Fife Mojo

Most people who read this site are also signed up to the JamList, but I was still remiss in not posting earlier that the Jam on May 10 won’t be happening.

However, the following weekend is Drummers Call at Colonial Williamsburg! There will certainly be a jam after that on Saturday night, so I hope to see many Fife Mojo regulars there.

The next Jam is scheduled for June 14 (second Saturday again). I’d love it if those Fife Mojo-heads who are planning to attend DRAM this July could get together for a rehearsal or two well before that date, so let me know if you can.

Play loud.

The Fife Mojo Jam last night turned into a rehearsal for Deep River, which (to me) was 3 hours of teh alsome. We’re placing an order for Official Fife Mojo Sunglasses of the 2008 DRAM Olympiad. We discussed assigning one of the Fife Mojo groupies to Food Commando duties at DRAM, and also discussed the organization of important corps camping equipment, such as inflatable palm trees and battery-operated patio lanterns for the Fife Mojo Corps Pavilion.

Seriously, we worked out better arrangements of four or five tunes, and tried out some drum beats with them. I think we found stuff that works pretty well. We also did all that stuff in the first paragraph.

A good time was had by me, and I hope everyone else too.

Next jam is April 12. The May 10 jam may not happen (but Drummers Call will on May 16!!), so newcomers will please check here, or sign up to the JamList (see link at the right of this page), for updated information.

The Tune of the Month is “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

Just kidding.

Play loud.

I’ve retooled some of the t-shirt designs and posted some new ones, including a couple avant fashions for our friends and relations. Suggestions are welcome!

Don’t miss updated Jam dates, below…

All dates are the SECOND SATURDAY of each month. All Jams start at 7:00 p.m.

February 9
March 8
April 12
May 10

May 16-17 Drummers Call at Colonial Williamsburg–50th anniversary of the corps this year!

June 14
July 12
August 9
September 13
October 11
November 8
December 13

SCHEDULE CHANGES will be posted here (if there’s time) or sent out via the JamList (see the link at right to sign up on this mailing list). Please check first if you are coming a long way!

See you there!

Several of us Fife Mojo people arrived at the F&D just after 1 p.m. yesterday to find that Lance and Stewart had done most of the setting-up for us already—bless their well-organized hearts—and all we had to do was cart in our sodas and coolers (which I brought thinking to save CW the trouble, even though CW had already got sodas, cups, and ice), and munchies, and lay them out—chips, brownies, cookies, cubed cheeses, and some little ham sandwiches (that disappeared really fast).

Lance suggested that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get the jam started by picking out ten fairly basic tunes and making a few photocopies to hand around. So we did that, only it took a few minutes longer than it should have—though hopefully people weren’t standing around *too* long waiting for things to start. Lance gave a lovely welcome, encouraged everyone to mingle, make new friends, and learn new tunes.

We had large contingents attending from Tryon Palace F&D (New Bern, NC), John Marshall Fifes and Drums (Huntington, WV), and Liberty Hall F&D (Newport News, VA). Attendance was slim from other corps—all of Fife Mojo attended, but we’re a slim corps anyway!—though there were representatives from Colonial Williamsburg, the CW Alumni, The Old Guard, and one person from Yorktown. There were also several individuals who don’t play in a particular corps, and that was gratifying. Attendance was between 50 and 60 (my guess, though it could have been higher—I counted more than 50 knowing there were a handful or more outside at census time). Some of these corps were so new that their members had never attended a jam session before and weren’t sure what to expect! But by all accounts, everyone had a good time.

One thing we did was make sure everyone had a chance to play along with everything. We went around the room taking turns to call tunes. This helped ensure that the beginners got to play what they knew, and it was self-regulated in the sense that people made an effort to call new tunes rather than repeat them. If the tune was obscure—or even if one or two corps just didn’t know it—we found the music for them before starting the tune. This didn’t preclude a handful of more difficult tunes from being played, but it did mean there were sometimes lengthy pauses between tunes. The most remarkable thing, for a jam that lasted six hours, is that only about four or five tunes were played more than once–and in each case, played only twice. The only exception to this was Downfall of Paris, which it will probably not surprise you to know that we played three times.

The following is my best recollection of what tunes were played.

Ah! Ca Ira

Arkansas Traveller

Barren Rocks of Eden

The Black Pearl

Bonaparte Crossing the Rhine/Three Little Drummers

Bonnie Blue Flag

Brandywine

British Grenadiers

Cincinnati Hornpipe

Corn Cob Clog

Crown Point

Devil’s Dream (I think)

Devil’s Flute

Dixie

Downfall of Paris

Downshire

Drums and Guns

Old 1812

Empty Pockets

First of September

Fifty Cents

Finnegan’s Wake

Fisher’s Hornpipe

Frog in the Well

Garryowen

Girl I Left Behind Me

Governor’s Island Quickstep

Grandfather’s Clock

Green Cockade

Hanover Hornpipe (I think—maybe not)

Harem Scarem

Hell on the Wabash

Hey! Johnny Cope, Are Ye Wauken Yet?

Huntington

Jaybird/Fireman’s Q.S.

Jefferson & Liberty

Kingdom Coming (maybe not)

Korn Likker

La Marguretta

Lighthorse March (one of my favorite CW tunes ever!)

L’Oiseau Royale (a.k.a. Royal Bird) and Count Brown’s March

Marionettes

Mathew’s Hornpipe

Newport

New Tatterjack

Norman Toy

Old Dan Tucker

Old Saybrook

Pleasures of Spa

Paddy on a Handcar

Rakes of Marlow

Road to Boston

Rose Tree

Sailor’s Hornpipe

Seven Stars

Soldier’s Joy

Some Distance from Prussia/Prussia Variation (which was a train wreck, but a fun one!)

Stillman’s Reel

Strange Jig

Welcome Here Again

White Cockade

Whup Jamboree

York Fusiliers

Yorktown

When it came time to clean up and say goodnight, everyone pitched in without being asked—though nobody wanted to say goodnight! It was a great time, and a wonderful way to pass a winter Saturday afternoon. I hope everyone enjoyed themselves, learned something, made some new friends, and is thinking about coming back next year for another one. Hopefully we’ll be able to arrange a parade or a concert—and what I’d really like to do is offer classes, such as:

Beginner/Intermediate Fifing

Advanced Fifing

Beginner/Intermediate Drumming

Advanced Drumming

How to Finance a Corps

How to Arrange Music…

And perhaps a concert at the end of the day (at the Kimball Theatre? or the DeWitt Wallace?), with a jam to follow. Sounds like a fun time! It will take us the rest of the year to plan, though, and more than likely there will have to be a registration fee to ensure we can get the best instructors available. Suggestions are welcome—remember the best place to offer them is here, by commenting on these posts. We could get a real dialogue going.

Dates for upcoming jams are looking like they’ll be the second Saturday of each month, but I’m awaiting confirmation.

Thanks again to everyone who made this Jam such a success—and that includes everyone who attended it!

Long time no post. Sorry about that, we’ve been busy! Hope you all had a great holiday or two and that lots of you are planning to come to the “Jamuary” thing on the 12th. Only days away now! I heard from the Tryon Palace F&D corps of North Carolina today and they’re coming full force with more than a dozen musicians. Also heard from the Loudoun Border Guards a few days back–several musicians will be representin’. I know all our “regulars” at the monthly Fife Mojo Jams are planning to come, and the CW alumni has been alerted.

Fife Mojo still doesn’t have a big budget (well, let’s be honest–it’s *my* budget), but it’s come a long way since August 2006. We’ve got a cadre of regulars (I hesitate to call it an actual “corps” since it’s more like a flashmob) and a selection of music we’re practicing for Deep River 2008. We’ve got this website, and a Wiki page for fifers and drummers, and our t-shirts… and of course we’ve got our first BIG, hopefully annual, Jam!

CW Fife & Drum building, 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. Bring your instruments, bring music if you like, and bring your always-friendly-F&D attitude. We’re gonna make loud noise into the dark wintry night.

Fife Mojo T-shirts are now available at

http://www.zazzle.com/fifemojo

If you buy one, Fife Mojo gets a small (minuscule) royalty–but what’s really awesome is all that free advertising when you wear it in public. Please be careful about sizes. Some shirts, especially the ladies’ fitted ones, run VERY small, so you may want to order a size or two up. They do have a good size guide on the site though.

Wear them with pride and play loud!

The first BIG Fife Mojo Jam is hereby announced (again). Colonial Williamsburg Fifes & Drums has kindly offered to co-sponsor this event with my company, Fife Mojo, Inc. I’ve been calling it the Fife Mojo Jam, or the January Jam, but the official name might change.

Anyway… Saturday, January 12, 2008, Williamsburg, Virginia, at the Colonial Williamsburg Fifes & Drums building. EVERYONE is very welcome!

Colonial Williamsburg F&D has agreed to provide pizza, sandwiches, or hot dogs and burgers, that kinda thing, the day of the jam, as well as allowing us to use their awesome building.

The official hotel of the Fife Mojo January Jam is the Best Western Patrick Henry Inn, which is about two blocks from the Capitol in the Historic Area. They have offered a very special rate for attendees: $49 a night, including a continental breakfast which features two different hot items each day. The rate is valid for Friday, January 11 and Saturday, January 12.

Patrick Henry Inn
249 York St.
Williamsburg, Virginia 23185
1-800-446-9228
wwwDOTpatrickhenryinnDOTcom
There’s an email reservation and inquiry form on the website.

We may also be able to reserve, for no extra charge, a basement banquet room in which we can fife and drum to our hearts’ content in inclement weather, at reasonable hours. (The jam itself will be at Colonial Williamsburg; this room would be a supplemental location for before or after the jam.)

I would LOVE to hear from folks who plan to come whether they’d be interested in a parade down Duke of Gloucester Street in the Historic Area. This has NOT been arranged, but if we have enough interest, we may be able to. In keeping with the spirit of the Historic Area, CW usually avoids having performers in the Historic Area in modern dress, so figure you’d have to bring uniforms. Uniforms are not required for the jam, of course.

Discounted (severely discounted, like, $15 or thereabouts) tickets to Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area may also be available for the weekend. It’s a great time of year to visit the trade shops, Capitol, Magazine, Governor’s Palace, and other interior sites. You could make a long weekend vacation of it.

Please mark your calendars, tell your friends, and start putting away the couple of bucks you probably spend on lattes every week so you can make it. If you only make one Fife Mojo Jam, let it be this one!

If we have a decent turnout, we may be able to organize a larger, annual event, complete with master classes and a concert, in 2009. If the turnout’s not so good at this event–then maybe not.

Colonial Williamsburg also sponsors a very nice muster event every May, Drummers Call. I would love to see you all there too!

News will be posted here as it comes in. Please post if you have any questions. Hope to see you in January!

There were seven of us tonight–several “regulars” couldn’t make it, unfortunately–but we played for a good two hours. I can’t remember most of the tunes–since there wasn’t a drummer (though there was a drum. Go figure), we fifers went all esoteric as fifers are wont to do. Everyone had music with them, and probably half or more of the tunes we played were tunes not everyone knew, or only one or two people knew at all, so most of us were sight-reading. It’s good practice.

Also reminded everyone about the Big Fife Mojo Jam on January 12, 2008. I am in negotiations with a local hotel that’s *almost* close enough to the F&D building to walk to, trying to get our out-of-town F&D guests a really good rate for Friday, January 11 and Saturday, Jan. 12. There’s always the threat of winter weather, but here in Williamsburg the effects of global climate change tend to be evident in that we often have 60-degree weather even in January.

I’d really like to know how many people are thinking about attending, because if we have enough folks who are interested, we may be able to have a parade down Duke of Gloucester Street. We’d probably have to wear corps uniforms, though, or at least re-enactor apparel–be warned.

New logos are about to come in. I’ll be posting news as soon as there are T-shirts and other Fife Mojo apparel that can be ordered.

And anyone with interesting knowledge about any tunes–or anything F&D-related, really–should feel free to check out the Fife Mojo Wiki, at www. fifemojo.org/wiki, and add their expertise.

Next jam dates: November 10, November 24, December 15, and JANUARY 12.

Over and out!

Hey everyone,

New Fife Mojo Jam dates are as follows (all are Saturdays, all 7 p.m. to whenever):

October 27

(The 13th is Prelude to Victory weekend at CW; the 20th I’m out of town.)

November 10

November 24

(Yes, we have two jams in November! Also Remembrance Day in Gettysburg is Nov. 17)

December 15

**January 12**

January is the big one. If you can’t make any other jam, make it to this one. I’ve got some leads on discounted hotel rooms and will be posting and/or emailing a list of these. I’ve also got discounted tickets for participants to Colonial Williamsburg’s Historic Area for the weekend. I’m going to need a rough head count at some point, so if you’re thinking about attending, PLEASE tell all your friends, and tell ME.

And, please, if you see Lance or Tim ever, thank them for their generosity in allowing Fife Mojo to use their building.