2 - Civilian Performers, Professional and Amateur

Summary

Abstract

Chapter Two focuses on civilian performers, both amateur and professional. Civilian performers had to adapt to various audiences, playing spaces, and performance conditions, and they were envoys of English culture when presented to dignitaries and esteemed guests. Chapter Two discusses formal and professional players, as well as crew members who engaged in more leisurely shipboard recreation, including instrumental performance, singing, and play-acting.

Keywords: civilian performers, shipboard music, maritime theatre, ship playing, singing, dancing

Civilian performers on early English voyages are the broadest and most diverse group in the two major categories I have distinguished in this book. Unlike naval musicians, civilian performers were generally not given an official title, nor were they enlisted like trumpeters, drummers, and fifes to join English commanders in sea combat. Still, civilian performers journeyed on many kinds of expeditions: exploring, greeting, pirating, trading, and colonizing. On voyages from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, there were singers, dancers, instrumental musicians, and actors aboard. Though there were mainly amateur singers, dancers, and actors, the instrumental musicians aboard ships, including “still” or string players and woodwinds, were mainly professional performers, indicated if listed as “Musician” in the logbook.

Amateur performers recruited for shipboard labour or sea trading played during recreational times, while professional musicians were recruited from a pool and played during meals, recreations, religious rituals, and other formal occasions. According to Woodfield, they were hired “as part of the retinue of the leader of the expedition.” Additionally, once musicians were selected for a voyage, they “could expect to receive payment for the journey to the port of embarkation and during any delays caused by bad weather.” Most professional musicians served on the flagship, the largest and most accommodating for performance. Few records of professional musicians’ payment have survived, including those of Simon Wood, who joined the Drake–Hawkins voyage in 1595 to the West Indies. The Exchequer Accounts lists his pay at “xij^d per diem.” Other musicians may have also received “xij^d,” or twelve pence, per day during the voyage. This voyage also had an unprecedented nineteen-strong consort of musicians. However, the fleet was also quite large, comprising of twenty-seven ships and 2,500 total personnel. On an average voyage, there would have been between two and six professional musicians.