BAND, MILITARY. In the army service, an organized body of musicians, instrumentalists, under a bandmaster or chief musician, generally assigned to each regiment of cavalry and in fant•y, and to the headquarters of the branches of the service. Military bands of one form or are coeval with military bodies them selves. Every ancient nation had its peculiar music, instruments, and national songs. If tra dition assigns the reed, lute, and string to the shepherd and herdsman, it is no less the au thority for imputing the jarring instruments of percussion and strident brass to nun of war. Ancient songs referred invariably to great vic tories, memorable sieges, and valorous deeds, and were sung in camp and on the march. Willi the Spartans, the song of Castor was the signal for combat; the Romans charged to the musical accompaniment of trumpets and while the ancient Germans preferred the more com plex aggregation of drums, flutes, cymbals, and clarions. At the beginning of the period of the Middle Ages, the instruments handed down and preserved by most European nations were those used in the rallying of troops, calling them to battle, or enlivening a fatiguing march with the few crude melodies of which they were capable.
En France the minstrels and troubadours greatly aided instrumental progression. They would frequently accompany the troops on the march and to battle, having as instruments the rebec, a small, three-stringed 'violin; the bag pipe, and the flute, or fife, to which, in 1330, was added the clarion. The cornet, another war instrument of the ancients, made its appearance about the same time. Toward the end of the Fifteenth Century regularly organized military bands began to make their appearance, their collection of instruments comprising drums and trumpets principally, which, in the ease of the Italian bands, was further augmented by the pandean pipes, together with the flute -and fife. The drummer used a single stick. Bagpipes and violins were added about the beginning of the Sixteenth Century, the invention of the former instrument belonging to the Alps or Pied montese inhabitants.
The Swiss mercenaries, in 1535, introduced into France the combination of fife and drum, which has ever wince, and in nearly every land, been the popular musical vehicle for the expres sion of martial spirit.
In the Seventeenth Century the Prussians introduced the hautboy, which was given to the dragoons and musketeers of the Guard. To the Eastern nations, through the Hungarians, we owe the kettledrums, bassoon, and true flute; to the Italians the tambourine; to the Hano verians the modern horn; and to the Turks the cymbals and big drum. The entire musical scheme of military bands at the beginning of the Eighteenth Century. was a combination of all these instruments, with the addition of the cavalry trumpet. The average infantry band consisted of drums, fife, horn, bassoon, big drum, and cymbals; the cavalry bands of hautboy, bagpipe. and kettledrums. The bassoon, haut boy, horn, and trumpet, however, were indiffer ently employed by either troops. A French ordinance dated April 19, 17(16, appoints a band of music to each regiment. New instru ments making their appearance are: the clarinet (q.v.), which, However, is not incorporated into the band until 1755; the serpent, triangle, and trombone, each entering successively and from different sources. Practically it was not until
17Ir3 that military music and military bands began the development that has brought them to their present high state of efficiency. In England, officers hired civilian musicians to act as the band of their respective regiments—a sys tem which obtained until the foundation of Knel ler Hall (q.v.) in 1857; but in France and Russia bands were part of the army organization. About this time the individual bandmaster be comes prominent as the great factor of progress, among the most important of whom must be placed the famous Neitha•dt, born August 10, 1793, who, when still a young man, was for two years bandmaster of the Garde-Schtitzen Bat talion, and afterwards for twenty years the band master of the Kaiser-Franz Grenadiers. This latter band he brought to a high state of perfec tion. Progress in England must be credited largely to Charles Godfrey, born 1790, who in ]S13 joined the band of the Coldstream Guards as a bassoon-player, became bandmaster, and re mained such until his death in 1863. in the United States, Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore, born December 25, 1829, was the moving spirit. His first band was organized in Boston, 1S59, but shortly afterwards he became a bandmaster in the Federal Army, serving throughout. the Civil War. He was world-famous for the novel effects lie produced in military music, on occasions using musketry and artillery guns to increase his musical effects. Bands in the United States Army are recruited generally for that specific purpose, the members being enlisted men, and usually consist of 28 men, all ranks. (For pay of same, see article PAY AND ALLOWANCES.) are supplied by the Quartermaster's Department.
In England bandmasters are specially trained at Kneller Hall, and on appointment receive warrant rank, with pay at 5 shillings per day, and £70 per annum from the hand fund. The men arc generally recruited as boys, from 14 to 16 years of age, usually from military institu tions, schools, and training-ships. The official establishment of British Army bands is 31 all told for infantry, and 23 for cavalry; but with out exception this number is greatly increased at the personal expense of the officers of the regiments, who pay for all extra men, music, and instruments. A thoroughly trained, fully equipped, numerically strong band is often a point of regimental rivalry, and while it has succeeded in endowing the British Army with the best bands in Europe on an average, it has been done only at the expense of officers, already financially overtaxed. The following bands are considered among the leading military bands of Europe: The Royal Artillery, Royal Marine, and Guards Band, of England; the Kaiser-Franz Grenadier Band, of Germany; the Guides' Band, of Belgium; the Garde Re publicaine Band, of France; the Imperial Guards' Band, of Austria; the Ottoman Palace Band, of Turkey: the Bersaglieri Band, of Italy; the Czar's Regiment of Guards' Band, of Rus sia.
For fuller details the reader is referred to United States Army Regulations for composi tion and equipment of United States Army bands; Grove, Dictionary of Music (London, 1894), for biographies of military music com posers and bandmasters; and the article "Mili tiirmusik,” by Rode, in the Musikalisches Con rcrsations-Lexicon (Berlin, 1877).