We’ve been running a story these past couple days about this new little invention the military is using. It’s a digital recorder to play taps at military funerals. Apparently, there’s a shortage of bugle players in the military, and families of deceased military personel found it insulting to have taps played on a stereo/boombox at the funeral. So, now, they have a digital player that fits in the bell of a bugle, and they hire someone to stand there and pretend to play the thing. Somehow they think this is better.
Personally, I find it just as insulting. I mean, if the family feels that their loved one deserves to have a person present to play taps, having someone stand there and pretend to play taps is just as bad as having someone stand there and hit play on a boombox. The only difference between the two is the stance at which he stands there, and the shape of the device playing the song. It’s a waste of fucking money to develope and buy these things when it takes little more than a couple weeks to teach someone to play taps on the horn.
I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t most military bases have a military band? Is it really that hard to find someone in the military that hasn’t at one point in time played the trumpet or french horn, or any other musical instrument? I own a bugle, it ain’t that difficult to play, and taps ain’t that hard. For all the military preaches about looking after their own, semper phi, band of brothers and all that jazz, you’d think they’d be a little more compasionate and put forth a little more effort than this.
The problem is one of supply and demand. The number of army bugle players is more-or-less a fixed number, but the number of recently-deceased vets has been growing rapidly, because all of the World War II vets are starting to die off. For the next several years the number of recently-deceased vets is going to be far, far larger than the number of military bugle players.
Taps is a deceptively simple little ditty. Under the right circumstances it can put a lump in the throat of the oldest, meanest master sergeant who ever rattled a bunk extender in a garbage can. The right circumstances are some old time western army post in the July heat when a tinge of light still clings to the northwestern horizon. If you are partying with a bunch of friends in a back yard on main post at Fort Riley after 30 days in the field when Tapsis sounded, a silence will descend on the most raucous BarBQ. When played right Taps will tear your heart out.
When played wrong, however, without the drawn out final notes, or at just slightly the wrong tempo, it is just awful. Were I to have to bury my father (again) the last thing I would want would be some 17-year old brass player from the local high school tooteling Taps in the style of the rap band of the moment. Give me a recording if that’s the only way I can have the call sounded with the respect and affection it deserves.
I would rather have Taps played on a boombox than watch someone hold a bugle to their lips while a recorder played the song. I appreciate the thought behind the latter idea, but recreating the sight of someone playing Taps isn’t the same as someone actually playing it.
It reminds me of musicians at weddings. If I wanted musicians and couldn’t have them, I would never play a recording and have a few friends in tuxes play air-violin. It would run counter to the solemn nature of the day.
Thats a very patronising attitude to have. I’m sure if the kid knew what it represented they would play it correctly with just as much dignity as a military player.
And I’m sure that most kids know that a funeral is a serious occasion.
I played at many funerals during my teens and I have never heard anyone play anything to disrespect or upset the family.
I’m not googling it correctly, but I thought there was a gentleman mobilizing bugle players throughout the country to be available for veterans’ funerals. Something tells me I read about it in Parade magazine.
Just sad – Taps is about the easiest thing to play on a brass horn that there is.
That said, as a former horn player myself, if there wasn’t an actual bugler available, I’d rather have it played on a stereo than stuck in a bugle. I hate seeing actors fake playing horns in movies and stuff, because it’s always so, so terrible. I certainly wouldn’t want someone doing that at my funeral.
The guy from the AF band at my dads funeral played it on a trumpet.
Taps shouldn’t be too tough for a good level HS player. True, it does require some breath control. Any series of long draw out notes does and you don’t want the kid gasping for air at the wrong moment during the last phrase.
What is really bad is when they have two players and they play it as a round, with one guy like 20 yards away, and the second guy is a little out of tune. Yikes!!
I have heard Taps butchered, though thankfully it wasn’t at a funeral; it was at school during an assembly by a student in band.
At my stepdad’s funeral recently, they had a recording over the house PA, which was tastefully disguised. I guess, if they couldn’t have fit a bugler in the car along with the color guard, it was appropriate enough. I have heard some horror stories though where they used the CD that has all the standard bugle calls on it and they accidentally played “Reveille” or “Mess Call”…
My dear grandpa, a veteran of WWII, died in Somerset, KY, two men from the VFW came to the funeral. They weren’t close friends of my grandpa, indeed I don’t know if they ever met, but they came, dressed in full uniform, to honor my grandpa with all the dignity and grace 70 year old men could muster.
When they switched on the boombox and Taps played, it was the most beautiful moment of the funeral. Would it have been more beautiful had it been a real bugler? Not really. My grandpa would have thought that that were making “too much of a fuss” over him. Rather, in this case, it was delivered in a way which best honored my grandpa: deeply humble yet dignified.
I think PunditLisa hit the nail on the head. At these funerals, the bugler always stays well away from the group anyhow. So long as you have the people folding the flag (or not, as the case may be) I can’t see how it would matter.
I have only partaken in one funeral while in the military, and while we had a real bugler from the band, we had a pre-folded flag to simply hand off instead of folding it. There really a lot of different ways of doing it.
Thanks for the link don’t ask. I passed it on to my brother, a horn player who bugled for us in the BSA. I sure he or someone he knows (especially his students) will volunteer.
