Taps

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Info about the audio file
Taps in Arlington .

The trumpet signal Taps (see Zapfenstreich ) is an integral part of the military funeral and burial ceremony in the USA . The almost one-minute signal call with 24 tones gains its solemn character through the nature of the presentation. Due to its frequent use in cinema and television films that deal with the American military , Taps is also well known internationally. Usually the piece is voiced by a solo musician on the trumpet, but the use of a bagpipe is also quite common .

Taps has its origins in the American Civil War (1861–1865). In 1862 it was created under the leadership of the US Northern States General Daniel Adams Butterfield and his trumpeter Oliver Willcox Norton as a signal for night rest, i.e. as a tattoo signal . In the same year, Taps was played at the funeral service for fallen US soldiers and retained this role. In 1891, Taps was officially included in the service regulations of the US armed forces as a signal call at military memorial services .

Taps is also sung as a multi -stanza song, for example in the evening with boy scouts, whereby the first and most famous stanza is:

Day is done, gone the sun, From the lake, from the hills, from the sky, All is well, safely rest, God is nigh.

Because of the simple harmonic and melodic structure (at the beginning a fourth up, then completing the notes of a broken major chord upwards) the piece was picked up and processed by popular music early on. The first six notes are identical, followed by harmonically similar sequences in the piece Il Silenzio , but without plagiarizing the original .

At the burial of the murdered President John F. Kennedy in Arlington National Cemetery , the trumpeter Keith Clark suffered a sigh-like misery on the sixth tone due to the November cold and the salute fired behind him for television pictures, which was taken by many as a moving expression of sadness .

Individual evidence

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-BhvA5HzEU
  2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dQ1k9VriEI
  3. United States Navy Band: Taps. February 25, 2012, accessed November 12, 2015 .
  4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2h3z3Jqqo0&feature=youtu.be&t=31
  5. http://tapsbugler.com/a-bugle-call-remembered/2/

Web links