Taps: Three Distinct Notes

It’s only 24 notes and the first three make it recognizable everywhere.  “Taps” is the languid, melancholy sound of a bugle at military funerals. 

The unique music has a second use. “Taps” is played everywhere at camps to signal troops that their work day is done and the final order of the day is lights out.

Originally called “Extinguish Lights” prior to America’s Civil War, it became the music of mourning since the beginning of the 19th Century. An incident on the battlefield of the Civil War resulted in a name change and modification of the music.

The original music dates back to France in1809. Union General Daniel Butterfield revised the music with the help of a 22-year-old brigade bugler named Oliver Wilcox Norton. The general felt that the music was too formal and sounded similar to a funeral dirge. Butterfield hummed a version of the music to an aide who knew how to write music. Norton played the music to the general who lengthened it and finally shortened it to its present form, using his own melody.

Butterfield and Norton finalized the tune with its present two dozen notes. They made minor changes to the music to lighten it somewhat. The U.S. Army named the ceremonial music “Taps” in 1874. The “Taps” designation came from the French “Tattoo” that was the name of music used to call off duty soldiers back to their garrisons.

Jari Villaneuva is a “Taps” historian and a retired trumpeter for the U.S. Air Force. He played “Taps” at military funerals at Arlington National Cemetery for 23 years. He’s now director of the Maryland National Guard.

Please enjoy this performance of “Taps” by Jari Villanueva

The official music for “Taps” can be found in military manuals. That makes it uniform and played the same way everywhere.  Sometimes a chorus can sing words to the music. The lyrics can change, because the military never established what the exact words are. 

The most popular and semiofficial form of the lyrics is this:   

Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep. Put out the lights, put out the lights, put out the lights.

Day is done, gone the sun, from the lakes, from the hills, from the sky, all is well. 

Safely rest, God is nigh.”

An overly romanticized story of the origin of “Taps” pops up frequently. The story goes that a Union officer helped drag a wounded soldier into his camp during a very dark night, not knowing that the soldier was in the Confederate Army. The soldier died before the officer could get him into a lighted area. The officer recognized that the dead man was his son. A rift in the family split the family members’ loyalties in the war.

The story gets really absurd as it recounts that the officer found a piece of paper in his son’s pocket. The dead youth wrote the notes for “Taps” on that paper. The camp commander refused the officer’s request for a formal funeral for his son. Instead, he was granted one musician to play at the simple ceremony.

Wouldn’t you know that the officer picked a bugler to play the music that his son wrote.  That’s how we get the tradition of a single bugler playing “Taps.” Yeah, sure. This tale has been printed in respectable publications for years. If you come across it, realize it’s a hoax.

Thank you for reading this blog. See my web site at www.joevlatino.com. “The Device” is my book of short stories. It’s available through the web site and in e-book form from Amazon.  Visit my blog later this month for another interesting report.