Chords for Taps The Bugler's Cry-The Origin of Sounding Taps

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_ Of all the military bugle calls, none is more easily recognized or more apt to render a motion than the bugle call taps.
Once you start the first three notes, it's recognized anywhere in the world.
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_ _ [F] _ _ Bugle calls have been used in the United States military ever since there's been a military.
Actually, ever since there's been armies.
In the Bible it talks about great trumpet players at the head of a large army. _
Taps is a very important [F] call because when it's sounded in the evening, it tells the soldier who's about to go to sleep
that everything is safe [Bb] and secure for the evening, that he doesn't have to [G] worry about being attacked,
that there are [D] guards out there on the wall watching.
The call is [Bb] uniquely American and almost everyone who hears it has an understanding.
They've had someone in their family who served in the military, so it's a very emotional call for them, especially at funerals.
There are many myths and stories associated with the origin of taps.
The most popular one is that of a Union captain who finds a wounded Confederate soldier on the battlefield,
and it turns out to be his son.
He brings the wounded soldier back behind lines and in his pocket he finds some music.
The young man unfortunately dies.
In his pocket, the music that he found [B] was the music for taps.
Now while this is a wonderful story that tells about how both sides of the Civil War were fought by family members, it's a myth.
That wonderful story came about from Robert Ripley's Believe It or Not.
Ripley had a television show.
The show lasted for 13 [G] episodes before it was pulled.
[D] On the last one, [B] the story of the Union captain and his Confederate son appears.
[E] Ripley's [B] biographer wrote that even by Rip's standards, the [D] story was just a little [G] too far-fetched.
The true [B] story is that the call came about through [Gb] General Daniel [B] Butterfield.
General Daniel Butterfield loved [D] bugle calls.
In fact, he had [G] his own bugle calls [Dbm] made up for his own troops.
Bugle calls were very important on the [C] battlefield in that they directed troops which way to go.
Sometimes in the confusion of battle, some troops would not know when a bugle would be sounding.
Was that our call or was that for another regiment?
So Daniel Butterfield had calls [Db] made specifically for his [Ab] troops.
The original bugle call that General Daniel Butterfield didn't like derived from the French as all the bugle calls in the United States military at the time.
And it was the call for the lights out and it sounded like [C] this. _ _
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And as you can tell, that's a very martial sounding call.
Daniel Butterfield did not like that call felt, that it was just too formal.
He wanted something a little smoother to reflect and evoke the emotion that he felt for his men.
He was very proud of his brigade and felt that what they did for [G] him was important.
And he thought he would like to honor them by [Bb] coming up with this new bugle call.
And what he did was to find an old bugle call that had gone out of service just prior to the Civil War.
He took the last five and a half measures and rearranged it.
He called in his bugler and together they came up with the new 24 notes we know today as taps.
The call was first played [F] in that July evening of [Bb] 1862.
The next morning, buglers approached Norton and asked him, where did you find that call?
It's a wonderful new call.
He then told them where he had gotten the call and [Gb] furnished music.
Pretty soon the call was being used [C] by the entire [Bbm] Union Army.
_ _ [Bb] The word taps itself is as interesting as the origin of the call.
The [F] word taps was at the beginning thought to be a derivation of the Dutch word taptoe.
Now that means turn off the taps.
Back during the 1500s, the sergeant major would take a drummer [D] and go through the town beating the taptoe,
signaling all the soldiers should return to the garrison for the final roll call of the day,
but also indicating to the barkeepers that [C] they should stop selling liquor to the soldiers.
In other words, turning off the tap.
Today, the word taps comes [Fm] from the three drum taps that were played by a solitary drummer on the [Gm] parade field
to actually signal [Ebm] lights out when there wasn't a bugler available to sound the call.
In the slang of the soldiers, [Gm] it was just shortened to taps instead of the drum [Ab] taps.
And then when the bugle started playing the taps we know [C] today,
soldiers naturally called the new piece that they heard [F] in the evening taps. _ _
_ Taps probably [C] got its most worldwide airing in 1963 at the funeral of President John F.
[Dm] Kennedy.
It not only showed what funerals were like at Arlington,
but gave an exposure of taps on live television [G] throughout the world.
I've sounded [Ab] taps over 2,000 [C] times at national cemeteries.
I've sounded taps at private funerals.
And I have been to funerals where the [G] most hardened combat veteran, once you would start playing it, will start [C] crying.
It's always an emotional thing for the family.
It's their [Ab] one time they're going to hear it.
It sort of [C] brings down the curtain on someone's life.
[Fm] And it brings a sense of closure to the family, that final piece of music as the veteran is laid to rest.
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_ Traditions are [C] important.
And sounding taps is the most sacred duty a bugler can perform.
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