British Grenadiers and Other Marches

[eric marten]

Re: British Grenadiers and Other Marches

Quoted by Jim Taub:

Its just as bad for me to hear as bagpipes.

___________________________________

Or fiddles banjos and guitars with synthetic or steel strings.

[joewhitney]

Re: British Grenadiers and Other Marches

Speaking of straws, there is some evidence that Hell On the Wabash was well known years before the war:

"As a straw indicative of the prevailing lush times, it maybe mentioned that Seth Kinman, the noted hunter and antler chair-maker, and myself were tendered fifty dollars each to preside as the orchestra for a Christmas ball at Uniontown, in 1852. Kinman's repertoire consisted mainly of an alternation ol "The Arkansaw Traveler" and "Hell on the Wabash," and mine was little more varied or pretentious. He responded. My conscience had not yet reached that degree of elasticity." --Argonauts of 49. Some Recollections of the Plains and the Diggings by David Rohrer Leeper 1894

My point is stating how common or rare a tune was during the war can be tricky. For example, according to Bayard, Hell On the Wabash at some point was also known as Hell On the Potomac, as well as Hell On the Rappahannock. These titles may have been associated with the tune during the Civil War, since both armies spent much of the war glaring at each other across these two rivers, one of which was the boundary between the two warring countries.

In fact, a band piece called "Hell On the Rappahannock" is mentioned as being played and popular in the Army of the Potomac. Whether it was the same melody as Hell On the Wabash, one can't say for sure. Titles were often stuck with more than one tune back then. But it does make one wonder:

"We were informed that what was left; of the regiment was every moment expected in camp, and probably then approaching. They had been out on picket duty, but were relieved. So we thought to give the boys a surprise by marching from camp a mile or two to meet them. Seeing their approach, we hid on the side of the road until the head of the line was opposite, when we took the lead as in days before, striking up a spirited piece, which was received with welcoming cheers by the battleworn men. The tune was a new one to them; they had never heard it before; and one of the drummers was so enthused over it that he gave it the title of "Hell on the Rappahannock." Odd as it may seem, that particular piece of music was thereafter known by that suggestive title as long as our band was in the service, and throughout the army " Hell on the Rappahannock" became very popular. Frequently soldiers would come a considerable distance to hear us perform it, nor was it inappropriately named, for there was a deal of dash among the brass instruments, and antics of the drumsticks in its performance.

A response from a comrade of the 114th Regiment, in anticipation of the publication of the within reminiscent notes, is here given as an earnest of the love of and desire for music in the army during the Rebellion:

"Don't forget to put in the book how we boys used to yell at the band for music to cheer us up when we were tramping along so tired that we could hardly drag one foot after the other. Since the war I have often thought how cruel we were to do so; for, if we were tired, wasn't the band members equally so ? and yet we wanted them to use up what little breath they had left to put spirit in us. But then, you know, that good old tune we called `Hell on the Rappahannock' had enough music in it to make a man who was just about dead brace up, throw his chest out, and take the step as if he had received a new lease of life."

-Music On the March, By FRANK RAUSCHER. 114th REGT. P.V., COLLIS' ZOUAVES. PHILADELPHIA 1892

[Silas]

Re: British Grenadiers and Other Marches

And after you burn through those 15 simple tunes in about 20 minutes or so, then what you do the rest of the weekend? Boooooring! That's like pulling 15 of the simplest maneuvers out of all three volumes of tactics and saying everybody everywhere can only reenact a tiny handful of the most commonly performed maneuvers.

We often don't get beyond a handful of drill manoeuvers because too many reenactors know only the basics and lack sufficient familiarity beyond them on a drill field, let alone during a battle. Commanders can only do as much as the men are capable of performing. When they cannot perform, we end up doing the same stuff over and over and over again. Now that is boring.

I see a similar argument occurring here. The number of tunes gets limited for various reasons. One of them is the level of exposure and familiarity beyond a set of standard tunes which are played today. Will makes a strong point : the standards played today aren't necessarily the standards of the day.

Most nonmusicians, of which I am a member because banjo doesn't count when we're talking field music, rarely know something about the tunes being played. It's just music, right? When I know or learn that a tune being played isn't period, I feel cheated.

[Citman05]

Re: British Grenadiers and Other Marches

I am loving this thread

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: British Grenadiers and Other Marches

Speaking of straws, there is some evidence that Hell On the Wabash was well known years before the war:

How exactly does a recollection in 1894 about a tune called Hell on the Wabash being played in 1852 indicate that is was "well known years before the war"? I recently posted an article from the Confederate Veteran magazine where tunes said to be from the war were mentioned, but Carve Dat Possum was one of them, and Silas correctly pointed out that it was postwar. The only solid evidence we have about the age of Hell on the Wabash is its first appearance in print in Bruce and Emmett in 1862.

according to Bayard, Hell On the Wabash at some point was also known as Hell On the Potomac, as well as Hell On the Rappahannock.

Bayard published March to the Fife, Dance to the Fiddle in 1982. According to wikipedia, he collected fiddle and fife tunes in southwestern Pennsylvania and northern West Virginia from 1928 to 1963. Tunes do usually go way back, but for much of the material in Bayard, we're getting into 20th century "old time" fiddling. More importantly, did Bayard hear fifers playing Hell or was it just fiddlers?

These titles may have been associated with the tune during the Civil War, since both armies spent much of the war glaring at each other across these two rivers, one of which was the boundary between the two warring countries.

In Ryan's Mammoth Collection (1883), it is not called Hell on the Potomac or Hell on the Rappahannock. It's called Hell on the Wabash Jig. More about Ryan below

a band piece called "Hell On the Rappahannock" is mentioned as being played and popular in the Army of the Potomac.

The key here is "band piece." They're not talking about fifers.

And pay attention to what is actually said about the tune:

"The tune was a new one to them; they had never heard it before"

So much for it being popular pre-war or popular at all before this band started playing it.

And the account claims that a drummer named it Hell on the Rappahannock. It doesn't say he renamed it.

"one of the drummers was so enthused over it that he gave it the title of "Hell on the Rappahannock."

"Odd as it may seem, that particular piece of music was thereafter known by that suggestive title as long as our band was in the service, and throughout the army " Hell on the Rappahannock" became very popular."

William Bradbury Ryan, author of Ryan's Mammoth Collection, who served in the band of the 2nd Rhode Island, called it Hell on the Wabash Jig. You would think that if Hell on the Rappahannock was known "throughout the army" and was the same tune as Hell on the Wabash, that Ryan would use the Rappahannock title in his 1883 tune collection. But he doesn't, so it may have been (probably was) a completely different tune.

[James Taub]

Re: British Grenadiers and Other Marches

I am loving this thread

Same! Didin't know there was this much dispute in the "music industry" :tounge_sm

[joewhitney]

Re: British Grenadiers and Other Marches

There are also some units who engage in drill competitions, and even manouver by the bugle. So there should always be room in reenacting for both the commonplace and the rare (as long as the rare doesn't become commonplace!)

Will is dead on right when he says there should not be any postwar music being played at reenactments or living histories. I've been saying the same thing for 25 years, often being the only one saying it.

The issue of the American Veteran Fifer published by the National Association of Civil War Musicians is a special case though, where it isn't exactly known whether all of the tunes in it were played during the war or not. The duty call section of it certainly was. Many of the tunes included in it we know were. But many of them cannot be found earlier in printed sources, and Will feels it's better to err on the side of caution when there are other tunes documented to have been played during the war, and definitely more often. That is certainly a valid argument.

But having hung around Civil War musicians for 25 years, I know just getting them to stop playing obviously postwar tunes like Grandfather's Clock is hard enough. In fact, if Grandfather's Clock was in that manual, that would probably end this argument! But given the authors of the manual, I think most musicians are probably willing to give it the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.

Jobe's Quickstep is a good example. It doesn't show up in any other printed sources. But in the 1930s the folk music collector Bayard found a middle aged old time fiddler playing a hornpipe-like variation of it (attached), but without a title, up in the hills of central Pennsylvania. My family is from that area, and it's still remote even today, so that if you're not careful you could hit an elk with your car.

AVF was first published in 1905 and again in 1927. It's possible that within 25 years or so, a variation of it, but only the A part as the B part is different, could have travelled and made it into the repertoire of a middle-aged fiddler in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania But it's much more likely that the melody was floating around for a long time, as folk melodies are want to do, and over time died off just about everywhere else except in the repertoire of some Union fifers (especially one named Jobe) and a few old-time fiddlers.

This still doesn't prove it was around during the Civil War, but it shows that more research needs to be done in this case before anyone can say it definitely wasn't around for a very long time. The fact that it is a great melody means you do hear fifers play it at events every once and a while, but not many fifers can play it, so you don't hear it very often. But it and other similarly difficult tunes like Wabash are sure crowdpleasers, and help keep the really good musicians from getting bored and dropping out.

Joe Whitney

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: British Grenadiers and Other Marches

Here's a little biographical information about Jobe:
-----------------------

An Interesting Letter from Ohio.—

I read "Our Journal" with eagerness and find many bits of information not only in one branch of business but all are equally interesting. I am sixty-three years old, have always been in carriage work at this place except eight years as postmaster and two years in the army. I was a bugler under General Phil Sheridan and a prisoner of war in Libby prison. I am now a fifer with the Civil War musicians. Have been leader of a cornet band for seven years, member of Council, president of the schoolboard, mayor for six years, and am a member of the Odd Fellows, Masons, G. A. R., and Junior Order. I have been a newspaper correspondent for twenty-six years.

Thomas B. Jobe, Ohio.

-American Blacksmith and Motor Shop, Volume 8, 1908

----------------------


Interesting about Jobe being leader of a cornet band from about 1902 to 1908. This got me thinking about some of the possible musicial influences on contributors to the American Veteran Fifer like Thomas Jobe and A.F. Hopkins. I remembered reading in Jim Clark's Connecticut's Fife & Drum Tradition on google books about his theory that some of the pieces in the AVF had ragtime-like rhythms.

I looked at some old ragtime sheet music and I think that Mr. Clark is onto something.

Jobe's Quickstep is definitely unique with its grace note ornamentation. Could this be the influence of ragtime on Thomas Jobe?

http://drumband.org/music/avf/jobes.pdf

Clark mentions two of his ragtime-like favorites from the AVF being Denman Duncan's Drumbeat and J.N. Bogart's Banquet. Both of these tunes have the funky 1-e-a-2 rhythm that I saw in some ragtime pieces.

But I think an even better example might be the very first tune in the AVF: Civil War Musicians' Quickstep, no doubt being named after the National Association of Civil War Musicians.

http://drumband.org/music/avf/civwarmus.pdf

Now that's some funky rhythm like nothing I've seen from the 1850s or 1860s.

There might even be some ragtime influence on the version of Turkey in the Straw from the AVF.

http://drumband.org/music/avf/turkeyinthestraw.pdf

Those who can't read music can hear the variations in the first part of Turkey by listening to the midi file:

http://drumband.org/music/avf/turkeyinthestraw.mid

There is at least one post-war tune in the AVF-- Post No. 2 G.A.R. Reel from the AVF was composed by William McCarthy after the war (at least it was according to McCarthy, whose 1883 book is at the Library of Congress.)

By the way, even the AVF camp duty can't be 100% trusted to be from the war. "Grand Army March" is of unknown origin, but similar to [National Association of] Civil War Musicians' Quickstep, Grand Army March might have been Grand Army [of the Republic] aka G.A.R. March.

While we can't prove that these tunes didn't exist during the war, there are stylistic and other clues that they were post-war compositions or arrangements.

[joewhitney]

Re: British Grenadiers and Other Marches

If it's a case of chicken or egg, as in what first influenced what, I'd have to agree with George Carroll, who looked at that same 1e-a2 pattern in Empty Pockets in B&E, and said he thought he saw the early origins of jazz in that style of fife music:

http://www.fifedrum.org/resources/music/be/59.shtml

He didn't know at the time that it was a descendant of an 18th century piece called The Empty Purse (guess the subject changed over time along with men's fashion), just "jazzed up" and syncopated to fit the taste of Dan Emmett, or some other bored fifer(s):

http://abcnotation.com/getResource/downloads/image/the-empty-purse.png?a=www.campin.me.uk/Aird/Aird-v5/0045

So whether 1905 era fife music was reflecting the emergence of ragtime, or ragtime was just catching up to an old style of fife music is a good question. Since ragtime itself arose from military marches with so-called "African" syncopation added, I'd say the fife music probably came first.

Joe Whitney

[Johnson]

Re: British Grenadiers and Other Marches

Maybe a bit out of topic but the 'British' Grenadiers is actually from the Dutch march "De Jonge Prinsch van Frysland" and I'm actually getting tired to hear them at almost every period I reenact,even if there
is no British presence at the event,battle or even the war ! But I heard a Civil War song called "I goes to fight mit Sigel",It's a half German half English written song. Can somebody tell me more about it ? I found it
very interesting because I reenact a "German" immigrant (I'm not an actual German but my province belonged to the German Federation during the Civil War so I'm practically "German" ).

[James Taub]

Re: British Grenadiers and Other Marches

I goes to fight mit Sigel is set to the tune of "The Girl I Left Behind me". I've always heard that is was written to make fun of the many German immigrants fighting under General Sigel. Here is another helpful thread on German music in Der Amerikanische Bürgerkrieg: http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/...ght-mit-Sigel!

I've come shust now to tells you how,
I goes mit regimentals,
To schlauch dem voes of Liberty,
Like dem old Continentals,
Vot fights mit England long ago,
To save der Yankee Eagle;
Und now I gets my sojer clothes;
I'm going to fight mit Sigel.

Ven I comes from der Deutsche Countree,
I vorks somedimes at baking;
Den I keeps a lager beer saloon,
Und den I goes shoe-making;
But now I was a sojer been
To save der Yankee Eagle,
To schlauch dem tam secession volks,
I goes to fight mit Sigel.

I gets ein tam big rifle guns,
Und puts him to mine shoulder,
Den march so bold like a big jackhorse,
Und may been someding bolder;
I goes off mit de volunteers
To save der Yankee Eagle;
To give dem Rebel vellers fits.
I goes to fight mit Sigel.

Dem Deutschen mens mit Sigel's band
At fighting have no rival;
Und ven Cheff Davis mens ve meet,
Ve schlauch em like de tuyvil.
Dere's only von ting vot I fear,
Ven pattling for der Eagle,
I vont get not no lager beer,
Ven I goes to fight mit Sigel.

For rations dey gives salty pork,
I dinks dat was a great sell;
I petter likes de saurkraut,
Der Schvitzer-kase und bretzel.
If Fighting Joe will give us dem,
Ve'll save der Yankee Eagle,
Und I'll put mine frau in breech-a-loons,
To go and fight mit Sigel.