Marching Band Music Composition

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Different Modern Marching Bands
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For hundreds of years, marching bands have been
in existence and in the UK they were usually
connected to the military. Drummers, buglers or
pipers lead the troop into battles. Signals were
given for retreating, etc. using these
instruments. Indeed, even during WWII, platoons
of fighting troops were led off the arriving
craft and up the beaches of France by a piper.
Mainly for ceremonial purposes, as often seen on
Beating Retreat, Trooping the Color or the
Edinburgh Tattoo, the role of military bands is
important in today's armed forces. Different
Marching Bands   Marching bands now exist in
various styles. There are various compositions
for Marching Bands. In the UK we tend to have
traditional marching bands, comprising of snare
drums (with either bottom snares or both top and
bottom snares such as the Premier 1049-S), tenor
drums, bass drum, cymbals and then tuned
instruments such as valve trumpets, bugles, bell
lyres, and other brass and woodwind.
Organizations including the scouts, air training
corps, sea cadet corps etc. often use such bands.
In British towns these bands are a familiar sight
at parades and festivals.
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Originated in Scotland is another big part of
marching music that comes from Pipe bands. With
many top bands coming from Canada and the USA,
these pipe bands have of course become popular
all over the world. The American style Drum Corps
or show bands give rise to a huge growth area in
the world marching scene. Apart from snare drums
and a selection of various sized bass drums, the
drum corps has cymbals, multi - tenors / quads,
and a pit at the front featuring a percussions
range such as marimbas, xylophones, bells etc.
Brass players comprise the rest of the band. Some
extremely complex marching band music composition
is played by these bands, which form a big part
of the music education system in the USA.