There are two major “re-enactorisms” that, in my opinion, damage the usefulness and credibility of Drummers at battle re-enactments:
Prime & Load and Make Ready
Firstly, the drum beating re-enactors use for Prime & Load doesn’t actually exist and should be eliminated from our repertoire.
Secondly, the incorrect use of Prime & Load and the overuse of Make Ready means that drummers are just noise on the battlefield.
When we play these beatings incorrectly, we aren’t actually helpful to the soldiers. Instead, we become a nuisance that can make re-enactors – and especially officers – annoyed with our presence.
In this article, I want to briefly explain the historical use of The Preparative and explain how this should be portrayed on the battlefield to ensure that drummers are useful communication tools at battle re-enactments.
The Myth of “Prime & Load”
In the original BAR book, the authors included a “Prime & Load” beating, which is just The Preparative three times over.
This was an invention, probably to fill a need or assumption.
Certainly, the drum beating does not exist and should therefore not be used.
More importantly, the verbal command “Prime & Load” is also not really real.
Drill manuals have a form of “Prime & Load” command when instructing a new recruit how to load the musket. But, by the time soldiers are working in Platoon exercises, they are told to load as soon as they have fired and then shoulder their muskets (Bland, 1727, 77).
Basically, a soldier should never be not loaded and should therefore never need a command to load.
The verbal “Prime & Load” command does have a good place at reenactments. It is good to control loading for public safety; however, the drum beating “Prime & Load” command has very little value on the field.
Again, think about how much noise both the “Prime & Load” and “Make Ready” command are when every drummer is using it for every company every time they load and fire.
It’s just too much noise and no re-enactors are actually listening any more.
Instead, leave the “Prime & Load” command to your company commander.
When To Play The Preparative
The other problematic re-enactorism is that drummers play The Preparative at incorrect times and, therefore, play it far too often.
What Does The Preparative Signal?
The Preparative is used for the command “Make Ready”. This tells the soldiers to cock their muskets, or take them off safety.
What’s confusing is that the Preparative isn’t used every time “Make Ready” is orders, only in certain instances.
When to beat the preparative:
When the Major (or commander of the entire Battalion) gives the order to “Make Ready”, the duty drummer should beat “The Preparative”.
Note: It’s not clear whether just the duty drummer should beat this command, or whether all drummers should echo it.
My advice: at a small event, just the Duty Drummer beats. At a large event, you could echo it.
When the Major gives command to Division Commanders or Company Commanders, the drummers DO NOT beat the Preparative.
The Preparative is ONLY beaten when the entire Battalion makes ready together.
Does anything comes after the Preparative?
If the Battalion has Made Ready together AND will fire together: then NO.
In this case, once the Battalion has come to the make ready, the Major will verbally give the orders: “Present. Fire.”
If the Battalion has Made Ready together AND the Major has already given commands that the Battalion will fire by Divisions, Companies, or Platoons: then YES.
In this case, once the Battalion is ready, the Major will order the duty drummer only to beat a Flam.
At the flam, the officers will order “Present. Fire.” at the appropriate time. The flam is essentially the cue to begin the type of firing ordered.
For more on this process, see Bland, 1727, p. 75-77.
Conclusion
It’s important as drummers that we do our best to faithfully represent historic drummers and to re-create the aural experience during battle recreations.
For this reason, we want to perform signals as they actually were performed as much as possible.
It’s also very important that we don’t become nuisances to the soldiers and make it difficult for them to hear or understand orders.
For this reason, we also don’t want to overplay. We can do this easily by playing The Preparative as it was actually meant to be performed:
Only when the entire Battalion “Makes Ready” together.
And NEVER as a signal for “Prime and Load”.
Want to learn more about becoming a functional duty drummer at Rev War events? Check out my blog post:
Want to learn more about the rudiments in the Preparative? Check out
