Tag Archives: military bands

Civil War field music: fifes and drums

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Drum Corps of the 93rd New York Infantry, photo taken in August of 1863 near Bealton, Virginia.

Military music during the American Civil War was a blend of old and new instruments and ensembles. Brass bands like the 26th North Carolina Regiment Band or the 1st Brigade Band, Wisconsinrepresented fairly recent instrumental combinations. The bugle was also a recent invention. Fife and drum bands, on the other hand, reached their heyday in the Revolutionary War and saw their last military action in the Civil War. The United States Marine Band was established by an Act of Congress in 1798. Don’t be thinking John Philip Sousa just yet. The original band comprised 32 fifers and drummers. An army … Continue reading →

A Wisconsin band in the Civil War: 1st Brigade Band of Brodhead

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Members of the Brodhead band, with leader E. O. Kimberly at top left.

When the Civil War started, the two sides suddenly required armies, and army regiments needed bands. I have already written about the 26th North Carolina Regiment Band, which grew out of one of the oldest musical institutions in the country. Brodhead, Wisconsin had existed less than a decade before its band joined the war effort. The 1st Brigade Band, as it eventually became known, got off to a rocky start, but earned an excellent reputation by the end of the war. The rapid growth of towns like Brodhead In the decade before the Civil War, railroads spread across the country, … Continue reading →

The Salem Band at war: 26th North Carolina Regiment Band

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Members of the Salem Brass Band on furlough in summer 1862. Image courtesy of the Moravian Music Foundation, Winston-Salem, NC.

Upon the firing on Fort Sumter, armies on both sides of the Civil War began to gear up for a fight. In the North, at least, the announcement that some famous band would be attached to a particular regiment aided recruitment. The South, too, had its famous bands, including one in Salem, North Carolina, which eventually became attached to the 26th North Carolina Regiment. The Salem Band, which still exists in what has become Winston-Salem, is one of the oldest musical institutions in the country. It began as a quartet of trombones in that Moravian settlement in 1771. It expanded … Continue reading →

March forth! A brief look at American marches

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March music has played a huge role in American popular culture. What’s a parade without marching bands? Or half time at a school football game? Would anyone want to listen to a Fourth of July concert, or a concert on any other patriotic occasion, without lots of marches? Is it even possible to imagine a band concert without at least one march? The modern wind band began at the time of the French Revolution. After that, European nations developed infantry bands and mounted cavalry bands. Some nations developed highly centralized policies for the instrumentation of these bands. In any case, … Continue reading →

Brass Bands of the American Civil War

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I like to look around on YouTube from time to time. I recently typed “brass band” into the search engine, and a video called “Brass Bands of the Civil War” came up on the first page of results. I wondered how that subject could possibly work in a video. I have seen “videos” with a single photograph and music playing in the background. This one has a collage of wonderful photos and drawings while the Federal City Brass Band plays on period instruments. At the time of the Civil War, brass bands ruled. Few bands included woodwinds. As the photographs … Continue reading →

Concert bands and big bands

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I used to play summers with the Wheaton Municipal Band in Wheaton, Illinois. The last concert of the season is always “big band” music, which means that most of the 90 members are finished and only 17 people play that concert. It has always struck me as funny that after a season of full band concerts, the one called the big band concert involves only about a fifth as many players. The difference in names turns out to be a matter of history and tradition. During the French Revolution, Bernard Sarrette took charge of training military musicians and assembled a … Continue reading →

Military band intonation

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According to orchestral conductor Walter Legge, a number of British military bands were summoned to Drury Lane Theatre during the winter of 1943-44 to audition for a long overseas tour. It was icy outside, and the theater was not heated, and yet all the bands played with impeccable intonation. At lunchtime, Legge commented to the band directors that he had conducted some of the world’s best orchestras under much better conditions, and yet had not been able to achieve such good results. One of the band directors reminded him of something he could never obtain: “You would have no intonation … Continue reading →