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chapter seven America’s Court Composer In 1898 the Musical Courier declared: “It is Sousa in the band, Sousa in the orchestra, Sousa in the phonograph, Sousa in the hand organ, Sousa in the music box, Sousa everywhere. The American composer is the man, not of the hour or of the day, but of the time!” Such claims for Sousa’s reach into American culture were commonplace by the late 1890s, but they demonstrate a level of fame unfathomable to the bandmaster just a decade earlier. Sousa was still a merely local musician: a composer and conductor who may have dreamt of success on the national stage but had thus far found triumph only in his hometown. His transformation from local son to March King would begin in the late 1880s as he focused his ambitions, put his dramatic skills to greater use on the bandstand, and sought out a musical niche by connecting himself ever more intimately with American patriotism.1 America’s Court Composer In the process of securing the leadership of the Marine Band, Sousa had written two marches with evocative military titles: “Esprit de Corps” and “Globe and Eagle.” Such martial titling would become commonplace after his return to Washington, where he wrote “Guide Right,” “Right Forward,” and “Right-Left.” As Marine Band leader, Sousa was responsible for the parades and public concerts where such pieces might have been put to good use, but in the early 1880s most of his marches continued to be published only for piano. While Sousa’s military music may have been written for the parade ground and bandstand, it circulated primarily in local parlors. There was, however, a kind of military music that had little value to the amateur pianist but through which Sousa could make his mark among bandsmen . During the 1880s, Sousa was—at least nominally—the chief musician for the Marine Corps. In fulfillment of these duties he wrote Four Marches for 150 part iii. the march king Regimental Drums and Trumpets. These pieces, published in 1884, were each a mere sixteen bars long and thus brief enough to be printed together on a single page. They consist only of tunes for one or two natural trumpets and rudimentary percussion, and given the technical restrictions of these instruments , the marches could not have been especially difficult to compose. Even so, they mark Sousa’s first foray into a musical world that did not focus on the home parlor, concert hall, or theatrical stage. The marches were, of course, meant as field music, and they were Sousa’s inaugural efforts at composing for a purely military ensemble. His next outing as a ceremonial composer would be much less modest. In the summer of 1881 the Marine Corps ended its field use of fifes. It fell to the bandleader to update the field repertoire, and so, in 1886, Sousa published his first book: The Trumpet and Drum. This pocket-sized manual contains training instructions for both instruments, as well as a complete set of garrison signals, several original field marches by Sousa, and two more pieces from his collaborator F. W. Lusby, a drum instructor for the Marine Band. Both of these collections were designed for the relatively insulated market of music for the field, but they reveal Sousa’s attitude toward his new responsibilities. Since taking control of the Marine Band, he had instituted a systematic series of improvements to the ensemble by working to advance the musical skills of his players, increase their compensation, and diversify their repertoire. He began a similarly ordered reorganization of the field music itself with The Trumpet and Drum, as suggested by his introduction: “The belief that a book of instruction for the field music of the Service is greatly needed, has suggested to the author the publication of this work. At the present time there is a lack of precision in the performance of the trumpet-signals of the Service, both as to intonation and division of time.” Sousa did not take his duties lightly, and the layout of the book suggests that he carefully based his work on the musical sections of Emory Upton’s infantry tactics manual. In short, Sousa’s activities suggest a marine musician considerably more diligent and ambitious than his predecessors, and this ambition would soon attract the attention of the national press. For the moment, however, he was focused on a systematic overhaul of America’s official music.2 In his autobiography Sousa explains that...

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