Typically, sad tunes are in minor keys, but Taps’ twenty-four notes comprise mostly a C-major chord in various inversions. How does it achieve that haunting eloquence of emotion for which it is famous?
In this case I would say it is not the lack of a minor key but the emotions associated with it. “Taps” is mostly heard at “endings”, the close of day, the close of a life. When it is at a funeral or memorial, we are recalling those we have lost, the pride, grief, respect, and so on.
This is exactly what I was going to say. Another thing that probably helps is that it is played fairly slow.
I think it would be interesting to conduct a test to see whether people hearing it for the first time under neutral circumstances thought it sounded mournful.
I think Lib and Baker are right. It sounds sad to us because we know you don’t play Taps on happy occasions. I doubt many neutral people would find the song particularly cheery, but maybe it wouldn’t seem as mournful.
I think quite the reverse. I believe that Taps was co-opted for sad events like funerals because it is intrinsically sad and mournful. I am not an American and when I was a kid and first heard it I felt the emotions with no cultural reference at all.
I would say it’s a combination of context and music.
It is slow, ponderous music that begins with a V-I resolution, which conveys finality.
The perfect tune to drive home the mood of a funeral gathering.
Actually, I disagree with Baker and agree with Don’t Ask. I think there is something about the tune that is intrinsically mournful.
I also think the tune itself is intrinsically mournful, and context only adds to that. I think any slow horn piece is going to sound sad.
If there’s anything intrinsically mournful about the tune, it’s just the speed. Play it fast, and Taps sounds like just another bugle fanfare.
And it wasn’t exactly co-opted to be used for endings. It is, in its origin, and end-of-day piece.
It’s not hard to see why that would be used for funerals.
There’s a lot of sloppily sentimental Internet glurge about how Taps came to be written.
This page appears to do the best job of debunking and telling the whole story.
Just for reference, when put in a “scale degree” system (which just labels the notes of a key from 1-7 beginning with the tonic and moving up), Taps is:
1-1-4, 1-4-6, 1-4-6-1-4-6-1-4-6, 4-6-1 (up the octave), 6-4-1 (down the octave), 1-1-4.
In solfege it would be:
do-do-fa, do-fa-la, do-fa-la-do-fa-la-do-fa-la, fa-la-do (high), la-fa-do (low), do-do-fa.
I think that’s right, at least.
I think the major=happy, minor=sad idea is overly simplistic, although it obviously is true more often then not.
There are lots of minor tunes that are quite jaunty, particularly in Eastern European and klezmer styles. Lizst’s famous Hungarian Rhapsody is a good example.
On the other hand, Taps would be pretty grim if played with a minor third! Try to hear it . . . it totally loses the aspect of consolation which is its most moving qualty.
When I was in Girl Scouts, we used to sing it at the end of our meetings. So I never thought of it as mournful or melancholy, more just, about it’s over, it’s ending, let’s go to sleep, that sort of thing.
Sort of “down time”.
Here’s the music. It looks like it starts on “so”.
It starts on “so” if you’re using a fixed do (on c), but I was using “movable do” and starting on the first note. Now that I think about it, though, it might be more appropriate to fix it on “4” in my scale, since that appears to be the tonic.
yeh Garfield-- what you called the 4 is actually the tonic.
I think the piece sounds sad only because of its slow tempo-- that and because we associate it with sad events.
In solfege it would unfortunately sound like you were singing “sodomy, sodomy, sodomy.”
I think it would be: so so do; so do me; so do me, so do me, so do me; do me so; me do so; so so do.
Incidentally, “Sodomy” is the first word of a song from a popular musical. Do you know the musical?
Intrinsically sad? I doubt it. Sad from connotation and connection? Sure. We have all heard Taps played in too many cemeteries on too many Memorial Days and at too many Veterans (Armistice) Day ceremonies to think of it as any thing other than funeral music. It wasn’t written as that. It was composed by General Dan Butterfield’s brigade bugler as a substitute for the US Army’s regulation “lay down and shut up” bugle call, also called Taps, for Taps To (quit selling beer to the troops) in something like 1862. It caught on and soon the whole Army of the Potomac was using it and it just went from there.
If you want to hear Taps at its best in a non-funereal setting you need to go to one of the old western post like Fort Riley, Kansas, or Fort Still, Oklahoma, and listen to it played and echo away to mark the end of the day. In that setting there can’t be much that is more restful and reassuring and not the least bit mournful.
I agree that’s its just because it’s played slow. If I whistle the notes it to myself with an upbeat tempo, it sounds almost like a charge.