Playing "Taps"

[matye]

I just found this story in the Memorial Day edition of the Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...ml?hpid=artslot

Edited May 26, 2008 by matye

[Martybucs]

Played Taps myself at a memorial service yesterday and at a parade on Saturday.

Almost everyone plays it as a series of dotted eigth note followed by a sixteenth. Here's the official version to be played slowly and with emotion.

[84BDsop]

Played Taps myself at a memorial service yesterday and at a parade on Saturday.

Almost everyone plays it as a series of dotted eigth note followed by a sixteenth. Here's the official version to be played slowly and with emotion.

I tend to play it freely....the tempo changes depending on whetre in the tune I am...I tend to drage out the last couple of bars....it's so slow it might as well be a dotted half/quarter pattern.

One of the most telling quotes for me from the linked article: "I guess that's part of it, too," he said. "When you have a live bugler behind the horn instead of some recording, it's not going to be perfect. That's what makes it human, what gives it meaning."

I always frack one note when i play it....usually in the middle somewhere...the one note I DON'T want to frack is the top G.

I told my wife that when I go, I want a real person pushing air and maybe fracking...that we mean far more to me -- as a military vet and a musician -- than the perfection of a recording.

'Course, if the guy playing for me fracked like 89 BD, they'd probably hrear my ghost lauhging at the irony.

[josh161]

I played it this morning with my high school band. I had been marching the school's marching tuba. When we stopped grabbed my band directors flugelhorn to play it. Fracked one note... i don't even remember where it was. Im just glad it wasn't the top D. ( we played it using the 1 and 3 finger combo. The other trumpet player was kinda weak). Its really the emotion in it that makes it good though. Notes are notes. Emotion is music

[OperationTaps]

I just found this story in the Memorial Day edition of the Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...ml?hpid=artslot

Excellent article. It was good to see the stats; 1800 a day, 657,000 per year, 500 active duty buglers ...

As drum corps people, we feel pretty guilty about not volunteering on Memorial Day. We need to remember that feeling all year.

[Martybucs]

I truly do not like to play taps.

I feel it is a great honor. I am pleased to be of service, but I always get choked up as I play it and have so many mixed emotions involved as I'm playing it. It's kind of hard for me to get through it.

I know I should blank that out and just play it.

[84BDsop]

I truly do not like to play taps.

I feel it is a great honor. I am pleased to be of service, but I always get choked up as I play it and have so many mixed emotions involved as I'm playing it. It's kind of hard for me to get through it.

I know I should blank that out and just play it.

I try....it's difficult, tho.

The last guy I played for had been a B-17 ball turret gunner over Germany....flying both before and after Alied bombers had fighter cover over the Fatherland.

He had never told his family what he did during the war....they just knew that he flew in combat.

It fell to me to tell them that it took a very VERY brave kid to fight a war in a 4-5 foot steel and plixiglass sphere, with no 'chute, hanging out the underside of the place with notning but 6 miles of air under your ###, isolated from the rest of the crew except for the intercom, almost laying on your back, and shooting 2 50cal machine guns beyween your ankles...and at the same time being shot at by some guy in a ME-109 or FW-190 (never mind flax bursts).

Very emotional for me....probably why I don't do them anymore.

[loud_lancer]

I've played Taps many times over the years while in college and can honestly say it's the only job I've ever had where I knew if I did it right when people cried.

I prefer to play it in a lower key, starting on an F, all first valve. It keeps it from sounding too bright, and I have the added bonus of not worrying about cracking the high G.

In fact, I just played it last week at my father's funeral. Extremely difficult, yes, but there was absolutely no way I was going to let them use a tape. Kinda freaked the military reps out when the family refused the recording and told them we have our own bugler.

[OperationTaps]

I've played Taps many times over the years while in college and can honestly say it's the only job I've ever had where I knew if I did it right when people cried.

I prefer to play it in a lower key, starting on an F, all first valve. It keeps it from sounding too bright, and I have the added bonus of not worrying about cracking the high G.

In fact, I just played it last week at my father's funeral. Extremely difficult, yes, but there was absolutely no way I was going to let them use a tape. Kinda freaked the military reps out when the family refused the recording and told them we have our own bugler.

Playing for your own father has to be the toughest. Bravo Loud Lancer.

We were blessed to have dear friend David Seeley (Empire, Brigs, Cru) play for our father.

[skluyuk]

I was honored to play for the observance at Los Angeles National Cemetery yesterday. I joined a couple of young men from USC and we did an echo rendition. Very solemn and very appreciated by the families in attendance.

If you have not taken advantage of contributing to our veterans in this very small way, I urge you to step up to the plate. The truth is that you will receive more of a benefit from doing it than anyone else there.