What could be more fitting for a 4th of July Saturday Guitar than Chet Atkins playing John Philip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever? I love how the dude who arranged this got the piccolo part in.
What could be more fitting for a 4th of July Saturday Guitar than Chet Atkins playing John Philip Sousa’s Stars and Stripes Forever? I love how the dude who arranged this got the piccolo part in.
Mr. Souza’s marches are so wonderful because marching is an activity in the expression of service to others. Humanity and its moods are very complex, so music that will express a mood must have a complex arrangement of many voices, such as the inclusion of a piccolo in this march. Then, on the opposite extreme, you have those who waste their opportunity for development by listening only to a few repetitive loud sub-bass tones in their cars.
When I was a young child, I heard many of John Philip Souza’s marches on an LP album “Bilko Marches”. The album showed Phil Silvers in the role of Sgt. Ernie Bilko in dress uniform with a wide smile on his face. The marches I remember from this album include “Bridge over the River Kwai”, “Lili Marlene”, “Washington Post March”, and “The Starts and Stripes Forever”. There were others as well.
Now that was fun. Thanks!
Well done!
As a very young child, in Montreal, my father always took me to parades. He loved that music. I would perch on his shoulders, legs around his neck, and clap hands following the rhytm. By the time I was 6, I could play all those tunes, by ear, on the piano, with the right tempo. It was fun.