Band Music

Strange—but in all the varied development of music and musical instruments nothing quite touches our primeval spirit like the beating of the drum. Rhythm—it was the first music and it will be a dominant factor in the last, no matter how we may dress it up or refine it to suit our “civilized” ears.

The small boy deaf to any other musical appeal, races down the street at the first blare of a band. In some measure we are all children to the last, and so it is that the music of the band sets our hearts and feet to beating out its gallant measures. Moreover such music produces definite measurable effects on the body, and it is well known that men march further and with less fatigue to the music of a band than they can without it.

In composition the band is not far removed from the orchestra, except that woodwind instruments, such as flutes and clarinets, take the place of strings, but the result is that the band in its own field of music more particularly stimulates activities of the body where the symphony orchestra makes a stronger appeal to mental activity.

There are hundreds of records of band music made by the most famous bands in the world, which will be found in the Victor Record Catalogue under “Bands.” But as a working nucleus, the following selection of double-faced records may be welcome to those who are beginning to form a collection: AÏda Grand March and Rondo Capriccioso, Vessella’s Band; Lights Out and Washington Post, Victor Military Band; Stars and Stripes Forever and Fairest of the Fair, Sousa’s Band; Chopin’s Funeral March and Cujus Animam, Pryor’s Band; Marsovia Waltz and Amina, United States Marine Band and Pryor’s Band.