GHOST MUSIC

GHOST MUSIC
Resurrecting Lost Traditions


Welcome to the Ghost Music section of the blog where long lost but not quite forgotten music lives and breathes again.

Here you will find original research, the online Ghost Music Archives, links to other related projects and a lot more.



CONTENTS
Jiving on Juneteenth
The Happy Band!
The Earliest Bush Bands
Minstrels of the Mines
The Banjo man on the Trans
The Witches’ Board
The Music of Strange Bands
Learning ‘Flash Jack’
Hurdy Gurdy Girls
Dreg Songs Project
Burying the Dead Horse
Foo Foo Bands
Greek Army Musicians 1933
Links

Ghost Music consists of songs and musical forms that have faded away with little or no recording or documentation. Sometimes we only know about them through descriptions, photographs or other passing references. Above all, these musics were made by and for people. Whether at work, at play, at worship or at war, the songs and music that make up these faded traditions were integral to the everyday lives of those who populated the past. Sometimes we can still hear them singing to us.

Through research into archives, newspapers and historical documents, illustrations, photographs, field recordings, etc., Ghost Music seeks out and re-presents elusive music from the past.

*


JIVING ON JUNETEENTH

Here’s an intriguing ensemble. Juneteenth is a folk anniversary on June 19 marking the end of US slavery. Most states have now made it an official holiday, though for much of its history it flew mostly under the radar. This group was photographed at the 1900 observation in Austin, Texas.

With that line-up you wonder what sort of music they were making. If I had to guess, I’d say some early jazz, blues and the dance hits of the time. Oh, to have been there!



THE HAPPY BAND!



Well, maybe not. These guys, photographed around the 1870s may be looking so miserable because their banjos have no frets.



Concertinas (Anglo-German) were all the rage for dances at this time, but the banjo was associated more with minstrel shows. These guys are turned out like they mean business, so they might have been some sort of entertainment ensemble. We'll never know, of course, but they must have made an interesting noise.

THE EARLIEST BUSH BANDS

A 'bush band' c. 1905, SLQ


The first mention of a ‘bush band’ seems to be in the surprising context of a visit by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1868. The Sydney Mail of 15 February that reported a reception for his Royal Highness at which a Volunteer band – a military style brass band – played in the usual manner for such events. After the Duke had departed, guests danced quadrilles to the music of this band, but a ‘bush band’ was also playing, quite a lot, it seems:

‘There was another band upon the ground - what was called "The bush band" - which also favoured the public with much melody. Its harmonies, however, were more of a lugubrious and sentimental character than those of its rival, and it was consequently less popular. It was, however, the centre of a small knot of applauding amateurs de musique who seemed to appreciate "Ah che la morte" and "The heart bowed down," &c. ’

The following year, His Excellency Governor Weld was received at the Roman Catholic Mission at Victoria Plains, Western Australia.

‘While His Excellency was at supper, a bush band was got up consisting of a violin, concertina, triangle, and a large tin dish which answered instead of a drum; several popular airs were played; and His Excellency was very much pleased, for he knew that every one was doing their very best, and with the best intentions.’ (The Perth Gazette and West Australian Times, 19 November 1869, 2-3).

It is likely that some, or all, of the members of this bush band were Aboriginal inmates of the Mission.

By the 1880s, bush bands seem to have been an accepted element of the colonial music scene. As reported in the 18 January edition of the Warwick Argusin 1886:

‘The new year was ushered in in this part of the world in the usual fashion. The stirring strains of the bush band - composed of first and second kerosene tins, an asthmatic concertina, a wheezy comb, and a couple of broken-voiced tin whistles - burst upon the stilly night as the clock struck 12. The atmospheric disturbance was something terrific - and the wonder is that we have had a day's fine weather since. The roisterers made the usual round of the pubs. At the first - host Holmes' - the 'cute landlord warned his visitors that it being after midnight, and consequently 1886, the new Licensing Act was in force and he dare not open his house or sell liquor between the hours of 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. "We don't want you to sell it, shouted the tin whistle. But the landlord was obdurate, and the thirsty ones had at last to go empty away. They were more successful elsewhere. Having gathered plenty of eatables and drinkables, they returned to the Royal and made things lively for a short time; then, leaving their instruments in pledge for what they did not get, adjourned to the recreation reserve and disposed of the "wine and wittles." Most of them have quite recovered.’

The essential connection between bush music and booze seems to have been well established by this time and spontaneous ensembles of this kind remained a small but important element of community music-making. When the folk revival produced the original Bushwhackers band of the Sydney Bush Music Club in the 1950s, the only changes were the addition of the bush bass, probably derived from the brief skiffle craze of that era, and the lagerphone. 

The spirit of handmade music remained the same. From the 1970s, the ‘second’ Bushwackers [sic] band (originally Bushwackers and Bullockies), took the style to a new level of electrified volume and professional performance standards. Many other ‘bush bands’ also formed in this period and one or two remain today, though the bush dance fad that largely supported these groups has long gone. 

Time for a revival, perhaps?

ACKNOWLEDGMENT: The historical research on which this article is based was undertaken by Dr Graeme Skinner of the University of Sydney, used with his kind permission - see his excellent site, Australharmony.

Graham Seal

MINSTRELS OF THE MINES?





Thought to have been taken at the Elisha William Gale Mine, Hill End?, c. 1860 (SOURCE: Ross Wellington via Rob Willis by email, March 16 2015).


Who are they? Where are they? What did their music sound like?

We’ll probably never know who this group of gold diggers were, though they probably worked at Hill End or Tambaroora (NSW), possibly in a mine owned by Elisha Gale. We don’t know much about him, either, only that he died in his 90s in 1938. [i]

The men stand in front of a classic bush hut of bark and slabs with a dense forest behind them. There are 14 men dressed mainly in work clothes. The five seated at the front have no instruments. A concertina case squats in the central foreground. 

The nine men standing seem to be either playing instruments or carrying implements of some kind. Perhaps tools? The man second from the right may be holding a small pick, perhaps used for jingling percussion, like a triangle. Or could it be a rough form of the hobby horse found in some forms of British traditional drama?

There is a concertina, a tambourine without jingles, bones, perhaps a bodhran, some improvised percussion. In any case, the intention seems to be to make music. Rough music, no doubt

But who is the character with the 5-string banjo, the top hat and the frock coat? And why is his face, apparently, at least partly blacked? Could he be from a black-faced minstrel show? These, often as ‘Ethiopian Serenaders’[ii] were very popular on the Australian goldfields from the 1850s. Maybe he was a professional helping out the local musos? 

No one seems to be very happy.

Whatever it was all about – what did the music sound like? And what music did they play?

THE BANJO MAN ON THE TRANS 







He sits at the entrance of a fly-sheet tent, hat perched jauntily, pipe in mouth and an apparently entranced dog listening to his music. 

Going by the large triangle hanging next to him, this bloke may be the cook. There are certainly a lot of large billies in the scene. 

The man on his right seems to be washing clothes, so this may be the domestic utilities section for a gang of workers occupying the tents in the background. They are building the Trans-Australian Railway (the ‘Trans’), probably before 1917 when the line opened after five hard years of toil.

The banjo is playing a fine looking instrument. A 5-stringer with what looks like a full keyed resonator head, suggesting a serious level of engagement, possibly professional – if not at the moment! Perhaps, like out of work actors, he is ‘between engagements’? He could be fingerpicking or frailing. But what is he playing and what would it have sounded like out there on the Nullarbor Plain?




The Witches’ Board




In Search of the Witches’ Board

 Curious History of the Fretted Zither
by
Graham Seal

The fretted zither is an ancient stringed musical instrument, argued by some – though without much convincing evidence that I can see – to be derived from the medieval psaltery or other similar instrument, itself possibly derived from a monochordal instrument of some kind played in the ancient world. All this is largely unsubstantiated speculation but it is likely that the fretted zither did evolve in the medieval era, though the earliest extant references I can reliably find go back no further than the 17th-18th centuries.  I have read that, in the case of the German scheitholt, sources exist from the 14-15th centuries, though cannot verify this.[1]

For the purposes of this article it is necessary to distinguish the ‘diatonically fretted zither’, as musicologists categorise it, from a number of other, probably related instruments. The unfretted cousin of the fretted zither is the plucked zither, which exists in numerous musical traditions and mythologies, notably that of Finland. The other instrument known as a dulcimer is of the hammered variety and, again, is quite a different beast, despite having the same name as the best-known form of fretted zither in the English-speaking world.

The fretted zither is characterised by having one or more melody strings running along a fret board or fingerboard (often arranged to play in a particular mode[2]) in which the tune is played, together with a varying number of unfretted strings – from one to fifty – that are also plucked to provide a basic accompaniment to the melody being plucked, struck or bowed.

A variation of this is the ‘drone zither’, in which the unfretted strings are simply allowed to drone in resonance with the melody being played on the fingerboard. This simpler form of zither is more closely related to the types of fretted zithers that are the main focus of this article.

All these instruments are, or were originally at least, very basic in construction and musical sophistication and were often considered to be the instruments of the lower classes, street musicians and rustics. In Bavaria and Austria, the instrument was sometimes known as the ‘volkszither.’[3]
Certainly, many of the surviving early examples seem to be very basic in design and construction. However, in some cases, notably in relation to the scheitholt, musical fashions favoured the instrument and it was developed in the 19th century into the quite sophisticated instrument usually known as a ‘zither’. In its largest and most elaborated forms with up to 50 more strings and a fully chromatic fingerboard, the instrument is known as a ‘concert zither’ or even a ‘concert piano zither’ and features in a variety of German ensembles playing complex dance and orchestral music.
The zither, in both its sophisticated and less-so form of the scheitholt, migrated with its players to north America (and to other places, including Australia), where strong traditions of zithering were established among German communities and their descendants.  Many of these migrants were escaping religious persecution and were prominent among Amish or German-American Mennonites in Pennsylvania. This may be the basis of one of the American dulcimer traditions. A similar development seems to have occurred in the Slovenian and possibly Estonian forms of the instrument.[4]

Other types of fretted zither from Iceland, Sweden, Norway, France and perhaps Slovenia also migrated to Canada and America, where in the latter country they appear to have been the origin of the Appalachian or mountain dulcimer. Certainly there were a considerable number of varieties of fretted zither in continental European countries and regions, making it one of the more important and widespread folk instruments. The exact relationships and links between these fascinating instruments in Europe and subsequently in their new world developments remain largely mysterious and the subject of considerable, if varyingly authoritative, speculation by musicologists and musicians. Whatever their origins or diffusion, the fretted zithers of the world have inspired musicians to coax beautiful music – simple and sophisticated – from them wherever they are found.
Here is a brief listing of the various forms of the fretted zither, together with their names and places of origin.

Langspil (long play)
Iceland. Mentioned in a reference from the 1780s. Often bowed but probably also plucked. Here is a picture of an Icelander holding (or playing?) one in Manitoba, Canada, 1875. (http://web.uvic.ca/~becktrus/assets/presentations/Bjarki-Folk-Music-web/bjarki-folk-music_01.php)

Langeleik (long like)
Norway. Earliest dated example 1524

 Hummel (bumble bee?)
Sweden. Also as Noordsche balk, Noardske balke. Especially in the south, from the 17th C, though probably older.

Die Hommel
Netherlands. Also probably in Belgium.

Scheitholt
Germany, Austria. In the Bavarian/Austrian region the Scheitholt can be traced back to the 14th century. The best-known description of this instrument is by Michael Praetorius in 1619. See one at http://blueridgerambler.com/the-mountain-dulcimer-born-in-the-blue-ridge-mountains/

 Das Raffele
Bayern (Bavaria) and Austria.

Die ungarische Zither
Hungary.

Epinette des Vosges
France. Earliest date 1730?

Hexenscheit (witch log, witches’ board)
Alpine Switzerland/Austria/Germany (and Italy?). 14/15th century.[5]



THE ‘APPALACHIAN’ DULCIMER

 The American form of the instrument is usually said to have evolved in the ‘Appalachian region’ (a rather large area!) probably in the 18th century. Apart from the geographical generalization, there are a few historical problems with this theory. One is that the area was initially overwhelmingly settled by Scots-Irish and English colonists and the fretted zither does not appear to have existed in these originating cultures. The second problem is that recent research suggests that the instrument known as the Appalachian dulcimer, supposedly once hanging on the wall of every mountain cabin, was probably not very prolific in the area from which it takes its name. Much of the mystique of the Appalachian dulcimer stems from its popularization since the 1950s as part of the folk revival movement, initially through the work of the late Jean Ritchie.[6]

Modern (post-1960s) developments and refinements of the mountain dulcimer include ‘strumsticks’, more strings, amplified and an apparently wider variety of holding positions and playing styles, mostly involving the addition of an extra fret to produce a straight major scale in addition to retaining the traditional flattened 7th. This allows more complex musical forms to be played more easily, though tends to deprive the instrument of its ‘mountainy’ sound. So far have dulcimer building and playing techniques progressed that we now have concertos for dulcimer/s.[7] The dulcimer seems to be now established in the American folk music scene and occasionally slips into popular music through the current vogue for ‘roots’ music.

IN AUSTRALIA

The fretted zither arrived in Australia probably with the first migrating German groups from the 1830s. In Germany and other European countries the zither in one form or another was a popular instrument and had already moved from its folkloric forms to a fairly sophisticated and professionalized instrument of both the fretted and (probably more usually) unfretted varieties.  As early as 1853[8] a Mr Rahm was active in NSW, Victoria and Tasmania playing his (unfretted) zither in Tyrolean national costume to appreciative audiences. Rahm probably popularized the unfretted concert version of the zither as he was in business for at least two years, touring intensively and gathering a group of ‘Tyrolean Minstrels’ into his act, presumably locals who had trained or who had perhaps come from Europe with the relevant skills.

From the 1880s a zither craze developed in Australia (as it did in the USA) and zither clubs were formed in many places with concerts and recitals becoming a frequent aspect of public entertainment until the First World War.[9] In 1902, a Robert Turner contributed a poetic column to a Western Australian newspaper in which he extolled the delights of the instrument and identified one variant:  ‘The zither has 31 strings, five on the fingerboard called melody strings, and 26 accompaniment strings …’[10] There are still today a number of individuals and groups who perform on zithers, fretted or not.[11]

There are also other fretted zither traditions in Australia consisting of instruments and music played within German communities, often for sacred music and social dancing purposes, as in the Burnett region of Queensland, as documented by Mark Schuster. [12] Other fretted zither traditions appear to have existed in and around Berrima (NSW) (see http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-vn4608005)[13] and in the Barossa Valley (SA).

This folk tradition was paralleled – though probably little influenced by – an ongoing interest in the instrument in the broader community for the professional performance of usually more ‘serious’ music, judging from the advertisements, reviews and programs for such events that appeared in Australian newspapers. Shirley Abicair was a popular Australian performer on the zither from the 1950s. Lotte Landl is a contemporary zither player and Zither Australia also keeps the tradition alive.
Until recently, the only known dulcimer tradition in Australia could be dated no earlier than the folk revival of the 1960s. However, when we stop looking for ‘dulcimers’ and expand our perspective to fretted zithers, a different picture emerges. As Schuster’s work demonstrates, the fretted zithers that originated from the German scheitholt, probably the origins of the Appalachian dulcimer, were indeed brought here by German migrants and played here up to the present day within German and German-descended communities. It may also be that further fieldwork and research will reveal similar instruments in other German migrant communities – if not among other groups from the numerous European cultures that boast the fretted zither as part of their musical tradition.

NOTES AND REFERENCE
Research for this article was conducted mainly on the Internet from 2011, though also draws on the author’s lengthy involvement with the dulcimer and its intriguing ancestors. Like most histories, that of the fretted zither is accompanied by its fair share of mythology and speculation and I may have fallen victim to some of this myself. If I have, so be it. My intention has nevertheless been to establish ‘the facts’ of the instrument’s origins, development and migrations insofar as they appear to be known at the time of writing.  I expect this page to be an expanding one.
Appalachian Dulcimer Archive http://dulcimerarchive.omeka.net/
Long, Lucy M. “A History of the Mountain Dulcimer”. http://www.bearmeadow.com/smi/histof.htm.
Ritchie, Jean. The Dulcimer Book. New York: Oak Publications, 1963.
Smith, Ralph Lee Appalachian dulcimer traditions, Scarecrow Press, 2010.
The Sweet Music Index http://www.bearmeadow.com/smi/
Zithers USA http://www.zithers-usa.com/Menu.htm July 2011.
http://www.dirtynelson.com/linen/feature/34dulcimer.html
Scheitholt entry Wikipedia (in French) July 2011. The one in English is brief, but useful, especially for links.
http://web.uvic.ca/~becktrus/assets/presentations/Bjarki-Folk-Music-web/bjarki-folk-music_01.phpJuly 2011
www.muellerscience.com/ENGLISH/Switzerland.htm
Bob Bolton on instruments of bush music http://www.wongawillicolonialdance.org.au/page/TRADITIONALAUSTRALIANBUSHINSTRUMENTS/



[1] www.muellerscience.com/ENGLISH/Switzerland.htm. If accurate, this would appear to be the earliest mention of a fretted zither-type instrument, though the document provides no source.
[2] For an explanation of modes try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_mode – enjoy!
[3] http://www.zither.us/ July 2011. In which form it was introduced to America by visiting Tyrolean entertainers in the 1840s and was firmly established there by the 1870s.
[6] John Jacob Niles was an enigmatic predecessor who used instruments he made and called ‘dulcimers’ in his performances and recordings, though most of them are not very dulcimer-like in appearance, playing technique or musical effect.
[8]  The earliest reference I can find on this is in the Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday 22 June 1853.
[10] Albany Advertiser Friday 5 September 1902.
[13]http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibition/objectsthroughtime/zither/

Copyright Graham Seal 2015


THE MUSIC OF STRANGE BANDS


Graham Seal 

In 1945 the Adelaide Advertiser published an article titled ‘The Music of Strange Bands’. It was a knowledgeable account of ‘bush’ bands using mainly home made and instruments like gum leaves, spoons, cigar box fiddles, kerosene tin drums and banjos made from old tennis racquets. These ‘found’ and hand made instruments were often played in combination with ‘proper’ commercially produced instruments, mainly the button accordion, harmonica, tin whistle, concertina (usually Anglo-German) and triangle, among others. One of the bands mentioned was the Wallaga Lake Band, a famous Aboriginal ensemble around the eastern states,[i] as well as at least one another South coast group and players in Victoria’s Gippsland region.

The author, using the pseudonym ‘Eureka’ and obviously well travelled also described a large family band of teenage children and parents

‘…It had two concertinas, two accordians [sic], a cigarcione (a bush violin made from a cigar box, wallaby sinews and bits of timber), a tin whistle, a bush- made flute, a drum, gumleaves and several mouth organs.  All instruments, except the accordians, concertinas and mouth organs, were home-made. The drum was a section of a hollow log with wallaby skins stretched over the ends.’

The point of this article was to draw attention to the invisibility of these ensembles and to advocate the formation of an Australian ‘bush band’ using these instruments: ‘If these novel bush instruments were gathered together to form an Australian bush band I believe that we would see and hear something outstanding.’

The article did not discuss the repertoires of these groups, but emphasised their Aboriginality[ii] and implicitly theorised a unique Australian sound.

Such instruments, of course, were also played by other than Aboriginal musicians and were once fairly common in rural Australia in the era when people had to make do for most things, including their entertainment. But apart from the odd recording,[iii] we now have hardly any record of the sound that these – or any other ensembles of the pre-recorded past – actually made. They have become ‘ghost music.’ The ignoring of this powerful and authentically Australian musical tradition, as Eureka complained,[iv] meant that we have little idea today of what this music might have sounded like. 




The Wallaga Gum Leaf Band c. 1920s


LEARNING 'FLASH JACK'


The Canadian/American writer and traveller Norman Duncan made a trip through Australia around 1913-14. He published (in America and England) a little-known account of his journey in 1915 under the title Australian Byways: The Narrative of a Sentimental Traveller. At one point he describes a scene in a bush pub that gives an insight into how traditional songs might have been transmitted, in this case ‘Flash Jack from Gundagai.’ This is a rare first-hand account of bush song in action in the period between Paterson’s Old Bush Songs initial publication and A L Lloyd’s account during the 1920s.


AT that very moment there was an astonishing quantity of music in the air. It began in roar; and it continued at the pitch of a roar scorning diminuendo and crescendo, or carelessly incapable of either, I am not sure which. At any rate, the neighborhood vibrated with melody. It originated in the bar. And at a word from the young jackaroo, it emerged from the bar, and stumbled into the railed inclosure, and sat down beside us, continuing fortissimo: the instrument of its production being, as you may know, one of the three drunken stockmen. Having run his ballad to the end, the stockman yielded to the quiet of the night and far-away place and turned out, at once, to be most amiably inclined in the matter of communicating his song. Not only did he communicate it, in a speaking voice, to be written down, but repeated the lines, in the interest of precision, and even assisted with the spelling, all with the air of a man who had at last found his calling and was perfectly aware of the gravity of its responsibilities. And then (said he) we must master the tune: this being particularly important to a perfect exposition of the whole composition. He sang again, therefore, occasionally interrupting him- self to inquire whether or not we had "caught" the melody, and beseeching us to join with him " vociferating with such fervor, his eyes blazing, his face working, and his forefinger beating the time, and leaning so close, and radiant of such gleeful absorbtion with his occupation, that we could not follow the melody at all, but must give a fascinated attention to the bristling visage and enrapt manner of the good fellow.

Here, then, I transcribe the song of the drunken stockman, called "Flash Jack from Gundagai":

I've shore at Burrabogie, an' I've shore at Toganmain, 
I've shore at Big Willandra, an' upon the Coleraine, But before th' shearin' was over, I've wished meself back again, Shearin' for ol' Tom Patterson on One Tree Plain.

All among th' wool, boys! Keep yer wide blades full, boys!
I kin do a respectable tally meself w'enever I likes t' try; 
But they know me 'round th' back-blocks as Flash Jack from Gundagai.

I've shore at Big Willandra, an' I've shore at Tilberoo, 
An' once I drew me blades, me boys, upon th' famed Barcoo,
At Cowan Downs an' Trida, as far as Moulamein; 
But I always was glad t' get back again t' One Tree Plain.

I've pinked 'em with the Wolseleys, an' I've rushed with B-bows,
An' shaved 'em in th' grease, me boys, with th' grass-seed showin' through;
 But I never slummed me pen, me boys, whate'r it might contain, 
While shearin' for ol' Tom Patterson on One Tree Plain.

I've been whalin' up the Lachlan, an' I've dossed on Cooper's Creek, 
An' once I rung Cudjingie shed, an' blued it in a week; 
But when Gabriel blows his trump, me boys, 111 catch the mornin’ train, 
An' push for ol' Tom Patterson's on One Tree Plain.

All among th' wool, boys! Keep yer wide blades full, boys!
I kin do a respectable tally meself w'enever I likes t' try; 
But they know me ‘round th' back-blocks as Flash Jack from Gundagai.

Flash Jack from Gundagai was a shearer of celebrated skill, if this boastful recital had the right of it " and the devil of a fellow, as well, and a bit on the other side of the law. When he pinked 'em with the Wolseleys he had employed a mechanical shearing- device so effectually that his sheep were clipped to the skin; and when he rushed with B-hows, too, he had made amazing haste with the hand shears. When he rung Cudjingie shed he had proved himself the fastest shearer employed on that great station; and when he blued it in a week he had squandered the earnings of this glorious achievement, at some pot-house like Forty Mile Inn, in the tumultuous period of seven days. All this, being not yet too far gone in his potations, the stockman elucidated, with the profoundest determination to be exact, warning us, the while, that a deal of pernicious misinformation was let loose upon every new chum (tenderfoot) that came to the bush.
(Pp 175-177).



HURDY GURDY GIRLS




The story goes that the hurdy gurdy girls originated in the German state of Hessen (Hesse), then an independent country, in the early nineteenth century. Hessian farmers made brooms during the winter for sale the next summer. This cottage industry grew very quickly, especially when the makers discovered that ‘sex sells.’ Pretty young ladies dancing to the loud and piercing sound of a hurdy gurdy attracted customers like nothing else. The idea quickly spread and before long hurdy gurdy girls, also known as ‘hessian broom girls’, were becoming a nuisance on the city streets of Europe, America and Australia.

From at least the 1850s, descriptions of hurdy gurdy girls begin to appear in the Australian press. They were in Melbourne in 1857 and Cowra in 1861. In 1860 they were in Bathurst
There is nothing new to be seen in Bathurst-everything is tame and uninteresting. Those ubiquitous. German girls with cracked voices and broken-winded instruments, parade the streets from daylight till dark, and become a pest to anyone who has once been soft enough to reward their excruciating melodies. [i]

In the early years of Forbes the girls were part of everyday life:

Tens of thousands of miners went out to their work at sunrise, land returned at 6 in the evening. Then, many thousands of fires were lighted, and the diggers prepared their evening meal. Comparative quiet reigned while they were partaking of it; but, that over, all is bustle again, for, with few exceptions, the diggers betook themselves to the theatres, concert halls, dancing saloons, or public-houses, and many did not return to their tents until dawn. The shepherds swanned out at sunrise, and in again at midday. Scores of shoeblacks took up positions in the streets, and did a wonderful trade; hurdy-gurdy girls and other itinerant musicians played and sang, and reaped a rich harvest; mounted troopers and policemen (under Sir F. Pottinger) moved to and fro among the masses; coaches were running at all hours, and in all directions, while occasional visits to the district of the notorious bushrangers— O'Malley, Gilbert, and Ben Hall— added to the general excitement. Six theatres, as well as various concert balls and dancing saloons, were crowded nightly. [ii]

Hurdy gurdy girls were a feature of goldfield dance halls and saloons where they were sometimes known as ‘hurdies’. By now though, the originally innocent hurdy gurdy girls had fallen prey to the sex trade. Unscrupulous agents would convince their parents to allow the girls to travel with them in return for a share of their earnings. Rightly or wrongly, the hurdy gurdy girls were held to be of low moral character, though men visiting dance halls considered it a great honour to win a dance with one of these dancing damsels.

The most consistent theme in descriptions of the hurdies is the discordant sound of their instruments. The hurdy gurdy is a medieval instrument played by turning a rosined wheel that rubs along a number of strings, including drones, in imitation of a fiddle bow. There is a basic keyboard along the outer side of the instrument, which is very loud. Ideal for street music and attracting attention to whatever wares might be on sale. By the time they reached Australia, hurdy gurdy girls might be playing the less audibly confronting and easier to manage concertina or, according to some accounts, street organs, though they continued to dance to the ghost music they made.



[i]  Empire 19 November 1860, 2.
[ii] The Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser (NSW : 1871 - 1912), Saturday 23 December 1893, page 1



DREG SONGS



Researcher and singer Bob Walser together with a cast of thousands, including the Elphinstone Institute at the University of Aberdeen, the Mystic Seaport Museum and a cast of thousands, revived the almost lost ‘Dreg’ songs of oyster fishers in Scotland’s Firth of Forth




BURYING THE DEAD HORSE


When sailors signed on a voyage in the days of sail they were paid a month’s wages in advance.. This was spent on clothing and equipment needed for the trip, as well as grog, women and the other necessities of a sailor’s life. Because they had to work this payment off before they were paid again, the first month of the voyage was known as ‘working off the dead horse.’ When the month was over:

… the sailors performed the ceremony called “Burying the Dead Horse,” the explanation of which is this: Before leaving port seamen are paid a month in advance, so as to enable them to leave some money with their wives, or to buy a new kit, etc., and having spent the money they consider the first month goes for nothing, and so call it “Working off the Dead Horse.”  The crew dress up a figure to represent a horse; its body is made out of a barrel, its extremities of hay or straw covered with canvas, the mane and tail of hemp, the eyes of two ginger beer bottles, sometimes filled with phosphorus.  When complete the noble steed is put on a box, covered with a rug, and on the evening of the last day of the month a man gets on to his back, and is drawn all round the ship by his shipmates, to the chanting of the following doggerel:—

BURYING THE DEAD HORSE.

You have come a long long way,
   And we say so, for we know so.
For to be sold upon this day,
   Poor old man.
You are goin’ now to say good-bye,
   And we say so, for we know so.
Poor old horse you’re a goin’ to die,
   Poor Old Man.

Having paraded the decks in order to get an audience, the sale of the horse by auction is announced, and a glib-mouthed man mounts the rostrum and begins to praise the noble animal, giving his pedigree, etc., saying it was a good one to go, for it had gone 6,000 p. 23miles in the past month!  The bidding then commences, each bidder being responsible only for the amount of his advance on the last bid.  After the sale the horse and its rider are run up to the yard-arm amidst loud cheers.  Fireworks are let off, the man gets off the horse’s back, and, cutting the rope, lets it fall into the water.  The Requiem is then sung to the same melody.

Now he is dead and will die no more,
   And we say so, for we know so.
Now he is gone and will go no more;
   Poor Old Man.
After this the auctioneer and his clerk proceed to collect the “bids,” and if in your ignorance of auction etiquette you should offer your’s to the auctioneer, he politely declines it, and refers you to his clerk!

This was how later (Sir) Richard Tangye, bound for Melbourne aboard the Parramatta in 1879 recalled the ceremony aboard that ship. (Richard Tangye, Reminiscences of travel in Australia, America, and Egypt, London, 1884).


On the same ship and the same voyage a young man named George Haswell took the trouble to document the sailors’ work shanties. He was a skilled musician and transcribed the words and music of their songs, including the ‘Dead Horse’. (view at http://acms.sl.nsw.gov.au/album/ItemViewer.aspx?itemid=1071002&suppress=N&imgindex=95, item number 5).











The same year Alfred Simmons was aboard the steamship Stad Haarlem out of England bound for New Zealand:

‘We had this evening what to the sailors was evidently splendid fun, and what to the emigrants was at least a novelty. An auspicious ceremony, known to seamen as “Flogging the Dead Horse,” has been performed. For the benefit of the uninitiated I explain. When the crew for a vessel are engaged, the owners allow them to draw the first month’s wages in advance; and those who know our sailors best will be disposed to believe that not a great amount of the “advance” remains in hand when eventually the crew ship themselves for the voyage. The sailors regard this first month’s work as a sort of nightmare – the sooner it is over the better they like it. And when the month is up, and their wages commence to accumulate, they celebrate the occasion.’

Simmons then described what he witnessed:

‘Well, this day completed the first month of the sailors’ service; and they manufactured what they called, and what for courtesy’s sake I will also call, “a horse.” The carcase was fearfully and wonderfully made. Some canvas which had done service for our good ship for the past three years, was first sewn into shape, and by dint of much intricate work and delicate persuasion, the internal organs, in the shape of shavings and hay, were artistically inserted. The assistance of a pseudo veterinary surgeon was then called into requisition, the needle and thread were applied, and the carcase stood forth a completed thing. And it was a sight to behold. The shades of evening were approaching, and with them there came the sounds of laughter and revelry. From the forecastle there emerged a roaring procession of Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotchmen, and Dutchmen – sailors, cooks, stokers, engineers, and emigrants. In their midst, bound around its neck with a stout rope, they dragged the unhappy effigy of their own creation, and even as Macbeth’s witches marched around the seething cauldron, so even marched my heterogeneous procession round and round the ship, chanting to a horribly flat minor key:

Poor old man, thy horse will die—
Poor old horse. And when he dies we’ll tan his hide—
Poor old horse. Poor old horse, thy days are ended—
Poor old horse.

The ceremony next involved executing the horse, followed by the crew begging for alcohol from the passengers:

‘Having repeated the chanting of this elegant piece of poesy for half an hour or more, the procession wended its way to the foremast, which one of the sailors mounted, carrying with him a line attached to the “ poor old horse.” Amid the united “hurrahs”' of the English, Irish, and Scotchmen, and the deep-toned “ Hoera’s!” of the Dutchmen, the effigy was then hauled up to the yardarm. Sundry invocations to the publican’s “spirits” were offered up at this solemn juncture; and presently, accompanied by a final roar of merriment, the line attached to the executed “old horse” was cut, the effigy fell with a loud plunge into the sea, and in a few moments the “horse” was lost to the sight of mortal man for ever. The upshot of all this mummery was that we – the saloon passengers – were “respectfully invited” to stand glasses of grog all round to the crew. It was not within the power of human nature to withstand such an appeal, so sundry bottles of whisky were subscribed for, and glasses were ordered.’





 From Hugill

There are many other accounts of this maritime ceremony, which was extant before 1845. It must have been eerie in the dusk as well as enjoyable for crew and passengers. Certainly all accounts involve alcohol. But what did it sound like as the crew  advanced across the deck chanting and pushing or pulling a horse-shaped structure, sometimes with glowing eyes (phosphorus in empty bottles) and occasionally with fireworks. We’ll never know. But we can hear the song in a modern rendition.

Graham Seal

PS: Sometimes the dead horse shanty song was used for another custom known as the ‘Sailor’s Grace’. Once all the fresh meat aboard ship had been consumed and the first barrel of salted meat – known as ‘salt horse’ - was opened, this song was sung:

‘Salt horse, salt horse, we’d have you know
That to the galley you must go.
The cook without a sign of grief
Will boil you down and call you beef
And we poor sailors standing near
Must eat you though you look so queer.
Salt horse, salt horse, what brought you here?’

And an American version from 1840:

“Old horse, old horse, what brings you here,
From Saccarap’ to Portland pier?”
“I’ve carted stone for many a year,
‘Til now worn out by sore abuse,
I’m salted down for sailors’ use.
Between the mainmast and the pumps,
I’m salted down in great big lumps;
They curse my eyes and pick my bones,
And throw the rest to Davy Jones.”
Poor old horse!


FURTHER SOURCES

Stan Hugill, Shanties from the Seven Seas, London, 1961.

Parramatta Sun : a serio-comic magazine, issued fortnightly, during the voyage of the ship "Parramatta" from London to Sydney, September 9th 1879, to December 8th 1879.

The Ballad Index by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle at http://www.fresnostate.edu/folklore/ballads/Doe014.html

Graham Seal (ed), Ten shanties : sung on the Australian run 1879 / collected and transcribed by George H. Haswell, Antipodes Press, 1992.




FOO FOO BANDS



‘Foo foo’ bands were  improvised ensembles aboard ships. Consisting of whatever instruments were at hand, they often dressed up to perform at sailors’ social events, playing whatever they knew. The international nature of maritime employment meant that the music of the foo foo bands was eclectic.

Here's a photograph of one from what is probably an American ship taken in 1887



There are numerous passing references to foo foo bands in maritime accounts and they seem to have been an accepted and unremarkable part of shipboard life from probably at least the early nineteenth century. They were still active in 1914, in Australia at least. Robert Jackson of Glenelg (South Australia) was aboard a ship with the Australian naval force in what was then German New Guinea late in 1914. In a letter home he wrote:

‘ … We have a destroyer on one side and a troopship from Queensland on the other, and as I write a 'foo foo band' is playing. It is composed of tincans, whistles, mouth organs, and accordions.’

This was a fairly typical foo foo band lineup, it seems, sometimes augmented by a triangle, autoharp, concertina and whatever else someone could play - more or less. 

What did this foo foo band sound like? Well, it was so loud that Robert had to finish up his letter ‘as the noise is too much’.

In another account in Basil Lubbock’s book, a foo foo band was able to play ‘Yankee Doodle’ on demand to salute a passing American ship. Again, this is presented as unremarkable, so the level of musical ability within a foo foo band could be fairly competent.

Here's a Royal Australian Navy 'Hobo Band' of World War 1, rather more dressed up for  an occasion than many foo foo bands.




Ghost music of the sea.


SOURCES

The Register (Adelaide), 22 September 1914, 8.

Basil Lubbock, The Colonial Clippers, 1921, 158-9. 

Academic research project on maritime music:
http://www.open.ac.uk/arts/research/tackley-atlantic-sounds/primary-links/international-conference-and-study-day




GREEK ARMY MUSICIANS 1933


 Postcard I picked up in Greece a few years ago. If anyone can translate the caption, I'd be much obliged.












LINKS


Researcher and singer Bob Walser together with a cast of thousands, including the Elphinstone Institute at the University of Aberdeen, the Mystic Seaport Museum and a cast of thousands, revived the almost lost ‘Dreg’ songs of oyster fishers in Scotland’s Firth of Forth


An innovative probe into the earliest history of recorded sound, which also uncovered the world’s earliest recording of a human voice (1860)


Broadside ballad 17th-18th century
From the University of Glasgow Library broadside ballad collection. For more such links go to
English Broadside Ballads Archives, University of California


Ongoing project on Australian traditional music and song since 2003 with Graham Seal and Rob Willis.


Part of folklorist Mark Shuster’s excellent Germany Downunder site on German folk culture in Australia


Collection of the late Peter Ellis’s writings and publications, etc. on Australian dance traditions


1 comment:

Tangento said...

Great, great article man. Amazing.

Translation of the Greek postcard caption:

YIANNIS PAPAIOANNOU (WITH THE BUZOUKI) 1st INFANTRY REGIMENT 1933
(Archive of "Ilias Petropoulos")