The Tattoo: Drum Beating

The Tattoo is two drum beatings, the Singlings and the Doublings.

Young Drummers Assistant and many early-18th century drum manuals explain the Tattoo as a sequence of these two beatings, plus possibly tunes performed between them.

The Singlings

Since the use of the Singlings seems essentially abandoned by the 1850s, both in America and Britain, there is no clear tradition to compare their use to.

After reading the four period manuals and comparing their notation, I believe the clearest answer is as follows:

The Singlings on the drum amounts to 1 measure.

The Singlings is explained as being played at the end of each part of the tune – so presumably at the end of every Line.

Performing Tunes Between the Singlings

You’ll notice that the method of notating this in Ashworth, Potter, and Rumrille is confusing, and I think misleading. Ashworth writes the measure, bars it, writes a measure, bars it, etc., until he has the 5^th Singlings. It may look as if he’s indicating to play a measure, rest a measure, etc., but look closely and you’ll see that the bars aren’t his ‘double bar’ that indicate a quarter rest, but rather the ‘triple bar’ that notes the end of a beating.

Similarly, Potter notates a measure with the Singlings, then a measure of rest. He too seems to indicate playing a measure, resting a measure, etc. until 5 times through the Singlings has been played, but he also notates a 7 above those rest measures, which seems to indicate that the ‘rest measure’ is just an empty space in which any beating can be inserted.

Rumrille’s is actually the most comprehensive; in his, he indicates performing the Singlings, then leaves 8 empty measures, in which he notes ‘Drum and Fife’, indicating that 8 measures of music should be inserted for a single line of music.

STRUCTURE OF THE TATTOO

Based on a combination of YDA, Ashworth, Potter, and largely Rumrille, we can build a logical structure that continues the familiar format as the mid-19^th century Tattoo:

• The Cheers (not indicated in YDA, but assumed from later sources)
• The Singlings

• Tune 1 – Line A
• The Singlings
• Tune 1 – Line A
• The Singlings
• Tune 1 – Line B
• The Singlings
• Tune 1 – Ling B
• The Singlings

• The Doublings
• [Maybe the Singlings?]

• Tune 2 – Line A
• The Singlings
• Etc.

• Three Cheers (not indicated in YDA, but assumed; replaces The Doublings)
• 2 Drag & Strokes OR The Doublings (depending on era, nationality, and/or interpretation)

The one major confusion is that YDA says to beat the Singlings 4 times over the first time, and 5 times after that, suggesting that the Singlings don’t occur after the Cheers, but will occur following the Doublings. Potter and Ashworth comment that the Singlings occurs 5 times over the first time, and after that only 4 times, suggesting that the Singlings is used as indicated above, but doesn’t come after the Doublings. Rumrille seems to indicate that the Singlings always occurs 5 times over.

We will discuss this in more detail shortly.

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Do you have questions or observations about the function or performance of the drum beating for The Tattoo? Contact me or comment below.

To find out more, continue to my next section “The Tattoo: Fife Music”.

Or, continue to my final thoughts in “The Tattoo Sequence”.