Playing Taps

[Thrashed]

I have th bugle App on my iPhone. Really, I do.

[spaatzmom]

Something that has been instilled in the cadets that attend NHGA, is that there are no do overs with funerals, so do it right or not at all.  The last memory that the family has of their loved one is this service.  I would certainly rather have and electronic bugle or as last resort a boom box over someone who is not proficient in this song.  Of course my first preference would be a live performance without errors, but that does not happen often enough.

[SarDragon]

I played tuba in HS. Some years later, I bought a trumpet, with the goal of learning to play it. I didn't do very well, because of the difference in the size of the mouthpieces. A trumpet mouthpiece will fit inside a tuba mouthpiece.

As for taps, I could kinda play it. It's only four notes - C, G, C1, G1. Or maybe it's G, C1, G1, C2. In any event, the highest note of the four is the hardest one. The purity and clarity of the notes is also difficult for something that needs to right, right away.

[Major Carrales]

I played tuba in HS. Some years later, I bought a trumpet, with the goal of learning to play it. I didn't do very well, because of the difference in the size of the mouthpieces. A trumpet mouthpiece will fit inside a tuba mouthpiece.

As for taps, I could kinda play it. It's only four notes - C, G, C1, G1. Or maybe it's G, C1, G1, C2. In any event, the highest note of the four is the hardest one. The purity and clarity of the notes is also difficult for something that needs to right, right away.

Yes, and tuba requires more vibration of the lips.  The biggest adjuectment on TAPS is, as you indicate, the highest note.  Adjusting the ambature  and is critical.  Ambature exercise is key to hitting it.  Its not that you can hit the note, it playing them consistantly and with a solid consistant tone through out.  Reguires practice.

[Major Lord]

I am pretty sure a standard bugle is a natural Bb instrument, and its pentatonic ( five notes) Although a skilled player can tease it outside the range a little bit.

Major Lord

[Major Carrales]

I am pretty sure a standard bugle is a natural Bb instrument, and its pentatonic ( five notes) Although a skilled player can tease it outside the range a little bit.

Major Lord

The focus of good bugling for ceremony is more about tone and dynamics.  The "basics" are just the start of it...not the end.

[biomed441]

^^^ agreed.  Tone is something that is developed by the musician, not the instrument.  A well trainined bugler can make a $100 dollar instrument sound like a $5000 one.

I've been playing trumpet for over 15 years Bb, C, piccolo trumpets, flugal horn.. you name it and I've used it in some form in concert or on the field.  Last year I was given the honor of playing taps during encampment.  To answer the origional question; to just pick up a bugle and learn taps isn't exactly easy.  I still concider it one of the most difficult pieces to play, not because of its technical difficulty (its not difficult on paper), but because to pay it right, the bugler needs to have a very strong and developed embouchure and that takes some time to develop properly. Tone as well is very important as mentioned above. It can also be a challenge, TAPS especially because of how well recognized it is, and even the slightest mistake will be noticed to untrained ears. 

I wouldn't discourage anyone from trying to learn a bugle or trumpet though. Its a fun instrument to play, and if you take the time and care to really become proficient with it; its a treat especially if performing TAPS.   

[a2capt]

Heh.. a tuba. Where was it.. oh, yeah- while we were in the staging area for the Swallows Parade, one of the high school bands that was near us was staging up and while they appeared to be sorta practicing, the only tuba player actually doing anything..

OMG. I'd swear if it were people, it would be a murder scene. Every time they did whatever it was they were doing it hit like a knife covered in awful. Made you want to just cringe. I looked over and saw their entry # and that it was a good 50 or so ahead of us. Thank goodness. Ugh. Just like a bugle, only 10 times as easy to screw up and make people hurl.

[Major Lord]

A tuba would be a strangely ironic instrument to use to play Taps at one of our corpulent Senior Member's funerals........Have to keep this in mind. Personally, I just want a piper.

Major Lord

[Major Carrales]

A tuba would be a strangely ironic instrument to use to play Taps at one of our corpulent Senior Member's funerals........Have to keep this in mind. Personally, I just want a piper.

Major Lord

Pipers and the pipes themselves...despite the huge "popular" prejudice againt them...are FIERCE COOL!!!

[♠SARKID♠]

+1000^

[The CyBorg is destroyed]

My wife is a very good trumpet player - she was first chair in high school.

She plays occasionally at our church.

I am also a guitarist; in fact I used to teach.

It amazes me what brass players in general can do...especially with a bugle, because you don't have valves or anything.  Virtually everything is down to the bugler's lips and lungs.

There used to be a Bugling merit badge long ago when I was a Boy Scout.  I'm not sure if there still is.  I can only think of one guy who had it, and he was an Eagle Scout.

Props to what Major Lord said about pipes...always stirs my Scots-Irish blood to hear them...

[♠SARKID♠]

Bugler merit badge is still around, one of the first ones I got when I got in to scouts.