|
|
Turk's Beat:A tune we know very little about, except that it has survived in tradition in the Moodus repertory. However there is a written version recorded in a manuscript collection composed by Ebenezer Bevans circa 1824. It is called simply "No. 1", and forgiving the bar line placements, it works out to be the tune played by Moodus drummers and fifers as "Turk's Beat."Nor is much known about Ebenezer Bevans. Judging from the local titles given to many of his tunes, he was likely from Connecticut. Most of the contents of his handwritten tune book date from the mid 1820's to the early 1840's, however, some years later another writer turned the book upside-down and used it back to front to start a new collection of more fashionable music from the 1850's and 60's. British Grenadiers:Most known in America by the song-text allegedly written by Joseph Warren, the American patriot who fell at Bunker Hill, entitled "War and Washington." However, the tune itself is much older. It acquired its association for patriotic texts as early as 1760, with a series of verses possibly written by George Alexander Stevens extolling the virtues and voracity of the British grenadier, a soldier specially chosen for his bravery and strength. Grenadiers were also selected on the basis of height, and their imposing stature was made even more fearsome by their signature bearskin hats.The "War and Washington" text was published in New England newspapers early in the war, and quickly spread throughout the colonies. It was well known also as a song, its spirited words firing the patriotic spirit that was otherwise ravaged by the political and financial travails of war. Consider here its use at Valley Forge, penned in 1777 by a Rhode Island surgeon who did not live to see the war's outcome: "See the soldier when in health - with what cheerfulness he meets his foes and encounters every hardship. If barefoot, he labours thro' the mud and cold with a song in his mouth extolling War and Washington. If his food be bad, he eat is notwithstanding with a seeming content - blesses God for a good stomach and whistles it into digestion." Fifers also knew the tune. Sign-painter-turned-fife-teacher William Williams taught it to Rhode Island fifers in 1775. A year later New Hampshire's Henry Blake used ledger lines to write the tune a full octave above the musical staff (indicating use of the high and thus loudest register of the fife) using the amusing title of "Britches Granedere." New Jersey's William Morris (1777) also knew of the tune. Giles Gibbs, a teenaged militia fifer from Connecticut, wrote out the tune sometime before he was killed in 1780, in a British and Indian raid while helping his sister's intended build a homestead in Royalton, VT. Moodus Drum & Fife Corps, P.O. Box 450, Moodus, CT 06469 |