Issue 133:Layout 1 7/21/2011 10:44 PM Page 1 I Ancienttimes Published by the Company of Fifers & Drummers, Inc
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Issue 133:Layout 1 7/21/2011 10:44 PM Page 1 i AncientTimes Published by the company of Fifers & Drummers, Inc. summer 2011 Issue 133 $5.00 In thIs Issue: MusIc & ReenactIng usaRD conventIon the gReat WesteRn MusteR Issue 133:Layout 1 7/21/2011 10:45 PM Page 2 w. Alboum HAt Co. InC. presents Authentic Fife and Drum Corps Hats For the finest quality headwear you can buy. Call or Write: (973)-371-9100 1439 Springfield Ave, Irvington, nJ 07111 C.P. Burdick & Son, Inc. IMPoRtant notIce Four Generations of Warmth When your mailing address changes, Fuel Oil/excavation Services please notify us promptly! 24-Hour Service 860-767-8402 The Post Office does not advise us. Write: Membership Committee Main Street, Ivoryton P.O. Box 227, Ivoryton, CT 06442-0227 Connecticut 06442 or email: membership@companyoffife - anddrum.org HeAly FluTe COMPAny Skip Healy Fife & Flute Maker Featuring hand-crafted instruments of the finest quality. Also specializing in repairs and restoration of modern and wooden Fifes and Flutes On the web: www.skiphealy.com Phone/Fax: (401) 935-9365 email: [email protected] 5 Division Street Box 2 3 east Greenwich, RI 02818 Issue 133:Layout 1 7/21/2011 10:45 PM Page 3 Ancient times 2 Issue 133, Summer 2011 1 Fifes, Drums, & Reen - 5 Published by acting: A Wande ring The Company of Dilettante Looks for Fifers & Drummers Common Ground FRoM the eDItoR http :/ / companyoffifeanddrum.org u editor: Deirdre Sweeney 4 art & Design Director: Deirdre Sweeney Let’s Get the Music advertising Manager: t Deep River this year a Robert Kelsey Right s 14 brief, quiet lull settled in contributing editor: Bill Maling after the jam session Illustrator: Scott Baldwin 5 A Membership/subscriptions: s dispersed, and some musicians For corps, individual, or life membership infor - Book Review: at Taggarts were playing one of mation or institutional subscriptions: Dance to the Fiddle, Attn: Membership The Company of Fifers & those exquisitely grave and un - I Drummers P.O. Box 277, Ivoryton, CT March to the Fife settling Scots melodies that 06442-0277 [email protected] 6 could frighten the dead while tel: 860-767-2237; fax: 860-767-9765 just across the way from them editorial: A Little Bit of History 16 For submissions or questions: others had gathered round to ... 100 Years As go [email protected] light yet another sky lantern. It [email protected] could almost have resembled tel: 508-847-4460 i 12 advertising: The Brigade some kind of long-lost ritual, For rates and availability contact: what with the mix of music and Robert Kelsey, P.O. Box 185792, Drummer’s Call Hamden, CT 06518 fire, except that none of the ac - tel: 203-645-4231; email: [email protected] h 14 tors were aware of their coordi - The Company of Second Annual 17 nation. Moreover, the gravity of Fifers & Drummers USARD Convention the moment was perfectly un - President: John Hanewich, dercut by the inflation of that [email protected] First vice President: Mark logsdon, 586-247-1775, t 16 great, inane green alien face on [email protected] the side of the sky lantern as she second vice President: Bill Bouregy, 860-526-1433, Lexington Must er a [email protected] Success Despite lifted off on her majestic, heav - secretary: Sarah Brown, 860-399-7572, [email protected] Threatening Skies enward journey. I suspect most treasurer: Maureen Mason, outsiders to fife and drum [email protected] 20 archives / Museum curator: Jim Clark, 860-346-3232, n 17 would be surprised that this an - [email protected] Western Wind cient, some would say “patri - Facilities co-Manager: Kevin Brown, 860-399-7572, [email protected] I otic” musical tradition attracts so Membership chair: Mark Reilly, 703-975-5517, mem - 20 [email protected] many people who have obvi - Music chair: Dominick Cuccia, 203-405-1176, music - News & ously missed their vocation as [email protected] the company store: Roberta Armstead Announcements from extras on a Fellini film set. The Company of Fifers & Drummers, Inc. the Fife & Drum even if everything else seem - Company Store P.O. Box 277, Ivoryton, CT 06442-0277 companys - Community 20 ingly fails, I find that those curi - [email protected] ous midnight juxtapositions Ancient Times is published quarterly by The Com - 25 pany of Fifers & Drummers, Inc., Museum, Music li - make summer musters worth - brary, Headquarters, P.O. Box 277 Ivoryton, CT. Your Company Hall 06442-0277, tel: 860-767-2237 while: a welcome whimsical respite in our age of crises. The publication (ISSn0091-7176) seeks to keep individual, institu - 27 Reverie aside, somewhat tional, and drum corps members throughout the world informed The Muffled Drum primarily on the activities of traditional American fife and drum serendipitously the Ancient corps known as Ancients. The Company maintains a museum and Times has received three pieces headquarters on two-plus acres. It seeks to perpetuate the histori - on the cover: the eighth great 27 cal significance and folk traditions of American field music and to Western Muster, June 25, 2011 related to music and reenacting: foster the spirit of fellowship among all fifers and drummers. Photography courtesy of Tracey a survey of attitudes to authen - Founded in 1965, The Company of Fifers & Drummers, Inc. is a tax- Bird & Linda McKim exempt, tax-deductible, non-profit corporation. ticity within the reenacting fife and drum community, an article from The cont. on p. 26 Issue 133:Layout 1 7/21/2011 10:45 PM Page 2 2 Ancient times Fifes, Drums & Reenacting By Al PeTTy Times , June 2006). stow Minuteman company confess that my Tom is literally “living the tradi - only exposure to the tion.” When he performs with his Peter emerick, center. Ifife and drum world civil war unit, he plays music out is with the Sudbury Ancient Fyfe of The American Veteran Fifer , a & Drum Companie: a group that compilation put together by Ohio operates in that grey area between Civil War vets some of whom reenacting and fife-and-drum. were from the original regiment Our muster each year is a confus - that he reenacts. But even Tom ad - ing but not unhealthy mix of reen - mits that over the years he and his actors with their guns and colleagues have been performing musicians with their instruments. more and more concerts and less This mixing has led me to the er - and less battles. He agrees that roneous conclusion that the guys there just isn’t enough music at a with the guns share a love of reenactment. music with us musicians. Tom suggested that I contact the Silly me. The more reenactments oracle of reenactment music: The I attend, the more I have come to Brigade of the American Revolu - believe that reenactors are con - tion. eric lichack, the BAR cerned with the period “look” but spokesperson says that the musi - not the period “sound.” And re - cians of the BAR divide their time ally, why should a reenactor care between camp duty calls and about the authenticity of our “tunes to entertain the troops.” music if the musicians don’t show The authenticity is verified by a an interest in the authenticity of BAR inspector of music and the their battles? nevertheless, there group publishes their well-known are some points of intersection be - A Collection of Standardized Fife tween those who portray soldiers Tunes and Drum Accompanyment of the past and those who play From the Period 1775-1783 with music of the past. To find some of many of the camp duties based on Lance Pedigo, left. these connections, I spoke with a an 18th century British military few souls who might help me rec - manual. erik, a drummer himself, oncile the two sides of this issue. tells of transcribing into modern While these musicians by no notation many of the drum parts means represent everything hap - written as primitive “entabla - pening within ancient music, there tures” in the original. By matching are some interesting stories that the drum notation to the fife nota - bear reporting. My first contact tion, he could arrive at a sound had to be Tom Kuhn of (among that he believes is close to authen - other corps) Camp Chase since he tic. unfortunately, the BAR book openly confessed to being a reen - and The Company Books have very Prescott’s Battalion actment fifer in the excellent inter - few tunes in common. Perhaps view with Bill Maling ( Ancient some of the BAR tunes could be Issue 133:Layout 1 7/21/2011 10:45 PM Page 3 Ancient times 3 A wandering dilettante looks for common ground heard at jam sessions in the future? titles, they won’t perform boring and time to produce truly concert- In Williamsburg they do it all. you music no matter how exciting the title quality instruments and so the Red can go to the opera or ballet, hear folk is. The second half of their mission Horse fifes give a sound closer to that songs in the tavern or dance the night statement is: “To educate, enlighten of the Sudbury Minute and Militia of away. you can also experience the fa - and entertain audiences in the tradi - 1775 than a corps with modern fifes. mous fifes and drums. Their director, tion of ancient fife and drum music.” So here we are, back where we lance Pedigo, reports that their exten - Who can say fairer than that? started. “Authentic” is what you say it sive music library was started by And then there’s Stow. The Stow is. It seems that the only trouble comes founder John Moon with materials Minuteman Company seems to be the when claims are made that one is from the Massachusetts Historical So - group that maintains reenacting and “more authentic” than another.