Marching Bands

Military

Military marching bands serve many roles for their nation. As the largest employer of musicians in the United States, Canada, and many other countries, military marching bands offer a stable professional opportunity for the soldier musician. Military marching bands can vary in size and instrumentation. Some military music programs also employ singers, string musicians, and nonstandard concert band instruments (i.e., guitar, fife, bugle, and bag pipe) to diversify their musical performing skill set. As a highly visible face for the military, regardless of professional status, all military musicians serve a powerful public relations role to cultivate goodwill with the public, military, and civil authorities.

Although military command structure hierarchies vary from nation to nation, marching bands can be generally classified as either full-time (i.e., career musicians, or regular force), part-time (U.S. National Guard, or Reserves), recreational (volunteer/community band), or youth-focused (cadets). Because of the sheer size of the U.S. military, it has a hierarchy of professional military bands for each branch and level of service. This includes the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard. The higher-level military marching bands are comprised of auditioned musicians, and are typically based in Washington, D.C., a music academy, or other premier band postings. Other full-time marching bands offer extensive traveling and performing opportunities. The U.S. National Guard and Reserve bands are part-time career opportunities that can include some travel and performing opportunities.

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