Taps
03/02/15 05:19
The organization of any large group of people is a challenge. In the days before public address systems, radios and other forms of mass communication, the limits of the human voice were soon evident. A single voice doesn’t carry to thousands or more assembled, especially if they are engaged in the routine business of preparing meals, caring for equipment and the like. Add in a few horses and other animals and it is clear that a system has to be developed to create order.
From deep in the history of large military operations, a system of bugle calls was developed to communicate essential information to the troops. A bugle call is a simple tune, composed of very few notes. Technically, the call contains notes from a single overtone series. Thus it can be played on an instrument without valves, such as a bugle, or on a valved instrument, such as a trumpet, without changing the valves.
Drums and other loud musical instruments have also been used for communication in the noise and confusion of a battlefield. Bugle calls were also used in naval warfare situations as a signal to supplement signal flags to communicate between different ships.
Bugle calls were developed to signal the changes in a normal day as well as to issue commands in battle. There were signals to wake the troops in the morning, to call them to assemble, to warn them of the visit of a senior officer, to give directions to turn left or right or stay put.
There are a few bugle calls that have made their way into civilian use and are clearly recognized when used in a particular context. For example, “First Call,” the signal that personnel should prepare to assemble for a formation, is used at the start of horse races, where it is known as “Call to the Post.”
In the evening, when it was time to go to bed, bugle calls were used to signal the end of the day. “Sunset,” which is very close to “Retreat” was used to signal the end of the official day. It meant that it was time to prepare to sleep. The call is written into the musical score of “The damnation of Faust” by Hector Berlioz.
When all is done and it is time to extinguish all lights and go to sleep, the buler sounds “Taps.” The four tones of the song, with its repetition before rising to a single high note, echoed by the starting notes, is known around the world.
We, of course, have another association with the bugle call. I know. I played the trumpet as a youth and continue to play it today. I’ve raised my instrument and sounded taps at many a graveside. I’ve called taps for veterans of the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Th Korean War, The Vietnam War, and for those who served in times of peace as well. I’ve heard it played at dozens of other funerals that I have attended as a mourner or an officiant.
I know the power of the simple tune to bring tears to the eyes of those who are grieving. I know the power of the tune to bring memories to mind that were once forgotten.
Music has power to communicate when other means fail us.
And, as has been famously known since the burial of President John F. Kennedy, a bugler can play with the tears streaming down his or her cheeks.
Last night I heard taps played in a different, though obviously related, context. We were attending the opening performance of “Crisis” the latest original one-act play in a series of award-winning dramas produced by the staff and students of Central High School. “Crisis” explores the complex and world-changing events of the 1960’s with characterizations of four iconic American heroes: John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gus Grissom. Although those events, and those deaths, were separated in context, they all were a part of the American psyche of the decade.
It would be a disservice to try to describe the play, which is complex and powerful and beautiful and inspiring all at once. I simply want to reflect on a simple aspect of the performance.
The young man who stood at stage center and played taps flawlessly on an instrument that he didn’t have time to warm up or prepare was not born in the 1960’s, or the ’70’s or the ’90’s. He probably has very few conscious memories of any events in the 20th century. He is a child of this new century. But that is true of the entire cast. They know these figures, who were the heros of my childhood only by studying them in history books - or, more likely, though the use of the Internet and Wikipedia.
They don’t know that there used to be moments when the President went live on all three networks at once, which meant that every channel on the television had the same program at the same time. They don’t remember how we got up early in the morning to watch the liftoff of a Mercury Capsules atop a Redstone Rocket. Gus Grissom was the second US citizen to go to space. We watched the coverage of that entire 15-minute flight, from liftoff to splashdown. The craft flooded and became too heavy for the helicopter to lift it to the deck of the waiting ship. Grissom nearly drowned before he was rescued. We were invested in this astronaut from that time on until he died in the accidental fire in an Apollo capsule during a pre-launch test six years later.
What those young actors don’t know is what it was like to have lived through the story that they were telling. Even the directors and teachers who assisted the students in their dramatic presentation are too young to have lived through that remarkable decade in the history of this nation and the world.
But they told the story in a way that assured me that it has not lost - that it will not be lost even when taps is played for the last of those of us who did live in those days. Their idealism was shining through the presentation. Their vision of a world at peace was as bright as ours once was.
When I was their age, we were living through the days they portrayed. Now they take their place as the leaders. Something tells me that we are in good hands.
From deep in the history of large military operations, a system of bugle calls was developed to communicate essential information to the troops. A bugle call is a simple tune, composed of very few notes. Technically, the call contains notes from a single overtone series. Thus it can be played on an instrument without valves, such as a bugle, or on a valved instrument, such as a trumpet, without changing the valves.
Drums and other loud musical instruments have also been used for communication in the noise and confusion of a battlefield. Bugle calls were also used in naval warfare situations as a signal to supplement signal flags to communicate between different ships.
Bugle calls were developed to signal the changes in a normal day as well as to issue commands in battle. There were signals to wake the troops in the morning, to call them to assemble, to warn them of the visit of a senior officer, to give directions to turn left or right or stay put.
There are a few bugle calls that have made their way into civilian use and are clearly recognized when used in a particular context. For example, “First Call,” the signal that personnel should prepare to assemble for a formation, is used at the start of horse races, where it is known as “Call to the Post.”
In the evening, when it was time to go to bed, bugle calls were used to signal the end of the day. “Sunset,” which is very close to “Retreat” was used to signal the end of the official day. It meant that it was time to prepare to sleep. The call is written into the musical score of “The damnation of Faust” by Hector Berlioz.
When all is done and it is time to extinguish all lights and go to sleep, the buler sounds “Taps.” The four tones of the song, with its repetition before rising to a single high note, echoed by the starting notes, is known around the world.
We, of course, have another association with the bugle call. I know. I played the trumpet as a youth and continue to play it today. I’ve raised my instrument and sounded taps at many a graveside. I’ve called taps for veterans of the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Th Korean War, The Vietnam War, and for those who served in times of peace as well. I’ve heard it played at dozens of other funerals that I have attended as a mourner or an officiant.
I know the power of the simple tune to bring tears to the eyes of those who are grieving. I know the power of the tune to bring memories to mind that were once forgotten.
Music has power to communicate when other means fail us.
And, as has been famously known since the burial of President John F. Kennedy, a bugler can play with the tears streaming down his or her cheeks.
Last night I heard taps played in a different, though obviously related, context. We were attending the opening performance of “Crisis” the latest original one-act play in a series of award-winning dramas produced by the staff and students of Central High School. “Crisis” explores the complex and world-changing events of the 1960’s with characterizations of four iconic American heroes: John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gus Grissom. Although those events, and those deaths, were separated in context, they all were a part of the American psyche of the decade.
It would be a disservice to try to describe the play, which is complex and powerful and beautiful and inspiring all at once. I simply want to reflect on a simple aspect of the performance.
The young man who stood at stage center and played taps flawlessly on an instrument that he didn’t have time to warm up or prepare was not born in the 1960’s, or the ’70’s or the ’90’s. He probably has very few conscious memories of any events in the 20th century. He is a child of this new century. But that is true of the entire cast. They know these figures, who were the heros of my childhood only by studying them in history books - or, more likely, though the use of the Internet and Wikipedia.
They don’t know that there used to be moments when the President went live on all three networks at once, which meant that every channel on the television had the same program at the same time. They don’t remember how we got up early in the morning to watch the liftoff of a Mercury Capsules atop a Redstone Rocket. Gus Grissom was the second US citizen to go to space. We watched the coverage of that entire 15-minute flight, from liftoff to splashdown. The craft flooded and became too heavy for the helicopter to lift it to the deck of the waiting ship. Grissom nearly drowned before he was rescued. We were invested in this astronaut from that time on until he died in the accidental fire in an Apollo capsule during a pre-launch test six years later.
What those young actors don’t know is what it was like to have lived through the story that they were telling. Even the directors and teachers who assisted the students in their dramatic presentation are too young to have lived through that remarkable decade in the history of this nation and the world.
But they told the story in a way that assured me that it has not lost - that it will not be lost even when taps is played for the last of those of us who did live in those days. Their idealism was shining through the presentation. Their vision of a world at peace was as bright as ours once was.
When I was their age, we were living through the days they portrayed. Now they take their place as the leaders. Something tells me that we are in good hands.