First it was synths, then drum machines, now...

[ITGITC]

This...

 

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2004/TECH/06/22/digital.taps.ap/story.digital.bugle.ap.jpg

 

I really can't comment since I play a synth and own (notice that I didn't say play a drum machine).

 

HERE\'S the full story about this digital horn!

 

Is There Gas In The Car?

[RABid]

(sigh)

 

I wonder what happens when someone starts to play at a funeral and finds the battery is dead?

 

Robert

[Lee Flier]

Wow...

 

A digital rendition "would make the honor seem phony," he said. "When my father goes, he'll get a gun salute. I wouldn't feel right about them having seven mannequins going out in the field shooting fake guns."

Hard to know whether to laugh or cry about this, eh? I must say I hadn't thought about the number of dying WWII and Korean era vets and the fact that there might not be enough buglers for them. The article says there's a guy recruiting civilian buglers to help out, so if you can play the bugle, here's your gig!

[RABid]

It's an easy song to play on trumpet and a good exercise. All lips, no valves.

 

Robert

[Alon]

Well, it sure beats using a boombox, which the majority of funerals are using, when they can't get the "real" thing.

 

alon

[Lee Flier]

Originally posted by Rabid:

(sigh)

 

I wonder what happens when someone starts to play at a funeral and finds the battery is dead?

Yeah, notice in the article it said they'd been playing a recording out of a boom box at some services and that sometimes the boom box would go on the fritz.

[Kendrix]

On a related point.

 

My son actually checked out the militarty as an option. Fortunately he didnt go there.

However, when reviewing the options for training and for job slots in the military I was amazed at the number of musical related jobs listed.

There was an individual job listing for each of the instruments in a military band.

 

Apparently, historically bands are a big part of a military operation -for "drumming up" morale ( pun intended) as folks prepared for battle.

 

I recently learned that one of the sax manufactiurers was headed by a guy that became a congressman. Way back - he managed to pass federal legislation providing that all military units should have a band. ( pork barrel anyone?)

 

Apparently this legacy persists.

[henrysb3]

I'd do it if asked, as a tribute to my dad. It would be a good reason to keep my trumpet lip in shape. My dad died fourteen years ago and tears still well up when I think of him. We found out later that he could have had a Marine honor guard with taps at his funeral.

 

Sorry, I don't understand how to do hyperlinks, but here goes:

 

My Dad

 

Love you Dad. Missed you on fathers's day.

 

Henry

[LiveMusic]

Hey, when I started out in band, I played trumpet! Well, actually we called it a cornet. I don't know what the difference is. Anyway, wonder how much a real live bugler gets paid? I'm serious. Hey, I might could learn that song.

 

EDIT: Oops, that Bugles Across America deal gets volunteers to do it.

[Raymar]

Maybe it should be a requirement to be able to play taps flawlessly in order to enlist.

 

steve

[fantasticsound]

Oops! This should make more sense. Somehow I inserted my response into Gassy's quote.

 

Originally posted by Is There Gas in the Car?:

This...

 

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2004/TECH/06/22/digital.taps.ap/story.digital.bugle.ap.jpg

 

I really can't comment since I play a synth and own (notice that I didn't say play a drum machine).

 

HERE\'S the full story about this digital horn!

 

Is There Gas In The Car?

Whadda ya mean you don't play drum machine? What's with the rolleyes? I find it's those who do play the drum machine that make far better programmers than those who rely on loop recording to create their drum loops. Of course, it's pretty hard to play any of the new ones because the buttons have been made so small, but my old Korg DDD-5 gets played, Tom.

 

So Phhhphphhphhhtt on you!

 

On a serious note, I wouldn't want anything but a real player, were it my family. However, I understand the difficulty having enough players for each funeral.

[ITGITC]

Neil, ya bastid! How are ya?

 

OK, here's the story... I purchased a drum machine. At the time, I had a drummer-friend who could play his electronic drum kit and record it with SONAR. I SWEAR he sounded so natural working with MIDI drum tracks in that way.

 

I bought the Roland drum machine for the internal sounds. At the time, I was using my Kurz 1000PX, Kurz K2000, and a DX7 and Cakewalk. He and I had worked with Cakewalk since it was released as a DOS application. Anyway, I needed the extra polyphony that the drum machine offered so I could play back all those MIDI tracks at one time.

 

One thing that spoils a recording for me is when I hear a drum machine - and it SOUNDS like a drum machine. I'm talking about jazz, pop, rock... not other genres.

 

So, I don't play a drum machine, Neil. Not the little buttons, anyway. And frankly, I've never been able to play or program the drum tracks as good as my drummer-friend.

 

The older I get, the more I just can't tolerate the limitations of some MIDI programming. It doesn't HAVE to be bad, but much of it that I find on the 'net really is. And most of the time, it is most apparent in the MIDI drum tracks that have been quantized to death. Solo horn tracks can be another source of irritation in MIDI music files. It's not just the character of the General MIDI horn program, but much of it is the timing! I think a lot of us gave up on MIDI, for the most part, when computers got faster and hard disk drives got bigger. Then, we started recording audio tracks instead of recording mostly MIDI parts. But it was fun and a great learning experience.

 

Now, what were we talking about, Neil?

 

I'm STILL going to get to Nashville before too long. I'll give ya a call!

 

Tom

[deanmass]

OK...Now I am getting pissed. They might as well make a rectal adapter for that P.O.S.

 

Bend over and honk ala' Monty Python...

[fantasticsound]

Just giving you grief, Charlie Brown... er.. I mean Tom!

 

My old writing partner didn't learn to play drums well at all until years after learning to program really natural sounding drum loops in drum machines. Mostly by playing as much of the rhythms live on the buttons.

[DC]

My dad had a military funeral. The guy that played taps was unreal. It's amazing to me what a real musician can do with those four notes. I don't think just anyone could do that song justice.

 

Also found out what a 21 gun salute is. Seven soldiers shot three times together.

 

I had no idea that a military funeral is such a profound experience.

[ernest828]

The reality is most people won`t know the difference. In the end its gives a grieving family what they wanted. I do alot of funerals (I`m an organist), about 100 a year and during that time its often the little things that comfort a family, a simple song, a flag on a casket, a bagpiper, etc...its comforting and there is a need for these buglers with the overwhelming WWII vets buying the farm, I mean Greatest Generation.

 

Ernest

[Tedster]

Originally posted by DC:

My dad had a military funeral. The guy that played taps was unreal. It's amazing to me what a real musician can do with those four notes. I don't think just anyone could do that song justice.

 

Also found out what a 21 gun salute is. Seven soldiers shot three times together.

 

I had no idea that a military funeral is such a profound experience.

My dad as well. And, my mother, as a result of her never remarrying. Last summer, we took her urn to Arlington, VA, to be interred with my dad at Arlington National Cemetery. We drove out to the gravesite, Mom's ashes were with the funeral director. At the gravesite, two soldiers in dress blues (the same uniform worn my the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier) marched snappily to the limo, removed the urn, and in parade drill style took the urn to the gravesite. While we were there, there was another military funeral going on. I don't remember much about my Dad's funeral (I was quite young at the time)...and it really choked me up to see this. Amazing.

[DJDM]

As a former trumpet player and current keyboardist and drum machine programmer/player (you can play them gas ) I find this highly amusing.

 

That being said I do think that a bugler adds a very powerful statement at a funeral and I don't think I would want a synth or recording coming out of a bugle at my final event. Go the distance or stay at home under those circumstances. I would prefer the music be live at the actual if possible. But it does not have to be a bugler. A good player of any discipline would be OK too. The music at the wake could be recorded.

[fantasticsound]

Originally posted by DJDM:

...That being said I do think that a bugler adds a very powerful statement at a funeral and I don't think I would want a synth or recording coming out of a bugle at my final event. Go the distance or stay at home under those circumstances. I would prefer the music be live at the actual if possible. But it does not have to be a bugler. A good player of any discipline would be OK too. The music at the wake could be recorded.

The bugle is intrinsically tied to the playing of revelie, taps, and other military musical messages. For most soldiers I think you would be hard pressed to find one who would accept taps played on anything but a bugle. It seems as wrong to me as the national anthem being played on a toy piano for, say, an Olympic gold medalist.