Orders by cornu or signa

[M.Gambrinvs]

Salvete,
LEG X GPF prepares the Cornu and searches for score or audio for the order melodies/signs.
We need to use it, when centurio´s voice is not audible.
Same ask for signs by signifer or vexilifer.
First we need to be united with other roman groups.
Thanks for help!

[jvrjenivs]

I don't think there is much to tell about what the orders given by instruments would be like. What the Ermine street guard does, and works well within big groups in my opinion, is that the vexillum goes up when a command (forward march or stop) is started and goes down when it has to be executed.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Well, I am a total none wind playing expert/novice, but I was able to get a tune out of a Deepeeka Cornu, (hastily assembled), after a few attempts so they would have been quite useful.
The would be able to be heard over the din of battle, and also alert the troops to look for the signa. If the front lines were engaged, the rear ranks could
then verbally pass on the orders to those preoccupied. I would imagine....

As to music scores....Wagners Ride of the Valkarie perhaps?

[M. Demetrius]

Wagners Ride of the Valkarie perhaps

Yikes! That would be a heckuva tune to play on a non-valved horn! hock: I agree that the horn sounds would carry across the battlefield, and probably that they'd be relayed from one cornicen to the next. Rusty Meyers (of RAT and Soul of the Warrior fame) has made some bugle calls that seem to work, while not making a claim that they are the originals. Contact him, and he'll direct you to the sound files where you can hear them. Also, they work in conjunction with the Ludus Militis Tactica command set, q.v. at ludusmilitis.org

[M.Gambrinvs]

Thanks! Trying to contact and keep an result.

As marching music we ussually have Imperial march from Star wars
Our optio can play it with the cornus, very good backup from visitors, who know...

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Try....... orders by Vuvuzela........

:mrgreen:

M.VIB.M.

[M.Gambrinvs]

Vuvuzela is maybe a good idea, but I have the whistle already /made from bone/. Very usable when marching, but during the fight it has small range, then cornu is better to sign: hey, soldier, look and move like the signum is marking!
And I have my hands full of shield, two javelins, vitis and sword, no other space... :x

[Crispvs]

I have often found that vocal commands get lost in a reasonable wind and that we have trouble hearing them under windy conditions (when we are also concentrating on trying to hold our shields steady against the effects of the wind). The equivilant of bugle calls would solve this problem and if the cornu or tuba really was, as we are led to believe, present in every century then it makes a lot of sense to think that it performed the same function as the bugle of eighteenth and nineteenth century armies. If so, a cornicern/tubicern would have to stay close to the centurio in order to instantly transmit his orders through the cornu/tuba. Ovbiously this would be something new for most re-enactment groups, as it would mean the centurio being constantly accompanied by the cornicern/tubicern, even when not marching with the main body of his men.

Obviously we do not know what Roman trumpet calls would have sounded like and there is no good reason to assume that they would have resembled Roman music in any close way. However, from church plainsong we do have some indication of what late Roman music at any rate may have sounded like. I am told that some of the earliest known plainsong tunes can be dated to the fifth century AD. Now, that is four hundred years or thereabouts after the period most of us re-enact, but then again, it is also fifteen hundred years closer than we are to the first century AD, so although things may have changed radically during this time, it is still close enough in time that some musical elements may have stayed the same, particularly if it might have been the case that the pace of change in Roman music was slow rather than fast, which is just as possible (if not more than) the possibility that it changed with the rapidity which we assume of our music today.

Anyway, as I said, there is no good reason to think that trunmpet calls would have resembled normal music. However, the melodic nature of plainsong would make it quite appropriate for use by trumpets, at it tends to run in a monotone which is then finished with a rhythmic tonal variation. This immediately makes me think of bugle calls in more recent times, in which the rhythmic arrangement has often been as important as that of the actual notes played, in much the same way that morse code makes use of combinations of long and short sounds.

Based on this then (and accepting that it is all supposition based on evidence separated from it by hundreds of years), I would suggest that a system of cornu/tuba calls you be worked out which might feature first a signal to indicate the action to be taken followed by a rising or dropping note to indicate left, right or forward.

Thus we could, for instance decide that a short 'pip' might indicate something to do with the hands and two short 'pips' might indicate something to do with the feet. We might then decide that turning might be indicated by a single longer note, wheeling by two longer notes and stopping by a long note followed by a short note, for example. 'Left' could be indicated by a drop in note, 'right' by a rising note and 'forwards' by something like a further long note followed by a dropping note and then another rising again to the original note (which would sound a bit like a simple plainsong ending).
So we could, following this suggestion, indicate a command to make a left wheel as (utilising morse dashes where all 'dit' and 'dahs' are assumed to be in the same monotone): dit-dit-dah-dah-(dropped tone), or a 'forward march' command as dit-dit-dah-(dropped one)-dah.

Just a suggestion but what do you all think?

Crispvs

[Crispvs]

As a thought further to this, 'up' and 'down' could be indicated by the came commands as 'right' and 'left'. This could mean that we could indicate 'pick up your weapons' as 'arms right' or 'dit-(rising note)'.

Do you think these ideas might lead us towards a workable set of trumpet commands which could then be used by your group or even become common to a number of different groups?

Incidentally, a tuba is not wholly unlike a vuvuzella.

On the front of indicating orders with the standards, I think that any commands delivered this way would have to be very simple ones, as the only realistic and reasonably unambiguous movements which could be made (particulary under battlefield conditions) would be raising and lowering the standard, moving it in a circular motion and making it sway from left to right or vice versa

Crispvs

[jvrjenivs]

Do you think these ideas might lead us towards a workable set of trumpet commands which could then be used by your group or even become common to a number of different groups?

Here I would say I don't think so, but that has nothing to do with the command set, but with the fact that in my opinion a lot groups doesn't have a cornicen or tunicen that is able to give real command like sounds. Most of the time I hear them just putting some air through it, instead of making a sound they were thinking off making.

[Crispvs]

Good point, but this in part is why I was thinking of something similar to morse code with the only tonal variation being either up or down and at the end of the command. The degree to which the note rose or fell might not have to be that important. I think most people could reach this level of competency quite quickly.

Crispvs

[Robert Vermaat]

Incidentally, a tuba is not wholly unlike a vuvuzela.

As my neighbours have noticed lately. :mrgreen:

[Nerva]

Salvete Omnes!

While there is no evidence that the Cornu was actually used to give battlefield commands, there’s no reason to suspect it was not so. Whatever the command set may have been it must have been very basic to be clearly and quickly understood, just like cavalry trumpet commands of the 18th and 19th century’s. But how could one cornu be distinctly discerned over another, especially in tightly packed infantry units?

Here's a good article worth reading:

[url:weyieu16]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_instrument[/url]

By the way, we use the Darth Vader tune as well

Valete,

Nerva.

[pvblivs cordvs]

Hi, I once played the theme of "Laurel and Hardy" when a centurio marched by. Not as impressive as Darth Vader's theme or the Imperial March but quite managable on the cornu. But be prepared for a whack with the vitis......
But on a more serious note (no pun intended) there is Vegetius a section about which horn is used at what time. Might be interesting to you.
It's in Vegetius, book 2 / 22
Cheers, Wim

[P. Clodius Secundus]

Wim, thanks for bringing up Vegetius.
He wrote: "The music of the legion consists of trumpets, cornets and buccinae. The trumpet sounds the charge and the retreat. The cornets are used only to regulate the motions of the colors; the trumpets serve when the soldiers are ordered out to any work without the colors; but in time of action, the trumpets and cornets sound together. The classicum, which is a particular sound of the buccina or horn, is appropriated to the commander-in-chief and is used in the presence of the general, or at the execution of a soldier, as a mark of its being done by his authority. The ordinary guards and outposts are always mounted and relieved by the sound of trumpet, which also directs the motions of the soldiers on working parties and on field days. The cornets sound whenever the colors are to be struck or planted. These rules must be punctually observed in all exercises and reviews so that the soldiers may be ready to obey them in action without hesitation according to the general's orders either to charge or halt, to pursue the enemy or to retire. For reason will convince us that what is necessary to be performed in the heat of action should constantly be practiced in the leisure of peace."..... sound like pretty reliable evidence me.
When I first statred re-enacting my Civil War Regiment was badly in need of a bugler, so I helped out by learning to play the bugle badly. The best advice I got was that every new horn has a bunch of "frogs" (ugly to downright painful notes) stuck inside it and you need to blow them all out before anything worth hearing can be produced. This is best done away from others, especially children, spouses, and family pets who might have sensitive hearing. Upon joining the Roman hobby I was naturally interested in the horns of the era. With nearly all my available funds committed to buying armor and other basic kit, I had to improvise if I wanted instruments. Using broken horns and some lengths of copper and brass tubing I was able to build a serviceable tuba and cornu. I've sinced purchased a DPKA cornu and a couple commercially produced tubas. I still prefer my home-made jobs. For anyone interested in this aspect of the hobby, don't let a lack of money or musical talent hold you back. You probably won't play Carnegie Hall, but that's not the point of the exercise. Rusty Meyers had made a good attempt at producing a set of calls based somewhat upon the ACW calls which are well documented. They often used the device of raising the last note of a call to indicate direction. The hard part is getting them worked into the actual drill. In the ACW all officers were required to know the nearly 50 standard calls by heart and to be able to sound them in an emergency (buglers are not bullet-proof and are often trgets for friendly fire). Unless it accompanies every drill until the rank and file learn to react to them instinctively, they don't add much more than confusion. In modern terms we have found the horns especially useful in parades and marches to stop the troops and get them moving again. In a tactical level, pather than posting the cornicern exposed next to the Centurion we ususally have him in the rear next to the Optio. They are close enough to be able to hear the Ceturion's commands an then the horn relays them to the rest of the troops.