I attended the funeral of my oldest brother just recently. He was a Navy veteran, as am I, and he had a color guard, and flag presentation; his daughter received his flag. Riflemen fired a salute, and the whole procession ended with the playing of taps. It was an emotional event for all of us, but I am glad I was able to attend. One thing about the ceremony, however, struck me as odd; the bugle call of taps didn’t seem right. The bugle player put the horn to his lips, and music came out, but I didn’t believe he was actually making the music. He didn’t make the puffy face that all horn players make, and his breathing didn’t match the music. The music was perfect, not a hitch or quiver, really professional quality; the bugler was not far from me, but this perfect music seemed to be coming from much farther away. I was certain I had just heard a recording, but how they had produced this illusion, I couldn’t tell. I revisited the issue recently, and I found out that most funerals where taps is played, for several years now, the music is produced by a digital player inside the horn. That perfect version of taps was a recording of the Army’s top bugler at Arlington Cemetery. The reason they do this is because there is a shortage of qualified buglers. It got so hard to get a live bugler they have given up trying.
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 03:19:30 +0000
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