Most people who know me well are aware that I am interested in music but may be unaware that my musical tastes extend to march music.  In a sense, this is where my musical education began; my initiation into music was as a member of the high school band, which, of course, played marches as well as the pieces that introduced me to the classical repertoire.

To this day, I believe that participation in a musical group is one of the best ways to learn to appreciate music.  And one does not need to be talented.  I began as about 18th-chair trumpet, and I didn't get much beyond that.  But we had a dedicated band director who inspired more than 100 of us (in a school of 500) to play in the band.  Every year he created a respectable-sounding ensemble comprising students ranging from the talented to the almost tone deaf (me).

In those days, although I was subtly acquiring the nucleus for a deeper appreciation of music, what I really enjoyed was playing marches.  Even the 18th-chair trumpet had a significant part that more or less resembled the melody.  In fact, with a march, every musician and every section has a distinctive, even essential, part.  Furthermore, except for the subdued middle section (where the 18th-chair trumpet generally doesn't play anyhow), most marches are played loudly enough that the good musicians drown out the less adept.  (I swear, however, that our high school band director could hear every wrong note, even against the backdrop of 99 right notes; I know the looks I sometimes got.)

Incidentally, having played in a band, I've learned a little trick about listening to march music, and I encourage you to try it.  When you listen, consciously focus on a particular group of instruments in the band.  Or, better yet, focus on a part of the band that is not, at the time, playing the main tune or melody.  You will be amazed at the complexity of undertones, countermelodies, and rhythms that contribute to the total effect.  Marches are not as simple as they seem.  In fact, a little esoteric knowledge is helpful in appreciating them.

For example, most marches have three parts.  These are technically known as the beginning or front part, the end or back part, and the middle part called the trio.  The term trio, which is also used to designate the midsection of other forms such as the minuet, is so called because it was originally written in three-part harmony.  The trio is the part where the brasses usually shut up so that we can hear the woodwinds.

Most marches are written in 2/4 time (at least, quick marches are).  This means that each measure of music has two beats, with each quarter note receiving a beat.  Although it is mathematically correct to reduce 2/4 to 1/2, it would be musically disastrous to do so.  Some quick marches are in 6/8 time.  You can figure out what that is, but don't reduce it to 3/4 because that's a waltz.  In general, though, anybody who can count to two can keep time with a march, and almost anybody can conduct one:  (1) baton goes down and makes an upside-down candy cane, (2) baton comes up.  Repeat until the march ends.  You'll probably know when this is because most marches end with a single, clipped note called a "stinger."

The tempo makes marches good for foot-stomping when listeners are in the mood for participating, which they often are.  However, some of the riff-raff, unable to settle for just music, have felt impelled to put words to marches.  Examples are "Be kind to your web-footed friends / For a duck may be somebody's mother" (Sousa's Stars and Stripes Forever) and "Oh, the monkey wrapped his tail around the flagpole" (E. E. Bagley's National Emblem).

Possibly the most elaborate lyric (to accompany K. J. Alford's Colonel Bogey March) goes like this: "Where was the engine driver when the boiler burst? / They found his false teeth a thousand miles away, / Floating upon the Hudson Bay. / Mother, he had no others, / So he borrowed his brother's for the day."  One can understand why those who perform marches always play loudly enough to discourage the audience from singing along.

Contrary to what many people seem to believe, not all marches were written by John Philip Sousa. Nonetheless, it is true that Sousa wrote more than 100 marches and virtually nothing else of consequence.  Almost every well-known march is one of his or sounds as if it should be.  By the way, the sousaphone was named after him.  It is a tuba with its neck bent so that the bell (the part where the oom-pahs come out) faces forward instead of up.  A tuba, for those who don't know, is a baritone horn (euphonium) with a thyroid problem.

Actually, the appeal of the march is so universal that many composers who are noted for more "serious" music have written marches – Mozart, Beethoven, Berlioz, Wagner, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, and Vaughan Williams, to name a few.  And not all marches are scored only for winds and percussion, although, except in ceremonial marches, an orchestra doesn't have the pizzazz of a band.  (Of course, as an ex-18th-chair trumpet player, I'm biased.)

I don't think one has to be militaristic, or even patriotic, to be stirred by march music. All of us – except perhaps those with highly developed "snob" nodes in their brains – respond to the 2/4 rhythm of the march. And please spare me the garbage about the "primal heartbeat."  March music has an intrinsic warmth and enthusiasm that makes even curmudgeons stand up and cheer.  Well, let's not get carried away – but I do find it rather difficult to keep from tapping my foot.