Books › A dictionary of music and musicians (A.D. 1450-1889) by eminent writers, English and foreign : with illustrations and woodcuts, 1879 › scan 71
Scan 71
A dictionary of music and musicians (A.D. 1450-1889) by eminent writers, English and foreign : with illustrations and woodcuts, 1879
28 lines. Read by computer on 7 September 2026. Printed page 63. See the scan on archive.org.
1TASKIN.
3TASTO SOLO. Tasto (Fr. touche) means the part in an instrument which is touched to produce the note; in a keyed instrument, therefore, the key. 'Tasto solo,' the key alone, is in old music written over those portions of the bass or continuo part in which the mere notes were to be played by the accompanyist, without the chords or harmonies founded on them.
5TATTOO¹ (Rappel; Zapfenstreich), the signal in the British army by which soldiers are brought to their quarters at night. The infantry signal begins at 20 minutes before the hour appointed for the men to be in barracks, by the bugles in the barrack-yard sounding the 'First Post' or 'Setting of the Watch.' This is a long passage of 29 bars, beginning as follows—
7[Music]
9and ending with this impressive phrase:—
11[Music]
13This is succeeded by the 'Rolls,'² consisting of three strokes by the big drum, each stroke followed by a roll on the side-drums:—
15[Music]
17The drums and fifes then march up and down the barrack-yard playing a succession of Quick marches at choice, till the hour is reached. Then 'God save the Queen' is played, and the Tattoo concludes by the 'Second Post' or 'Last Post,' which begins as follows—
19[Music]
21and ends like the 'First Post.' The other branches of the service have their tattoos, which it is not necessary to quote.
23¹ The word is derived by Johnson from the French tapotez tous; and its original form seems to have been 'tap-to' (see Count Mansfield's 'Directions of Warre,' 1624), as if it were the signal for the tap-rooms or bars of the canteen to put-to or close. Curiously enough, however, 'tap' seems to be an acknowledged term for the drum—'tap of drum.' Tapoter is probably allied to the German zapfen, the tap of a cask, and zapfenstreich, the German term for tattoo; this also may mean the striking or driving home of the taps of the beer-barrels. The proverbial expression 'the devil's tattoo'—meaning the noise made by a person absorbed in thought drumming with foot or fingers, seems to show that the drum and not the trumpet was the original instrument for sounding the tattoo.
25² For details see Potter's 'Instructions for the Side Drum.'
271 Fétis confuses the uncle and nephew.
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