How to Interpret 18th C. Drum Beatings

Are you struggling to make sense of an 18^th century or 19^th century drum manual and interpret its drum beatings?

For example, do you want to understand:

• how to read Hart’s symbolic drum beatings?
• or how to interpret The Young Drummer’s Assistant or 18^th century drum manuscripts like Benjamin Clark?
• Or even how to approach revising the Brigade of the American Revolution (BAR) book?

Great! Let’s talk about how to approach interpreting these old drum manuals.

My Translation Process

In my role as an interpreter of military drumming, I’ve been tasked with translating and interpreting appropriate drum beatings for our programming.

I have completed interpretations of The Young Drummer’s Assistant, as well as 18^th century drum manuscripts by Benjamin Clark, Issac Day, and an anonymous MS usually called The Drummer’s Book of Music (ascribed to either Lovering or Gardner).

I have also completed interpretations of early-19^th century manuals by Lovering, Hazeltine, Robbins, Robinson, Ashworth, and Rumrille.

In this blog post, I want to walk you through my general thought process as I approach interpreting drum beatings in early manuals.

To do so, we’ll focus on a specific beating: The Drummer’s Call in Young Drummer’s Assistant.

1. Start with the Rudiments

Rudiments are just sticking patterns that appear frequently in military music.

So frequently that they get a name and are taught first to make learning the beatings easier.

For that reason, we want to start by identifying the rudiments in a beating.

In the image below, you can see that I bracket all the common patterns I see so I can start to identify the rudiments.

Clearly, we have a 9-stroke roll and some kind of Flam Tap.

Our next concern is the rhythm of these rudiments. But, before we can figure that out, we need more information.

2. Figure out the Time Signature, Number of Measures, etc.

These older manuals are most frustrating because they contain zero information about:

• What time signature we’re working in
• The number of measures, length of the line, etc.
• When and if there are rests

To answer these questions, we need alternative resources.

Find the Fife Tune

The best start is to find the fife melody that matches this beating in a manual that is as contemporary as possible.

In this case, we’re lucky. We can find an identical fife melody for The Drum’s Call in numerous 18^th century British fife tutors.

We quickly see that the beating should be in 2/4. We also see that it should contain 9 bars.

Find Later Fife Tunes

Since the version of the fife tune above isn’t from The Young Drummer’s Assistant, we can’t say with certainty that this is the correct melody to pair with the beating.

For this reason, we might look for additional Fife versions of the Drummer’s Call to see if we can establish some credibility for our assumptions.

When we do, we see that the vast majority of later fife tunes are in 2/4. This gives us a good sense that YDA’s Drummer’s Call is in 2/4.

We also see that most of the tunes lose the rest in measure 6 and change the final half note to a quarter note. This means that they average 8 bars, instead of 9. This is an interesting note to keep in mind.

Find Later Drum Beatings

We also want to find as many drum beatings for Drummer’s Call as we can.

Firstly, if we can find any that show us a time signature or bar lines, we can try to confirm the structure.

These early-19^th century drum manuals confirm our observations about the fife tune:

We should most likely be in 2/4.

There are generally 8 measures, but this pairs to the shortened fife parts.

Draw Conclusions

We now know that Young Drummer’s Assistant’s Drummer’s Call should be in 2/4.

We’ll make the assumption for now that it should fit into 9 measures to match the 18^th century fife tune.

3. Determine the Rhythm of the Rudiments

We’re now at a point of “guess and check” to get started.

The 9-stroke roll can either be a duple-based roll or a triplet-based roll.

We can also write out the Flam Taps as quarter notes, eighth notes, or sixteenth notes.

Note: Always assume that drum rudiments are used consistently throughout a tune. You should have strong evidence to make exceptions.

Find all the possible combinations:

Only example No. 2 could fill out 9 measures.

Before we finalize this decision, we should consider whether it makes the most sense. A closer inspection does show that this is not a great choice.

Consider the Structure

Most period music demonstrates consistency across phrasing and so we would expect that in the beating.

• The first 9-stroke roll leads into the measure.
• The second 9 begins the measure.
• The third 9 leads into the measure.

This inconsistency in the beating is unusual in period music and makes this interpretation less likely.

Consider The Structure of Later Versions

To make the line fit 9 measures, we must have the 9-stroke roll lead into the first measure.

When we look forward to other drum versions, we find that the opening roll always pairs with the opening phrase of the fife music. Therefore this structure is inconsistent with all other known versions.

Consider The Validity of the Structure

Look at No. 2 again.

The line ends with a full 9th measure. This makes repeating the line impossible, since the 9-stroke roll is a quarter note pick-up.

Therefore, No. 2 is an invalid structure.

Start over again

Nos. 1 & 4 are much too longer. Nos. 3 & 6 are too short.

Only No. 5 seems possibly correct.

Consider the Structure

Unlike No. 2, No. 5 has a consistent structure. The 9-stroke rolls always begin a measure.

The opening 9-stroke roll will also pair with the beginning of the fife part.

No. 5 also contains 8 full measures and can be repeated without any problems.

Turning 8 Bars into 9 Measures

At 8 bars, we could possibly push the phrasing in No. 5 to add an additional measure.

Our options to reach the 9 measures is to:

1. Add a rest to match the fife part
2. Add an additional flam tap
3. Randomly change the rhythm of one flam tap

Justifying Your Decisions

Many drummers who interpret this beating often chose Option No. 2. There’s some merit to this: 18^th century publishers aren’t always perfectly accurate. YDA could have meant for another flam tap.

Consider, though, that this changes the sticking pattern: now the phrase ends on the left hand.

YDA wants the phrase to end with a Poung Stroke. If we look back to the manual’s description of rudiments, we see that Poung Strokes are only on the right hand.

If we look at other manuals, we find a similar habit. (Check out more info on the Poung Stroke in my discussion of the rudiments in the English March.)

Note: Before inserting or removing a stroke, have a strong argument for it. Consider how adding / deleting changes other aspects of the beating.

The current BAR book suggests Option No. 3. Its interpretation changes the rhythm in that measure, so the flam taps go from eighth notes to one quarter note flam tap to eighth notes.

In my personal opinion, this abrupt change seems much less natural than inserting a rest.

Note: Sometimes you have to make best guesses. Use your instincts as a drummer.

Finalizing The Line

We now have a line of interpretation:

The line is in 2/4, like the contemporary fife music and later versions tell us.

The line is 9 measures, like the contemporary fife music.

Our choice to include a rest that matches the fife music helps to complete the 9 measures.

It also means that, when the fife music drops the rest, the drum music likely dropped the rest. This produces a nearly identical drum beating, but only 8 measures long, like this:

The 8-bar version matches later drum beatings.

I mention this because it helps us justify why we added a rest, rather than add a flam tap or change the rhythm:

• It’s less likely that the fife music would have dropped the rest if the drums had an additional flam tap.
• If the rhythm changed, like in the BAR interpretation, the middle of the beating would have had to change to transform into the 19^th century versions.

4. Finalize the Rudiments

The line we came up matches the time signature and length we wanted, but we want to further justify the choices we made.

Tuplet 9-Stroke Roll

We decided the 9-Stroke Roll is a triplet form because it fit the measure best. But we want a better reason than that.

To do so, we want to look at two things:

1. How rolls are used in other versions
2. How the 9-stroke roll is used generally

Comparison to Other Versions

This comparison between other drum versions shows us why the triplet 9-stroke roll has value:

For more info, see my discussion on Drummer’s Call.

General Use

We don’t see 9-stroke rolls used elsewhere in Young Drummer’s Assistant.

We do see 9-Stroke Rolls in early-19^th century version of Grenadier’s March on the Roll, where they are triplet-based.

We also see a lot of triplet 9-Stroke Rolls in 18^th century drum MS and early-19^th century manuals in Double Drag beatings.

We do not see any recorded use of duple-based 9-Stroke Rolls.

Both of these observations confirm our interpretation: the 9-stroke rolls should be triplet rolls.

Flam Taps: Eighth Notes or Dotted?

We decided that the Flam Taps should be eighth notes because that form fit the measure best. But now we want to confirm this decision.

Just like before, we want to look at two things:

1. How are Flam Taps being used in other versions of Drummer’s Call
2. How are Flam Taps used generally

Comparison to Other Versions

A survey of other versions throughout the 19^th century indicate that the Flam Taps are always dotted flam taps.

This evidence should make us consider a dotted structure:

• A dotted eighth note + sixteenth note have the same value as 2 eighth notes, so it will fit the measure.
• This structure is consistent across the 19^th century and in both American and British manuals.

We should also be weary of jumping to a wrong conclusion:

• The 18^th century fife tutor music shows a straight eighth note rhythm
• All 19^th century fife tunes have shifted to a dotted structure

It’s possible that Young Drummer’s Assistant’s Drummer’s Call indicates dotted Flam Taps, like later drum manuals.

It’s equally possible that it shows eighth notes, which change at the turn of the century to dotted flam taps to match a change in the fife tune.

General Use

To make a final decision, we want to look at the general use of Flam Taps.

For this, we can study some early 19^th century drum manuals where they describe rudiments and how to perform them.

Potter, Ashworth, and some others tell us that there are “Flam and Stroke” or “Faint and Flam”.

Potter clearly indicates that the “Flam and Stroke” indicates eighth notes, while the “Faint and Flam” indicates a dotted structure.

When we look back to Young Drummer’s Assistant, we see that the “tap” in the Flam Tap are “faints” and not strokes.

For more info, see my discussion on Drummer’s Call.

Based on the tradition of dotted Flam Taps and the general use of “Feint & a Flam” as a dotted structure, we should interpret this as dotted Flam Taps.

5. Write the Final Beating

Finally, we come to this conclusion:

The Time Signature and Number of Measures gains authority from:

• Contemporary fife music
• Supported this from later fife and drum versions.

The Rudiments and their rhythm were determined by:

• How they fit to complete the measures
• How the rudiments are used in other versions
• How the rudiments are used generally in contemporary music

Conclusion

To summarize, we followed 5 basic steps to interpret this 18^th century drum beating:

1. Identified the Rudiments by finding patterns in the music
2. Figured out the Time Signature, Number of Measures, etc. via the matching fife tune and later fife and drum versions
3. Determined the Rhythm of the Rudiments based on the time signature and number of measures to fill
4. Finalized the Rudiments by looking at other versions of the beating and the general use of the rudiments
5. Write the Final Beating

Important Rules to Keep In Mind:

If you add / subtract from the original:

1. Have a very strong reason for doing so
2. Consider how this impacts the beating: does it create problems?

Keep the rudiments consistent, unless you can prove they should change.

If you see a change in the drum versions over time, consider how the fife versions are changing (or visa versa) before making final decisions.

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Do you have more questions about interpreting historic drum beatings? Do you have a beating you’re stuck on? Contact me and I’ll be happy to help. Or comment below with your thoughts.

If you want to learn more about interpreting the major English duty calls, check out my site’s section on 18^th Century American and British Drumming.

For more on the history of rudiments, check out my section Drum Rudiments & Their History, which will help you approach historic usage of rudiments in period music.