No commercial publisher could afford to print and publish a compilation similar to this work as a commercial proposition. This book represents the unselfish contribution of many members of the N.A.R.D. and is the first large library of rudimental drum solos ever printed and published under one cover. It is a priceless collection offered for the advancement of all drumming.
– Wm. F. Ludwig, 1955
Just got myself an old copy of the NARD book— actual title on the cover, America’s N.A.R.D. Drum Solos. It’s a collection of 150 rudimental snare drum solos written by organization members around north America. It was originally released in 1937, my edition is from 1955. For years I’ve had a copy of the newer Richard Sakal edition, which I never used. It doesn’t seem to have the typos plaguing his editions of Charley Wilcoxon’s books, but I didn’t trust it, and can’t stand looking at it. This edition is pleasingly hand copied, mostly in modern notation, and I like working with it. The titles are written out in cute 1930s script.
The N.A.R.D.— National Association of Rudimental Drummers— was formed in 1933, when some players met at an American Legion convention, and got to talking about establishing skill standards for rudimental drumming, making that a prerequisite for membership— in George Lawrence Stone’s words, played “open-closed-open style (slow to fast to slow, starting and ending with the sticks high above the head), as did the old masters of the instrument.”
Founding members included Stone, Edward B. Straight, and Wm. F. Ludwig and others. I don’t know what kind of institutional apparatus it ever even had— I imagine it was primarily a name and a mailing list, and a doctrine. People were big on clubs and bylaws and giving themselves titles then. They probably had a “sergeant at arms”, that kind of thing. The organization was disbanded in 1977, and revived in 2008.
The book seems to be a culminating document of that period of North American rudimental drumming, as it was being standardized and modernized— most importantly, for me, in the notation. Older types of drumming notation relied on an oral tradition, and I can’t make head or tail of most of it, even with pieces I know. There are some examples of that in Haskell Harr, with pieces like The Austrian, Dawning Of The Day, and Three Camps. Charley Wilcoxon’s books are often in a flaky middle state, with metered rolls, or parts of them, notated as grace notes. A lot of notation from that period is highly approximate, with things written in 2/4 that are clearly intended to be played in a 6/8 feel.
In his collected Technique of Percussion articles, Stone mentions one of his solos here: “Lefty”, pictured below. He says that the figure in the third measure is meant to be interpreted essentially as nested triplets, with a metered double stroke on the middle partial. The literal rhythm there, of course, the same as regular old 8th note triplets. The same thing is clearly intended elsewhere, for single drags in the vicinity of triplet rhythms
Anyway, in this book there are 150 solos, and a few duets, written either as parade beats or competition solos, in 2/4 or 6/8 time. Some are written by known people like Stone, Ludwig, and Frank Arsenault. There are also some functional parade items illustrated— some simple march beats, a roll off. In the solo titles there are references to military drumming, regional references, references to American Legion posts. And a lot of colorful titles, some rather macho, despite being kind of ordinary solos: Two-Four Nightmare, Rocking The Rudiments, Pile Driver (oh, you wish), Assault & Battery (notable for an indication to play a “flamapoo”— an archaic term for a flam tap).
There’s also one solo by Fritz Berger, written in Swiss notation, which is a little obscure to read. It looks even worse in the Sakal edition, so that’s of no help.
The solos are generally playable and well balanced, intended to be played at quarter note = 100-126, or a little slower in 6/8. There are a few odd things— drags at the end of a run of 16th notes or 16th triplets, that would be slightly unplayable if one were playing strictly metronomic time. And a few things demanding a ridiculously high rate of speed on some figures, at normal march tempos— like Dashing White Sergeant[?] by one Edward H. Moeller.
There are few stickings given— it’s assumed you’re using rudimental stickings for everything. Some rolls have an indication of the number of strokes intended, most don’t. There are a few conventions that are not necessarily intuitive to us now— such as when to play a rolled 8th note as a 5-stroke roll vs. a 7-stroke— a single 8th note-valued roll played as a pickup is usually played as a 7. You can see how that works via book 2 of Haskell Harr.
There are a few attempts to use dynamics for effect, generally fairly crude. I think the general philosophy is given in a note on one solo: indicated dynamics “are for concert only. On the march play all ff.”
I’ve played maybe a little more than a third of the book, in a few weeks. In addition to the Stone solo above, interesting solos include the jaunty Strut Street March, Two-Four Hooker, with an apparent hybrid 2/4 and 6/8 feel; and The Badger Braves and Swing It, unusual here for having some flam accents in 2/4 time. Doubling The Army Two-Four, is built around a figure with some pataflafla-like double flams. And also Modern Syncopation, which, to me leans into more modern stickings— less purely rudimental, more alternating/natural stickings. Hip-a-dipper is an oddly phrased thing, an escalating pile of stuff, eschewing the march format of the other solos.
Playing the solos, you definitely learn this genre of thing— it gets a little repetitive. I would have like to have seen a little more creativity, but I imagine a lot of these guys weren’t approaching this as musicians in much of the sense we would recognize today.
Compared with the other books, Haskell Harr is better for learning this type of thing, and better day to day. Wilcoxon’s All-American Drummer is similar, but with Wilcoxon’s peculiarities— mainly, his stickings will be irregular. Day to day I prefer Harr, or Mitchell Peters’s rudimental materials, actually. But this is a nice change of scenery, and you get a sense of history from it.
As someone doing drum corps in the 80s, this whole area of drumming seemed antiquated to me— like, I never wanted any part of playing “Downfall Of Paris”— that was a sign of somebody who didn’t get it. My corps instructors were all students of Tony Cirone and Charles Dowd, who thought more musically. The interest was musical, I was never emotionally aroused by hearing someone play a lot of rudiments on a snare drum. I’ve come around on it strictly because it seems to get my hands moving in a good way.
One other aspect of this, that opening quote by William F. Ludwig, Sr.— “no commercial publisher.” Much later, in a letter to Percussive Arts, he also says:
In the early 1920’s no one was around who was even interested in establishing a uniform system of drumming and I felt it my duty, knowing what rudiments had done for me. It took many years to establish the 26 Standard American Rudiments and it was expensive but the leading percussionists of that day stood by me.
I’m not sure in what sense it wasn’t established— I’ve seen Army drumming manuals from the 1910s and 20s that presented all the usual rudiments in a modern way. But the talk about doing the cost of it, and lack of commercial aspect: a) that notion is very familiar to me [gestures vaguely all around], b) it’s interesting that this seemingly permanent feature of modern drumming had to be manufactured and promoted.
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