Last night we
stayed home and watched the PBS Capital
Fourth broadcast. The initial performers
were mostly people I did not/do not recognize.
Most of the music these people performed had little or nothing to do
with the celebration of 4 July as “Independence Day.” I would have enjoyed performances by American
singer-songwriters and musicians such as
Arlo Guthrie, George Gershwin, and others.
There are enough great performers and great music to fill out the 90
minutes of programming that was broadcast last night.
It was only
when the local fireworks already had Loki looking for a bunker that the national
fireworks began. The national fireworks
are wonderfully impressive. I’ve been
privileged to see them in D.C., on the mall once. That’s one of those things that would never
have happened for me except for meeting Gloria.
The PBS
programming used only four Sousa marches to background the pyrotechnics. They used “Stars and Stripes Forever,” “Washington
Post,” “ The Thunderer,” and “Semper Fidelis.”
I’d be willing to bet that 50% of the attendees would not have been able
to correctly identify those Sousa pieces.
Annually, I
am reminded of how many times we played those pieces and other marches during high
school half time shows. The band I
played in was different from most then and even more today by nature of it’s
performance.
Our band
director wrote half time shows for universities as well as for us. We performed precision drill show rather than
pattern shows. We performed a different
show each time we stepped on to the field.
This meant using new music for each show. Further, we had to memorize all the music,
60-80 pieces/per season. No one carried
music on the field or in parades.
Despite having ca. 200 band students, we marched only 124 in our half
time shows. The competition for on field
slots was intense and exclusive. There
were band students who spent all of their high school years in the band but who
never set foot upon the field.
Sousa was one
of those rare people who manage to arrive at the perfect place and time. His works have stood the test of time. They cross genre and usage lines quite
handily. The same man who scored Semper
Fidelis also penned the Liberty Bell march that became the theme for Monty
Python’s Flying Circus. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=liberty+bell+march+monty+python
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