ABSTRACT
Music has been part of military culture since the beginning of time. The martial drums, the trumpets and the ram’s horns go back way before the time of Joshua. Although many of us who play horns feel that those walls of Jericho were about to tumble down anyway or those shofar players must have had the strongest set of “chops” in antiquity; nevertheless, history is resplendent with descriptions of music that stirred men’s blood to warlike passion. The bagpipe is still a stirring sound, the fife and drum and the image of the Spirit of ’76 are still part of our popular culture. In America, much of this martial music has been transferred to stimulating the aggressive instincts of youngsters on the football field. The fatalities are considerably fewer, but the music isn’t much more sophisticated.
