march

The tradition & historical record

A march is a musical composition with a strong regular rhythm which in origin was expressly written for lockstep marching of soldiers. As a musical genre, it is a type of martial music, most frequently performed by a military band during parades. March music pieces vary widely in mood, ranging from the emotional funeral march in Wagner's Götterdämmerung to the brisk Romantic marches of John Philip Sousa and the militaristic hymns of the late 19th century. Examples of the varied use of the march can be found in Beethoven's Eroica Symphony, in the Marches Militaires of Franz Schubert, in the Marche funèbre in Chopin's Sonata in B flat minor, the "Jäger March" in the Op. 91a by Jean Sibelius, and in the Dead March in Handel's Saul. ¹

Marches can be written in any time signature, but the most common time signatures are 44, 22 (alla breve, although this may refer to 2 time of Johannes Brahms, or cut time), or 68. However, some modern marches are being written in 12 or 24 time. The modern march tempo is typically around 120 beats per minute. Many funeral marches conform to the Roman standard of 60 beats per minute. The tempo matches the pace of soldiers walking in step. Both tempos achieve the standard rate of 120 steps per minute. Each section of a march typically consists of 16 or 32 bars, which may repeat. Most importantly, a march consists of a strong and steady percussive beat reminiscent of military field drums. A military music event where various marching bands and units perform is called tattoo. Marches frequently change keys once, modulating to the subdominant key, and occasionally returning to the original tonic key. If it begins in a minor key, it modulates to the relative major. Marches frequently have counter-melodies introduced during the repeat of a main melody. Marches frequently have a penultimate dogfight strain in which two groups of instruments (high/low, woodwind/brass, etc.) alternate in a statement/response format. In most traditional American marches, there are three strains. The third strain is referred to as the "trio". The march tempo of 120 beats or steps per minute was adopted by the Napoleonic army in order to move faster. Since Napoleon planned to occupy the territory he conquered, instead of his soldiers carrying all of their provisions with them, they would live off the land and march faster. The French march tempo is faster than the traditional tempo of British marches; the British call marches in the French tempo quick marches. ¹

Marches were not notated until the late 16th century; until then, time was generally kept by percussion alone, often with improvised fife embellishment. With the extensive development of brass instruments, especially in the 19th century, marches became widely popular and were often elaborately orchestrated. Composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Hector Berlioz, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Gustav Mahler, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Charles Ives, Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Alban Berg, Sergei Prokofiev, Paul Hindemith, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Leonard Bernstein wrote marches, sometimes incorporating them into operas, sonatas, suites, and symphonies. The popularity of John Philip Sousa's band marches has been unmatched. The style of the traditional symphony march can be traced back to symphonic pieces from renaissance era, such as pieces written for nobility. ¹

Many European countries and cultures developed characteristic styles of marches. ¹

British marches typically move at the standard pace of 116 beats per minute, have intricate countermelodies (frequently appearing only in the repeat of a strain), have a wide range of dynamics (including unusually soft sections), use full-value stingers at the ends of phrases (as opposed to the shorter, marcato stinger of American marches). The final strain of a British march often has a broad lyrical quality to it. Archetypical British marches include "The British Grenadiers" and those of Major Ricketts, such as the well-known "Colonel Bogey March" and "The Great Little Army". Scottish bagpipe music makes extensive use of marches played at a pace of approximately 90 beats per minute. Many popular marches are traditional and of unknown origin. Notable examples include Scotland the Brave, Highland Laddie, Bonnie Dundee and Cock of the North. Retreat marches are set in 34 time, such as The Green Hills of Tyrol and When the Battle's O'er. The bagpipe also make use of slow marches such as the Skye Boat Song and the Cradle Song. These are set in 68 time and are usually played at around 60 beats per minute if played by only pipe bands (and 120 if played with a military band). Those marches indicative of the light infantry and rifle regiments of the Army (today The Rifles and the Royal Gurkha Rifles), like "Silver Bugles" and "Bravest of the Brave", move at a faster 140 beats per minute pace and feature the distinctive bugle sounds common to the bands of these units (plus bagpipes for the Gurkhas). ¹

German marches move at a very strict tempo of 114 beats per minute, and have a strong oom-pah polka-like/folk-like quality resulting from the bass drum and low-brass playing on the downbeats and the alto voices, such as peck horn and snare drums, playing on the off-beats. This provides a very martial quality to these marches. The low brass is often featured prominently in at least one strain of a German march. To offset the rhythmic martiality of most of the strains, the final strain (the trio) often has a lyrical (if somewhat bombastic) quality. Notable German and Austrian march composers include Carl Teike ("Alte Kameraden"), Ludwig van Beethoven ("Yorckscher Marsch"), Hermann Ludwig Blankenburg, Johann Gottfried Piefke ("Preußens Gloria"), Johann Strauss I ("Radetzky March"), Johann Strauss II, Hans Schmid, Josef Wagner, and Carl Michael Ziehrer. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “March (music)”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

march is musical genre, piece of music in origin was expressly written for marching, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 32 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²