Everything about Military Band totally explained
A
military band is a group of personnel that perform musical duties for military functions, usually for the
armed forces. A typical military band consists mostly of wind and percussion instruments. The
conductor of a band commonly bears the title of
Bandmaster or
Director of Music. The military band should be capable of playing ceremonial and
marching music, including the
national anthems and
patriotic songs of not only their own nation but others as well, both while stationary and as a
marching band. Military bands also play a part in military
funeral ceremonies.
There are two types of historical traditions in military bands. The first is military field music. This type of music includes
bugles (or other natural instruments such as
natural trumpets or
natural horns),
bagpipes, or
fifes and almost always
drums. This type of music was used to control troops on the battlefield as well as for entertainment. Following the development of instruments such as the
keyed trumpet or the
saxhorn family of brass instruments, a second tradition of the all brass military band was formed.
During the
American Civil War most Union regiments had both types of groups within the unit. However, due to changes in
military tactics by the end of
World War I field musical had been mostly phased out in favor of the brass bands. These performed in a concert setting for entertainment, as well as continued to perform drill and martial events. In the
United States, these bands were increased in instrumentation to include
woodwinds, which gives us the modern military band in the United States, as well as the basis for
high school and
college marching bands and
concert bands.
Field music is still popular at ceremonial functions, with many organizations such as police, fire, and veterans groups maintaining pipe and drum, fife and drum, or drum and bugle corps.
In the
United States Army, the band is attached to the headquarters element and one of its duties is to provide security for the command post. Regular
British Army musicians are all members of the
Corps of Army Music. As a secondary role they're trained to work in NBC 'Casualty Decontamination Areas'. Modern-day military musicians often perform a variety of other styles of music in different ensembles, from
chamber music to
rock and roll. During World War II, The Royal Air Force Dance Orchestra, better known as
The Squadronaires, served to entertain troops and support morale.
In the
United Kingdom, massed military bands perform at
Trooping the Colour, an annual ceremonial held every June on
Horse Guards Parade to mark the official
Queen's Birthday celebrations.
The term "military band" may also be applied to civilian
marching bands that play military-style music, march in mostly straight-line formations and have similar instrumentation.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Military Band'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://military_band.totallyexplained.com">Military band Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
