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TURKISH MUSIC. 75
cymbals would therefore be hailed with acclamation by the marching regiments, and were taken up immediately. Besides these, there was the triangle, tambourine,2 kettledrum and an instrument known to the " tommies " as the " Jingling Johnnie " or more politely as the chapeau chinois, all of which were included under the heading of " Turkish music." The " Jingling Johnnie" has long since passed away, and an illustration is appended on that account. It was simply a pole surmounted by several crescents from which depended innumerable small bells. The shaking of its "sonorous locks," as Berlioz says, at regular intervals, gave much brilliancy to marching music.3
The black men who played these instruments were dressed in most elaborate uniforms, with gorgeous slashed tunics and high feathered turbans of great splendour.4 It was part of their business to perform all sorts of contortions and evolutions whilst playing their instruments. One writer says:5 "I have often |
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'These were very large. Colonel Shaw-Hellier exhibited one at the Worshipful Company of Musicians' Exhibition, dated circa 1750 (? later).
'It fell into disuse about sixty or seventy years ago. The idea survives in the modern glockenspiel or "chimes," an instrument constructed of vibrating bars of steel, played with a metal "striker." Among other survivals of the "blacks," I may mention the tiger or leopard skin which adorns the big drummer nowadays, and the display which drummers make with their sticks.
'Everard, "History of Thos. Farrington's Regiment," 1891. '"British Bandsmen," August, 1890. |
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