Recorded period music

[eric marten]

Re: Recorded period music

Dan: Yes I agree with you 100 percent, but it doesn't have to be dropped totally as far as a springboard for what is period music and period instruments. When we focus in on civil war era music, it is always historically appropriate to see where it came from and where it was going. But, as always, the style and instrumentation should be 100 percent authentic. It is not hard to get to that point. Gut strings are now so much easier to obtain, (with probably about a dozen manufacturers-American and European) than they were, say, 25 years ago when I started in this hobby. They are made for us, as well as classical players seeking period instruments and sounds. The sounds are so different from modern instruments that it almost isn't fair to call the instruments by the same names. Real tailgut for violins is also readily available, so there is no reason to use the re-inforced nylon/metal "tailpiece adjustors" on our period fiddles. Period banjos, and gut banjo strings, are also easier to get now than they were 25 years ago - Banjos like the beautiful fretless banjo with gut strings depicted by William Sidney Mount's painting "The Banjo Player" (1856) And I agree with you that , while some of the tunes continued to be played into the 20th century, styles (and tempi) changed considerably. An interesting aside - There does exist some arrangements for traditional music including basses - but bowed bass, as far cry from the plucked bass from the early 20th century. I used to play them with a small ensemble at Old Bethpage Village Restoration - Its called the Old Folks Quadrille, used to dance the Plain Quadrille - from the late 1850's all Stephen Foster melodies arranged for 2 violins, flute and bowed bass. If i can locate my copy with the publisher, I will post it.

[amity]

Re: Recorded period music

...it was the music of a lost Anglo tradition they were after, not the popular music that originated in America in CW era and before. Not the music of the typical CW soldier.

You are definitely right in the case of Cecil Sharpe, but not of other researchers, who were trying specifically to save the ordinary traditional vernacular music, common as log cabins. But your point is valid, if there were French ballads being sung in Kentucky and Tennessee, Cecil Sharpe probably missed 'em. The methodology does make a difference.

Yes, "the way your momma / daddy taught you" -- but momma / daddy were brought up in a period years after the Civil War. After 1910's when most of the recordings were made only a rare surviving grandpa (grandma) or two could have played CW music as he (she) heard it first hand. If you read about the artists on the records they weren't that old.

The ones I am interested in were pretty old. The man you heard singing on the Carter Brothers and Sons recordings was born in either 1857 or 1859, I forget which. I have heard many others that old, too. They were the very ones being sought out.

Yes, songs played from the CW era certainly, whether original from Pilgrim times up to the war, but instruments original to the CW era were mostly too old to use by the 1900's. I'll grant you some violins and guitars survived in playable condition but it's a sure bet most were made or bought from factory or mail-order after the Civil War, and were of newer construction and sound. Even homeades were of quite different construction and sound - Google "Frank Proffit, banjo"

I think a more important point is that they were just-tuned and playing modal pieces. Most CW reenactors have not had much exposure to modal music? The general American public surely is not familiar with it, and yet probably over half of those tunes are modal or pentatonic. When you read them printed in a book they are printed as if they were major or minor, which they were not originally. I have never seen Sally Gooden printed as a modal tune, always as a minor. The notation to do so has never really been developed, apart from peppering it with sharps and flats all over the place, and then it sounds discordant to modern ears, so it is usually just transposed into minor key. I imagine they might have gotten their fiddles the way they had earlier ... they made them or had them made?

FLAG. Definitely not a primary source for reenactors. As I mentioned before, some 20th century string band recordings had aspects and mannerisms of Civil War era performance -- but not in any way did they actually sound like a CW performance. Wrong keys and singing style, steel strings etc. "

Please listen again. I disagree with you in many cases, Carter Brothers and Son being one.

FLAG. Those recordings of lost Anglo music would be a record only of certain traditional songs from the Appalachian area where they were preserved. I'll grant you some soldier boys from those mountains might have sung those in camp but it was the popular music sold on song sheets that's more valid for us to reenact today.

Of course, it depends on who we are portraying, as always. The "average" southern soldier would be pretty well represented by Nancy Rollin. The "average" southerner was still pretty well represented by Nancy Rollin at the turn of the 20th century! The sheet music is nice, too, and valid as well for a different type of portrayal, and I don't meant to slight it whatsoever.

That's Uncle Dave Macon. I have recordings of him and actually his performing antics are very like a CW era Medicine or Minstrel show and he should be listened to for that. His repertoire of songs inclucing CW era songs was amazing. But again, with the instrument he used (A Gibson open-back, steel-strung fretted banjo) he didn't sound much like a CW player.

He's a performer allright! I am not as familiar with what he is playing. But I did like it, and take your word for what it represents historically.

FLAG. Not all that close. There are better sources - sheet music and tutors.

I suspect that as always that depends on who one is portraying! The average person in the U.S. at that time could not read music. In fact, the average person in America at that time could not read much of anything ... So I think sheet music and tutors would have appealed to those educated people who did have a background in music. It was not the traditional music passed down by ear, evidently. Carter Bros were not able to read music, of course.

[Danny]

Re: Recorded period music

... The ones I am interested in were pretty old. The man you heard singing on the Carter Brothers and Sons recordings was born in either 1857 or 1859, I forget which. I have heard many others that old, too. They were the very ones being sought out...

Terre -

That makes them 16 years old in 1873 or 1875, some 8 or 10 years after the CW ended. The popular songs in the 1870s were simply not the same songs that were popular in antebellum and CW times. I accept that there was a concurrent oral folk song tradition as well, but those old songs were not the popular music of the CW era.

The bottom line here is that although there is some value to listening to the early 20th century string band recordings for a few cues of CW era performance (I've suggested that myself), in this instance the case is being far too overstated and the connection is far too tenuous to be of primary consideration for CW living history or authentic reenactment. I think Eric has about the best way of looking at this topic.

Did I mention that "Songcatchers" movie and Soundtrack - I think you might thoroughly enjoy it.

- Dan Wykes

[amity]

Re: Recorded period music

Although popular music can change drastically in 10 years, traditional music doesn't change that rapidly. I still think this is a great source for those portraying period musicians.

I don't get to see many movies but will look for Songcatchers. Thanks for a good discussion and film recommendation.

[L. E. Prillaman]

Re: Recorded period music

Joel, I am a fiddler and my friend is a banjo player. We play tunes that date from the 1850's and older. In fact that is really the only kind of music I play. We keep it simple nd traditional the way people would have ACTUALLY heard it back then. Primarily I focus on traditional old time music of Appalachia. If you wanna hear some stuff, i'd be happy to email you a couple of tunes we've done.

[cwcoe]

Re: Recorded period music

Have any of you heard any of the Polk Miller and the Old South Quartette recordings originally on cylinder records? Mr. Miller was born in the 1840s and learned to play the banjo in the style of the period. Later he recruited black men for the quartet and performed in the old "plantation style" to rave reviews. Someone has made this music available at polkmiller.com and also at the University of California cylinder record library

http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/search.php?query=polk+miller&queryType=@attr+1%3D1016

Do these recordings accurately portray the sound and style of the period?

Charles Coe
Robertson's/Dent's Battery
Pensacola, Florida

[Danny]

Re: Recorded period music

... The "average" southern soldier would be pretty well represented by Nancy Rollin...

From here I'll let someone else take up this cause. Listen to the Nancy Rollin cut at this link and realize what is being referred to as a good source for CW.

http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/store/artist/album/0,,1121301,00.html

Respectfully, for those that are sincerely trying to discern what's appropriate for authentic reenacting, this Appalachian/Old-timey string band stuff being promoted by Terre and Joel is not appropriate for CW. Who can blame them though -- many of the Sat. evening Balls at mainstream reenactments insist on hiring such bands, same for the Living History and Sutler areas, and many soldier musicians insist on playing it in the field - even at the National 'authentic' events like Perryville.

Dan Wykes

P.S. for Terre, the research paper attached may be of interest

[Hank Trent]

Re: Recorded period music

I suspect that as always that depends on who one is portraying! The average person in the U.S. at that time could not read music. In fact, the average person in America at that time could not read much of anything ...

As far as I know, the vast majority of Americans in the 1860s were literate, according to the census and secondary sources. I don't mean they could read music, but they could read and write.

So I think sheet music and tutors would have appealed to those educated people who did have a background in music. It was not the traditional music passed down by ear, evidently. Carter Bros were not able to read music, of course.

That brings up a topic I never really thought about. I always assumed--and you know what that gets you--that most people learned songs by hearing them, including the latest popular songs. The minority who could read sheet music, introduced new music to others, who then learned to sing it or if they played an instrument, had it taught to them. So not many people needed to read music, for sheet music to be quickly disseminated. Hence the quick adoption of military-themed songs during the war, and the way that other songs have slipped into a category that most modern people think of as "traditional old-timey songs," that are taught orally, like Camptown Races or Oh Suzanna, when in fact they were written and originally published in sheet music.

As I say, that was just my assumption. So... How did the average person learn a new song? Let's say, I dunno, Dandy Jim of Caroline, or When Johnny Comes Marching Home. It's the 1840s or the 1860s, you play the banjo or the piano or sing but you can't read music, you hear the song once at a show or concert, and you want to learn it. We could get a recording and play it over and over, but what did they do? We know they did something, because new songs kept becoming popular.

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[Fiddlebum]

Re: Recorded period music

"which is also one of the reasons that many (but certainly not all) fiddle tunes in the 20th century were changed from flat keys to the "guitar-friendly" sharp keys."

Huh? You ever tried to play in a flat key on the fiddle? I don't mean symphony music, I mean plain ol' fiddle music. There's a reason why most traditional fiddle tunes are in D, G, & A, and it doesn't have anything to do with the guitar.


Kim Caudell

[amity]

Re: Recorded period music

The Gid Tanner version is in major key, isn't it? The Carter Brothers and Son version (called by them "Nancy Rowland") is modal, and that is a major part of my point. It is hard to believe it is even the same tune! Gid Tanner was a performer, and his version of Nancy Rowland is an early commercial recording, I'll wager. It is a 'corrupted' version for our purposes because it is not played in a traditional key, and probably other things, too. It has been modernized. Contrast Carter Bros. and Son's Nancy Rowland with Gid Tanner's Nancy Rollin (same melody) and you will have a small encapsulation of what this entire issue is all about.

I don't mean to condemn Gid Tanner's version, and it may be a very nice rendition for someone who is trying to reproduce the sound of 1920s. There isn't really enough of it there to tell beyond all the ornamentation. But I agree totally that in researching traditional music we should stick to the old way it would have been played.

Mr. Trent, I understand that most Americans were literate by the standards of the day, i.e. they could write a letter, but by reading those letters it becomes obvious that they could not have read an ordinary book cover to cover, for example. I think "literate" by 19th cent. standards must have meant "Can write their own names and a few sentences, but not well or accurately or easily." Fewer still could read music, and I think that for traditional music that had survived for decades/ centuries that is not how it was transmitted.

And Mr. Wykes, your author identifies his subject matter as "mass–produced, commercialized hillbilly music." Gid Tanner may be "Hillbilly music." I don't know. But the traditional musicians of the civil war era do not fall into this category. The early 20th century musicians I am trying to point folks toward do not fall into this category. The very term sounds to me like a way of disparaging our own traditional culture. It makes me very uncomfortable. I am not at all sure what it means as a genre, or even if it is a genre properly speaking. But traditional music, with all the ancient melodies, chords, modes, bowing techniques, etc. is a very valid musical form for CW era. It still existed in different forms all over the country, not just in the "hills."

Kim, I *think* the difference is in the way the fiddle is tuned and played, not so much in the way it is made (except for the usual flattened bridge common to fiddling). Here are a couple of articles on this subject, since I can generally recognize it as a broad category, but not explain it, I'm afraid:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_intonation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modal_music

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentatonic_scale

[eric marten]

Re: Recorded period music

Hi Kim: Thanks for your interest. Yes, I've tried playing fiddle tunes in the flat keys - I do it every day, and at every performance of 19th century fiddle music at Old Bethpage Village Restoration with the 5 other living history fiddlers, on thoroughly researched material from fiddlers of the 19th century. Your sentence "there's a reason why most traditional fiddle tunes "are" in D, G, and A" is in the present tense and not applicable to the 19th century. In the 19th century , upwards of half of all the tunes were in the keys of C (and the related A minor), F, B flat (and the related G minor), and E flat and A flat. Some of the old beautiful tunes, such as Hull's Victory and Fischer's Hornpipe (both in the key of F) lose some of thier charm when transposed to the easier D major. Howe's 1,000 Jigs and Reels,(1867), Howe's Musician's Omnibus (1864), the manuscript collection of William Sidney Mount - Stony Brook Long Island (1807-1868 ), William Litten's Fiddle Tunes (1800-1802), The Skye Collection of the Best Reels and Strathspeys, (1867), The Gow Collection of Scottish Dance Music (late 18th and early 19th century) etc. - literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of nineteenth century fiddle tunes in these keys, many of which were later transposed in the 20th century to the sharp keys to accomodate other instruments. The fiddle works beautifully in the flat keys, and is well worth the effort to try it (its not that difficult). Performance of mid 19th century and Civil War era traditional fiddle music should not be influenced by instruments, styles, and keys more appropriate to the 20th century-influenced "old-timey" or "Irish folk" groups hired for some events, and re-runs of "Hee Haw".

[RJSamp]

Re: Recorded period music

"Fewer still could read music, and I think that for traditional music that had survived for decades/ centuries that is not how it was transmitted."

We're all reminded that the most common form of musical entertainment, sung weekly church hymns, were sung from hymnals with NO music in them.....pull out the Episcopal Hymnal from 1857.....there's nary a note in it. EVeryone knew the tunes (sung since they were little ones), you needed the hymnal to allow you to sing the words from every verse...... the organist had the music and pumped out the chord structure and SATB parts.

I would wager that in an era of no musical playback systems save for performing the music itself, more people than we realize could pick up a tune, a chorus, a few verses....and then repeat it on their preferred instrument. There being no Muzak's, live music/performers were more prevalent than today....and more people could read sheet music and/or learn by listening. More than you all are giving them credit for.

And don't forget that developed talent of playing by ear.....I can play a few hundred songs in several keys simply by hearing them and then playing them on the trumpet. My brain can simply translate the
guitar/fiddled/sung/memorized tune into the correct fingerings, durations, and intervals on the horn and out comes music.....run through it a few times and there it is. Can't explain it (and yes I can read music) but would imagine that many people then and now have the same talent. Rose of Alabamy? Say don't you remember that old tune we used to play....and off you go. My Great Great Grandfather could literally play Dozens of instruments, my Great Grandfather about 20 different instruments, and my Grandfather on down were all brass musician's and singers. Music Performance was just an accepted practice...much like car driving or computer keyboarding today.

We have a similar problem with brass instruments between then and now.....stuff sounds different. A=440 today....but in the mid 1850's it was up as high as 452 for a brighter sound.....and 415 back in the 1800's. Mouthpieces and rotary valved instruments change the tone/timbre of the brass.....much as calf skin and gut change the tone and edge of period drums, string instruments.... that might be one thing to check.....your tuning.....maybe you should be at A= 448 or 450 in 1862?

[Fiddlebum]

Re: Recorded period music

"is in the present tense and not applicable to the 19th century."

I'm sorry but I have to disagree with you. The keys of G, D, and A make the best use of open strings on the fiddle. While playing in flat keys isn't that difficult for people who have had training on the instrument, self-taught players are not likely to go to the trouble of learning those keys when they have perfectly good open strings to use. Why make it harder than it has to be?


Kim Caudell

[Hank Trent]

Re: Recorded period music

I understand that most Americans were literate by the standards of the day, i.e. they could write a letter, but by reading those letters it becomes obvious that they could not have read an ordinary book cover to cover, for example. I think "literate" by 19th cent. standards must have meant "Can write their own names and a few sentences, but not well or accurately or easily."

That's too fascinating a discussion to abandon, and too far off topic here, so I've started a new thread at http://www.authentic-campaigner.com/...9841#post79841

Hank Trent
hanktrent@voyager.net

[eric marten]

Re: Recorded period music

Kim: Don't hesitate to disagree with me - that's whats so great about this forum. Of course, out of the thousands (approx 2,000) of 19th century fiddle tunes available in transcription, if one half are in C and the flat keys, then that means one half are in the sharp keys as well, especially the all-time favorite key of D. There is room in this hobby for all styles, abilities, preferences, etc. I'm just so blessed to be able to participate so much in playing and teaching traditional fiddle - I thank God every day to be able to make a good part of my living doing it

So don't get me wrong - I happen to be involved in living history in the northeast, primarily New York City and Long Island, and the written transcriptions from this area, from the 19th century, contain so many beautiful tunes in all keys - and apparently that was somewhat more prevalent in the 19th century than the 20th century. See the "Lancer's Quadrilles" in C, F and B flat. I'm fortunate enough to have available the over 500 tunes hand-transcribed by William Sidney Mount from Stony Brook from the 1840's through the 1860's in many different styles - including "mainstream dance tunes", as well as minstrel tunes, Scottish-Irish tunes, popular songs, airs, etc, in a variety of keys. The strong solo fiddle tradition supports this, but there is room for every single style and preference . There is also a large number of tunes transcribed by Isaac Homan, also from Long Island at the same time, as well as Mount's brother Robert Nelson Mount, who moved to Georgia to become a teacher and dancing master in the 1850's. The flat keys were probably more prevalent in the northeast than in other areas, and of course accomodations are always made when playing with other instruments. As far as the continuing tradition, (past our focus), the flat keys and most jigs seemed to have died off in the South.(after the war and approaching the 20th century). So be it!
Let's keep this tradition going - as living history re-enactors on period instruments, as well as with the on-going ,still-surviving American tradition.