Granny, will your dog bite?

[33rdaladrummer]

http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/GRA_GRAPE.htm

"Bruce Baker found the following reference in the North Carolina State Archives (Raleigh, N.C.) in the Lowry Shuford Collection in a folder marked "Civil War Reminiscences." The folder contains a document titled "From 1861 to 1865 As I Remember" by J. A. Bush, Sr., of Lenoir, N.C., wherein he writes:


D. A. Griffin was one of them (i.e. the musicians). When he came to Lenoir to be sworn in, he was playing on his fife, 'Oh, Granny, will your little dog bite? No, child, no.' He took his fife to camp with him and played every evening.

Baker concludes that, while there is no way of knowing which of the “Granny” tunes was the one Griffin played, the reference “does suggest the tune was playable on a fife and that this floating lyric was floating around Caldwell Co., N.C., in the early 1860s.”"

http://www.d27nct.org/27th_NCT_sharpsburg.htm

"Col. Cooke immediately recognized the opportunity and shouted for his two regiments to “Rise and Prepare to charge.” A battle line was quickly formed with the 27th NC on the left and 3rd AK on the right. A slightly built soldier from the 3rd AK holding a fiddle timidly approached his Captain as the men formed ranks and asked “Would it be all right if I give the boys a tune as they moved out?” The officer replied that he could, as long as it was a particular mountain tune. So, as nearly one thousand untried soldiers stepped over the splintered wooden fence to their front, “Swing your partner! Doe see Doe! Granny will your dog bite? Hellfire no!” squealed overhead and blended oddly with the sounds of battle."

Does anyone know of sheet music or more complete lyrics for a "Granny will your dog bite" tune that dates to the war? I suppose the 1905 American Veteran Fifer Granny would work, but it seems there might be a better match based on the number of different Granny tunes that exist.

[Fast71]

Re: Granny, will your dog bite?

I'm also very interested - I worked on this a couple of years ago and was not able to come with anything definite. The title and lyric were both popular floaters but everything I've ever seen in print is 20 years post-war. Let me dig into the books again and see what I can come up with.

Anyone else have any suggestions?

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: Granny, will your dog bite?

Jeff,

You hit the nail on the head when you called this tune a "floater". If anyone is wondering why one would worry about this mess and not just play any old "Granny" tune, check out an extreme case of mistakes caused by floaters.

http://www.colonialmusic.org/Resource/Schrader.htm

[joewhitney]

Re: Granny, will your dog bite?

The tune most fifers and drummers today call Granny Will Your Dog Bite was commonly known as The Congo Prince Jig (even though it wasn't a jig). It was called by the Granny name in the 1905/1927 American Veteran Fifer, which reenacting musicians regulary play from.

On the 2nd SC String Band CD "High Cotton", you can hear me play the traditional mountain fiddle tune "Granny Will Your Dog Bite" on fife, snare and bass, with the drum beat from the tune "Capt. Whiting's" in Bruce & Emmett's manual.

Which "Granny" was played at Sharpsburg? Don't know. Wasn't there.

Joe Whitney
2nd SC String Band
Md Line Field Music

[eric marten]

Re: Granny, will your dog bite?

Granny Will Your dDog bbite has a few other titles: Hog Eye, Hog Eye Man, Tip Toe Pretty Betty Martin (the oldest that I know of - c. 1812) as well as these two amusing variations: Sally in the Garden, Sifting Sand, and Sally in the Garden, Assisting Sam. There probably are more titles.

<- - - - Guess what is missing right here? Yep, that is precisely what is missing. - Charles Heath, friendly AC mod, just pointing out the obvious.

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: Granny, will your dog bite?

Did some more digging and found that Granny will your dog bite is in

Septimus Winner's Choice Gems For The Violin' Cleveland, S. Brainard's Sons 1873. I guess no one has access to that one. Joe?

Another fife version from Fischer circa 1890 can be found using the link below. Wonder if it's the same as the one in Winner's. I've found some tunes in Fischer's book that are identical to those from much older music books, including Howe's fife books.

http://www.fifedrum.org/resources/music/tutor/96.shtml

Maybe it's a better match than the AVF version.

AVF version from 1905 is here:

http://www.drumband.org/music/avf/granny.pdf

[Tertel]

Re: Granny, will your dog bite?

" Septimus Winner's Choice Gems For The Violin' Cleveland, S. Brainard's Sons 1873. I guess no one has access to that one"
Will,
I have a copy of that manual that a fella violinist/fifer gave me. I'll check it. Is "Granny does your dog bite" under any particular title other than that name within that manual, just like Welcome Here Again is titled Gentle Anne in a source we used for that tune?
Tim Ertel
Ft. McHenry Guard Field Music
SGLHA

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: Granny, will your dog bite?

From a site with a link to the Henry Reed collection of field recordings at the LOC, definitely worth a listen:

http://www.americansouth.org/viewrecord.php?id=98185

Winner's Choice Gems , p. 66 "Granny Will Your Dog Bite. (Jig.)"

Fischer's book also has the identical title, "GRANNY WILL YOUR DOG BITE (Jig.)"

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: Granny, will your dog bite?

So Tim, were you able to find the tune in Winner's 1873 (or even the book)? By chance I found this:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Instructional-music-book-for-Fife-1890_W0QQitemZ110150687569QQihZ001QQcategoryZ43391QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Hopefully it's the same one as on fifedrum.org. I'm going to try and cross-reference the tunes in the Fischer book. I've looked into some of them. For example, the "Dashing White Sergeant" is identical to one in Howe's D&F, whereas the AVF contains a shortened version. Now that's a popular tune from the period you never hear.

[eric marten]

Re: Granny, will your dog bite?

There is a scholarly work by Samuel Bayard. entitled "Dance to the Fiddle, March to the Fife", consisting of over 600 tunes and variants of fiddle and fife tunes,published 1982 by The Pennsylvania State University Press, including 15 from the Granny Will Your Dog Bite, Hog-Eye, Pretty Betty Martin family of tunes. Extensive notes on the tunes, plus a bibliography of over 200 collections, many sources from the ACW period and earlier,such as Emmett, Howe, Niel Gow, etc. He also relates the tune to the familiar Fire on the Mountain fiddle tune, as well as an early 19th century Norwegian song.

Some of the Lyrics cited:

Johnny get your hair cut, hair cut, hair cut
Johnny get your hair cut, just like me.

Granny will your dog bite, no child, no child
Granny will your dog bite, No child, no


Little Betty Martin, tip toe, tip toe
Little Betty Martin, tip toe fine

and others, as well.

Eric Marten
Franklin Square, N.Y.

[33rdaladrummer]

Re: Granny, will your dog bite?

Bayard's books (I think I posted a link to a scanned copy of Hill Country Tunes a while back) are a great resource for finding the origin of tunes. SOME of these tunes are appropriate for what most musicians on this forum are trying to do. A few of the tunes were even handed down directly from Civil War musicians to the performers Bayard recorded. Bayard traced the roots of many of the old tunes and showed the huge overlap of the reprotoire of fifers and fiddlers. There are tons of AVF tunes in there, even rare ones like J.N. Hamberger's, which, if I recall correctly, evolved from a tune called Dundee Volunteers in Aird. But it is this evolution of tunes that can be a problem to someone who wants to recreate the exact sound of a specific time period as accurately as possible.

On one extreme there are people who assume that any traditional or "old" tune is good enough. The problem with old and traditional is that they are both relative terms. There is definitely a traditional reprotoire of fife and drum music you hear over and over wherever there are fifers. But do these "tradtional" tunes really give us a representative sample of what was played during the war? Often times it requires much work and thought to find an answer to this question.

With the other extreme you have those who play the tunes mentioned in the journals (few and far between) and the ones in the printed manuals (more than anyone could ever memorize). One copy of Elias Howe's Musician's Companion or Musician's Omnibus would give a fifer or fiddler a lifetime's supply of music. And there you have an enormous period collection of fife and fiddle tunes, no research or arguments required.

But what do most people do? Just like musicians always have done, we learn from those around us. Tunes from the 18th century (some quite rare or not really even fife tunes) have reentered the common reprotoire because of groups like Williamsburg. So have 20th century tunes because of the influence of the Connecticut "ancient" fifers and drummers. But it seems like for most fifers and drummers the only mid-19th century resource that is ever used is Bruce and Emmett.