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With a dented bugle, he brings dignity
Mike McCann, 14, plays taps at military funerals, then goes off to algebra.
from the April 25, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
While the military was testing its electronic horn, brass players across the country marshaled their forces. The shortage was acute: At the time, the military had about 500 official buglers, and more than 1,800 veterans were dying every day. BAA then had several hundred members. It now has 5,000 and is looking for more.
"We're still missing about 250,000 services a year," says Day.
Since joining BAA, Mike has done his part by regularly volunteering to play taps at as many as two funerals a week. On the first Sunday of each month, he also takes part in BAA's nationwide effort to honor veterans by performing taps outdoors in Hopkinton, Mass. Sometimes he uses his bugle, other times his trumpet without fingering the valves. The two instruments are similar but not identical. "In musical terms, the bugle has a darker sound," says Mike. "If you describe it as a person, it would be one of the quiet kids that know a lot of stuff." His own bugle, acquired secondhand, has a lot of bare spots and dents, which is why today he brought the trumpet.
Bugle or trumpet, Mike says he gets a lot out of playing at the services. "These people went out and fought for our country. I don't know if I could do that," he says. "The least I can do is play a song for them."
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Historically used as a signaling device by the military, the bugle is the simplest of brass instruments. It has no valves and can only produce notes within the harmonic series. Players make music by blowing into a mouthpiece, controlling both the force of air and the shape of the embouchure to alter the sound. Until they were replaced by the radio, bugle calls such as "mess" and "boots and saddles" instructed soldiers to rise, dress, assemble, eat, fire their weapons, and retreat.
Taps is also sometimes known as "Butterfield's lullaby" after Daniel Butterfield, the Civil War general who either wrote or revised the tune, depending on whom you ask. In 1862, taps replaced the existing bugle call that signaled "lights out." Within months, both Union and Confederate troops were using it. A slightly more mournful version of taps has since been incorporated into military observances around the country, particularly for veterans' burials.
Before Mike picked up the bugle, he played the trumpet, which he initially took on with some reluctance. At first he'd wanted to play drums ("like every 10-year-old," he says), but a trumpet was what his parents had on hand – his sister had given up on it – so that's what Mike got.
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