by Ed Olsen
Archivist-for-Life and Curator
The Museum of Fife & Drum
It is totally impossible to locate, and thereby make available, a published
history of the development of fifing and drumming in America. The activity
has never been considered that important to serious-minded historians,
nor unusual enough to have mention made of it in publications other
than newspapers reporting parades and the roisterous gatherings therefollowing.
We do know that the drum came over to the areas of English
Settlements with some of the very earliest colonists. Considered a most
necessary adjunct to the art of war, the drum was also used for calling
the people together for church services and town meetings. Some of the
early churches were known to have been constructed so as to include
a platform on which the drummer beat his "calls," and records
of many of these early communities indicate that tax assessments were
often adjusted to meet the expense of hiring and maintaining a Town
Drummer.
The fife had fallen into disuse in the England of that period and consequently
did not accompany the early drum migrants. In the 1740s, the Duke of
Cumberland returned from the continent of Europe with musicians long
absent from English shores -- Fifers. Soon the fife was actively engaged
with the military drum, and by the French and Indian War, known in Europe
as the Seven Years War, we started hearing it in the Colonies.
At the time of the Lexington Alarm (1775), many of the Colonial Regiments
making their way to Massachusetts included one or two fifers and drummers
per most companies. Whether they, at any time, played together as a
unit of music is not generally known. However, since some companies
listed as many as two fifers, with no drummers, there may be some reason
to assume so.
Following the years involving the Revolutionary War, the Army continued
in a rather reduced state, with a consequent reduction in the number
of active fifers and drummers therein. A school for field musicians
was formed at Governor's Island in New York Harbor in the early 19th
Century and continued, at least, until the time of the Civil War (1861-1865).
Said school provided most of the fifers and drummers in the "peace-time"
Army, as well as the musicians attached to the Army of the Potomac.
Many of the musicians returned from the service to organize fife and
drum units in their own towns and neighborhoods. Although a good number
of these groups functioned without benefit of regulations or uniforms,
they all fancied themselves participants in a military-type unit of
"Martial Musick" and continued to play the type music they
had learned in the Army and the Organized Militia. This was also a period
of extensive publication of "manuals," each designed to "elevate
the state" of contemporary fifing and drumming. Between 1801 and
1826, twenty six such method books were to be copyrighted.
These units functioned throughout the settled areas of the country
and slowly developed regional styles that reflected the attitudes and
systems of the more prominent musicians teaching throughout the various
locations. Some units changed, in the interests of "modernization,"
and were soon playing music originally designed for military bands...
with the drum line being reduced in size and importance to the category
of percussive accompaniment.
In New England, and more particularly the state of Connecticut, the
older, more primitive systems remained popular due to the conservative
nature of the inhabitants. "Quicksteps," rather than modern
marches, on the fifes vying with full, heavy lines of open rudimental
snare drummers and "two-stick" rudimental bass drummers...
this regional style came to be known among the participants themselves
as Ancient. Following an almost terminal decline precipitated by WWII,
the Ancients went on to experience a slow resurgence, first in Connecticut
and soon in neighboring states. Then, with the advent of our country's
Bicentennial Celebration, Ancient fife and drum corps were springing
up throughout the country. Interestingly enough, most of the once popular
modern fife and drum corps had long since fallen into oblivion.
Following WWII, Ancient corps started getting together fairly regularly
for purposes of fifing, drumming and sundry revelries. These gatherings
eventually developed into (and by 1953 were being called) "Drum
Corps Musters." The gatherings at the small town of Deep River,
Conn. became the largest and most popular. By 1976 it was drawing as
many as 80 participating units from many different states as well as
from Basel, Switzerland... a musical community with which American Ancients
have formed an extremely close association.
The year 1965 witnessed the founding of The Company of Fifers &
Drummers and the organization now enjoys a membership of more than 120
fife and drum corps stretching from Switzerland "on the East"
to the Pacific coast in the West. On July 12, 1987 we had the official
grand opening of our Headquarters and Museum of Fife & Drum, the
first... and only... such edifice we know of.
Several of the fife and drum corps are quite old, with some claiming
organizational dates of 1767, 1860, 1868, and the styles played often
vary in sound, tempo and choice of music. The uniforms embraced by the
Ancients are usually of the 18th Century variety although the dress
of the late 19th Century (American Civil War and following) is also
popular.
While many units insist that they are authentic reproductions of our
earliest fife and drum groups, most are satisfied in the knowledge that
theirs is the logical development of the sounds that heralded this country's
earliest history and, in that sense, they are really folk musicians
in uniform.
Ed Olsen is recognized
by The Company of Fifers & Drummers as the foremost historian
on the development of traditional American fifing and drumming.
He is co-founder of this organization, a Trustee-for-Life and
was appointed Archivist-for-Life. He was named Curator of The
Museum of Fife & Drum in 1986. A fifer since his youth, he
has performed with many drum corps and is currently a lead fifer
and arranger with the Sons of the Whiskey Rebellion of Branford,
Connecticut. |
