
Camp Chase Fifes and Drums

[jkdrinkard]

Re: Conklin's Drum Beatings

Thanks Patrick. I saw that interpretation at another web site but didn't know how they came to that conclusion. It appears that notes are added. Of course, Hart was prone to errors also. How did you come to this particular interpretation? Or is it because it just flows better and makes more sense?

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: Conklin's Drum Beatings

Thanks Patrick. I saw that interpretation at another web site but didn't know how they came to that conclusion. It appears that notes are added. Of course, Hart was prone to errors also. How did you come to this particular interpretation? Or is it because it just flows better and makes more sense?

Kyle,

Look at the two dots in the first measure of Hart's notation. Those are left hand taps. Now for the rhtyhm of the 1 e click a 2 e click a that Patrick gave, that is the same as in the "walkaround" to Dixie in B&E. But there are indeed errors in Hart's notation for this beat. He messed up the bar lines, assuming those really are bar lines. I'm not sure if Hart even intended these to divide measures in 2-4 time.

Now how would a drummer who had a copy of Hart but not a copy of B&E play this beat!? Without knowledge of those stick click "rudiments from B&E, it would be pretty hard to figure out how to play this beat. Hart's was probably useless to most drummers trying to learn 150 years ago. Maybe if they already knew similar beats with the stick taps, they could figure out the Conklin beat, but maybe that was just a fancy New York city style of drumming that wasn't very well-known. Conklin was drum major of Dodworth's Band. Bruce was drum major of the 22nd NYSM around 1863 and was DM of the 7th around 1862.

George Carroll put out an edition of Hart's with his interpretations several years ago.

[pjdrums96]

Re: Conklin's Drum Beatings

Kyle,

Will pretty much answered the interpretation question. I don't look at bar lines anymore when rewriting beatings because they usually do not match up. I assumed that the "R" for rests were sixteenth note rests. That is the only way that everything would match up, but then again, who knows for sure what was intended. It would be a little difficult to play all those right hand sixteenth note stick taps at a quickstep tempo. In my opinion, not a very practical beating.

Sincerely,

Patrick Jones
Camp Chase Fifes and Drums

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: Conklin's Drum Beatings

There is a story that H.C. Hart organized the 71st NYSM drum corps, and recruited members of the Wolcott Drum Band of Connecticut. They are known today as the Mattatuck Drum Band. They still use Hart's for training and even write out some of their drumbeats in his notation. I mention this because they still play some of the beats from Hart's but at a slow tempo. Actually they credit the notation to Wilcox, their old instructor, and say that Hart copied him.

Mattatuck plays Turkey in the Straw with the Ole Zip Coon drumbeat (that's what they call the tune too) and Yankee Doodle with the Girl I Left Behind Me drumbeat. These are just a couple beats from Hart I have heard them play on youtube. I am sure they play many more.

Here's a link to their CD. It's interesting that "Russian March" is on it. Now that's a hard beat to interpret. I think George Carroll interpreted it in his edition of Hart. Unfortunately I loaned out my copy of Carroll's Hart several years ago.

http://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Thunder-Musical-History-Mattatuck/dp/tracks/B00004TWRD/ref=dp_tracks_all_1#disc_1

I wonder what beat they use for "British Grenadier". Hart's Grenadier's Quickstep beat is very similar to the B&E British Grenadiers in the first half and Hart even labels it "B.G." in the index.

Also, if you watch this video, you will see a shot of some of their drum sheet music including Glory Halleluiah. Their old leader, Charlie Miller, wrote out some music for them around 1881. It would be interesting to get a hold of that.

http://vimeo.com/18931779

For another challenge from Hart's, try writing out Dog and Gun in modern notation...

I doubt very much that some of these more complicated beats were played much at all because of the difficulty in interpreting the notation. I like to try to figure out which beats in the manuals capture what was likely being passed around from drummer to drummer and from drum corps to drum corps rather than what manual was available at what time and in what numbers.

For example, many of Hart's beats (e.g. Rosebud Reel aka Connecticut Halftime) were probably circulating aurally prior to their publication and were played without access to the printed music. Conklin's stick tap beat...probably not so much.

Recently, the 1850s Governor's Island fife manuscript revealed that they were basically playing for Three Camps the "postwar" fife part from Strube's 1869 manual.

[jkdrinkard]

Re: Conklin's Drum Beatings

Thanks Patrick and Will for your comments. I've updated the file to include the changes suggested.

Conklin's Drum Beatings

I have to agree that Hart's idea of bar lines are confusing. They definitely do not follow the actual measures. What he was thinking only he knows.

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: Conklin's Drum Beatings

I was looking at the index to Hart. He credits more beats to Conklin other than these two.

White Cockade and Mr. Conklin's Fancy Quick Step
Yankee Doodle....Conklin's Plain Flam Beat Quick Step

It makes sense that White Cockade is also one of Conklin's Beats. It is just an "unfilled" version of the flam tap beat.