Re-enacting and Fifing and Drumming
Every summer and sometimes during the winter I spend every weekend doing re-enactments, parades, and musters. Your prob. thinking what the heck is that?

For those of you thinking that..a re-enactment is when groups portraying different units from the 18th century come together at a place( such as a battlefield etc.)and re-enact a battle or something of that sorts.

I don't think I have to explain what a parade but for those of you out there that ask stupid questions a parade is a a lot of people marching down the street(You know, think Memorial day) OK now that we have that straight.

A muster is when fife and drum corps from all over the country and sometimes other countries come together and play music, it usually consists on a parade and then each corps going out and playing on stand. The host corps then comes out and gives a ribbon to the drum major or whoever is accepting the ribbon. After all the corps play they do what is called an f-troop. This is where anyone who wants to from any corps comes and we all form one huge corps usually with many, many people. We start of playing common songs that most people know such as battle hymn. We go out on the stand with everyone playing and then we start what most people refer to as the circle thing, because no one knows the name.(I've heard it called the "friendship circle") The first person in the first fife line starts walking in a big circle, everyone follows and the circle gets smaller and smaller until the people on the inside of the circle stop moving. Then everyone just starts jamming. (Jamming is when everyone just stands and plays song after song. This is often where you learn many songs, you learn them from other people. For most people if the don't know the song they just stand behind someone who knows the song. This is how you learn and is the most common way among fifers and drummers to learn songs from other corps. I love jamming because your standing there(this is from a fifers point of view) and if you are anywhere near the drums your heart beat almost changes to match the beat of the bass. You can't hear anything but the music and you are totally filled with it. Even after you leave often you ca still hear the beat of the drums and the trill of the fifes in your head.