Carol of the Drum / Little Drummer Boy (All)

Maybe we should keep the credits, but add the story?

Personally, I think the Jack Halloran and Harry Simeon contributions have been overrated. The Trapp Family recording of "Carol of the Drum" was first released at least four years before the Jack Halloran version and the Trapp arrangement is also similar to Halloran's.

I posted details here:

http://www.secondhandsongs.com/topic/42386

The Trapp Family and Halloran versions can be found here:

http://musicyouwont.blogspot.com/2011/12/carol-of-drum-athon.html

Listen to them both and see what you think.

Sounds like a variant arrangement to me rather than anything to merit being an adaptation. I would delete Onorati and Simeone.

I'll volunteer to do the moving, if necessary.

Still, we first have to be in accord to cut out credits Onorati and Simeone. Anyone else with an opinion either way?

Not surprisingly, I agree with Alan and Murray.

I was thinking the same here... in the meantime, I have moved all instrumentals already to Davis' original.

Comparing the three (Davis, Halloran, Onorati) there's absolutely no change in the lyrics. It seems the only thing Onorati did was change the title to Little Drummer Boy. But still, can we ignore them (Halloran, Onorati) completely?

Spontanously before finally going to sleep:

The current comment says the song was "loosely based on a Czech carol". However, what's these days (finally) the Czech Republic was in the beginning of the 20th century a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The Trapp family emigrated from Salzburg/Austria to the US in 1938 and toured extensively, performing their traditional repertoire which must have included "Der kleine Trommler" (the German title).

If the song was originally in Czech, the German lyrics were already an adaptation and everything added to the db so far, including Davis' English lyrics, constitute further adaptations.

I guess this needs some deep research.

"their traditional repertoire which must have included "Der kleine Trommler" (the German title)"

That's a strong assumption from your part based on what exactly? and skipping Davis' role entirely. In other words, I don't buy it. It would be interesting though to track down a well dated German version.

"if the song was originally in Czech"

As far as I know, it's an American song loosely based on a Czech carol (I assume with or without a different tune), that's a very different thing.

Yes, it was only an assumption based on the info we have and going back in time.

If we found Czech and/or German originals, it wouldn't mean skipping Davis role completely, but possibly make her version an adaptation instead of an original.

On the other hand, in the meantime having read the http://secondhandsongs.com/topic/42386 thread...

I have been trying to find out which was that original Czech choral, so far in vain (I did find a Czech adaptation of the "Carol of the Drum", though).

So, I'm giving up and in, also because of the credits / info Deutsche Grammophon gives for the Trapp Family track:

http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/de/cat/trackdetails?PRODUCT_NR=4745552&TRACK_I…

That at least changes both the recording and the 1st release dates we have so far...

It would be helpful to users (and editors!) if we could clarify the difference between "Carol of the Drum" and "Little Drummer Boy." Is there a relatively simple way to know which version to ascribe covers to? At the moment, I'm not convinced that we have the split of performances correct, although I have to admit that I'm coming at this with very little prior knowledge

I know Seb, I know and I repeat, comparing the three (Davis, Halloran, Onorati) there's absolutely no change in the lyrics. It seems the only thing Onorati did was change the title to Little Drummer Boy but took full credit (for the arrangement?)

But we can't ignore Halloran and/or Onorati when clearly BMI, Ascap & the likes do honor them, can we?

So in the meantime, just follow what's on the label, I guess ...

Tricky. I don't have strong feelings about who/how to credit, but it does seem problematic for a covers database to have two adaptations that are essentially the same. It also means the way that covers are subsequently allocated is all over the place. I might see if our resident Christmas songs expert (JoAnn) has a view too.

Not sure what 3 versions Walt is referring to. Halloran's version is currently credited as a performance of Davis' original. Which seems appropriate. I think the Simeone/Onorati version should also be an arrangement rather than an adaptation. I don't know all the ins and outs of arranging versus adapting, but the various versions sound pretty much the same. And as Walt has previously mentioned, there's no change in lyrics.

I think Walt's concern about honoring Halloran and Onorati as other sites can do can be addressed by including a comment "follows the Halloran/Onorati arrangement" when this is known. (Which it often isn't. I think a lot of times artists list Simeone/Onorati as the composer because that's a common assumption.)

All the subsequent language adaptations would have to be moved to adaptations of Davis' original too.

Ideally we can wrap this up soon as new Christmas music (and likely new versions of Little Drummer Boy) will start to be released next month.

Looks like we are all in agreement?

We just need to think of the best way to recognise that the Simeone/Onorati arrangement has been logged in the copyright databases as a new (or the original) version. I like the suggestion of JoAnn and others to mention this in the comments.

And I agree with JoAnn that we need to get a move on before the next wave of Christmas albums are released!

Move all language adaptations to Davis' original can be done with a few clicks... but what about all Onorati credited versions? there must be 200 plus versions to move one by one.

If we rename the Onorati version as the Davis original there will be many fewer covers to move

I read Sebastian's post a few times before understanding what he means. This seems like a clever fix. Although it still means moving 200 entries manually as there are about 200 entries linked to the Davis work. Still fewer than the 300+ linked to the Simeone/Onorati work.

Any objections to proceeding with these changes and closing this case?

Last updated by artsinspired on 2017-09-10 03:08:40 UTC - Show original message

As long as nobody finds out which Czech or Bohemian carol the song was based on, I think we should go with Davis'es as the root work- Does anybody want to further explain the Simeone/Onorati aiming to cash in situation?

JoAnn

I hadn't counted all the instrumentals. Rats. My idea does not help things that much.

But I'm happy to help with the move once all agreed If we all do 50, then it will share the pain. Maybe Mathieu can advise on a database trick to make the process easier for us.

Sebastian

Apologies if I've misunderstood, but can you go to https://secondhandsongs.com/performance-mass-edit?work=2845 (the Simeone/Onorati), tick the box at the top-left and change the work at the bottom? Maybe test on the test site first

Brilliant baggish! I tried it on the test site, and it works beautifully. This will be a much easier way to switch the performances.

Should I go ahead and make the changes?

Yes, JoAnn, please do. This looks awesome (thanks Jon & Mathieu).

So apparently I didn't look closely enough. With the mass performance edit we can add in "Carol of the Drum" but not delete "The Little Drummer Boy." So it looks like we will have to change these one by one unless Mathieu has a fancy trick. I'll send him a private message and ask.

Hmmm, yes, I see what you mean. I wonder if that might be a bug.

Also, I now see that I was being a bit reckless when I said "tick the box at the top-left" without any qualification, because there are some medleys in the list. I guess applying the mass edit to medleys will remove their medleyness because the other works will be removed. Medleys will have to be changed individually, and then "tick the box at the top-left" should work.

Did someone already do all the editing? Or which mass edit page should I be looking at?

Mathieu, please have a look at https://test.secondhandsongs.com/performance-mass-edit?work=2845

The first and last rows have already been tested and have "Carol of the Drum, Little Drummer Boy" in the Work column. If you find some rows with "Little Drummer Boy" only and try to change them to "Carol of the Drum", you will end up with "Carol of the Drum, Little Drummer Boy".

I did end up moving most of them individually, using it as an opportunity to update external links and stuff.

It would be good to see if we can develop an automated system in the future as we might have to do this again for other works.

JoAnn

Huge thanks for doing this. The versions page looks so much better now

Time to close this one out?

Sebastian

Thanks for the kudos, Sebastian. I think we just need to do two things to wrap up this thread.

1. Decide on a comment for the Harry Simeone Chorale version Little Drummer Boy about the copyright/arrangement issue

2. Decide what to do about the 4 unverified submissions currently tied to Little Drummer Boy. I don't think we can delete that work until we wrap up these submissions. Unless it's possible to move them to Carol of the Drum.

Last updated by artsinspired on 2017-10-06 01:20:41 UTC - Show original message

On your second point, it would indeed be good to delete the Simeone work if we can. Otherwise we will keep getting new performances misclassified, such as Little Drummer Boy. But like you, I'm not sure how we can do this!

Sebastian, I was just thinking about this recently and meaning to write and ask if you had any ideas yet! I wrote Mathieu to ask if we can move the submissions so that we can delete the Simeone/Onorati work. Will let you know what he says.

Separately, could you look at In the Bleak Midwinter? I added this recently, but think it might be another case where even though there's a copyright, it's better thought of as an arrangement. The music doesn't seem substantially different to Cranham. Would you mind having a listen? I'd love to have a second opinion on it.

Last updated by artsinspired on 2017-12-16 22:18:22 UTC - Show original message

JoAnn

This BBC article certainly suggests that the Darke version of In the Bleak Midwinter is just a different arrangement and not a new adaptation. But it's not really my area of expertise.

Perhaps one for the forums?

Sebastian

I've handled all the unverified submissions linked to the Simeone/Onorati as best I could. But I'm not able to delete it, as I get an error message. Any suggestions?

In the meantime, are you able to add a comment to the Carol of the Drum work to explain the Simeone/Onorati adaptation issue? It sounds like you know more about it than me

Thanks so much for clearing up the unverified submissions! I'm not really familiar with the Simeone/Onorati adaptation issue, but I came up with this:

Harry Onorati, the arranger for The Jack Halloran Singers' 1957 version, received a songwriting credit for his contribution. Onorati later shared the song with Harry Simeone, who recorded a version titled "The Little Drummer Boy" using the same arrangement, which was released in December 1958. Simeone also received a songwriting credits. The title "The Little Drummer Boy" has been most commonly used since then, and the Onorati/Simeone arrangement remains very popular.

This description looks ideal to me. Go for it

Okay, the comment has been added to the Carol of the Drum description.

Good work, everyone! Raise a glass of egg nog/mulled wine/Christmas beer! It took us less than 9 years to sort this out!!!