A corps of drums or field music in the United States is a type of military band, which originated in European armies in the 16th century. The main instruments of a corps of drums are the drum and the flute or fife or bugle. Unlike 'full' military marching bands, corps of drums usually exist within an infantry battalion. A drum major is the leader of a corps of drums, and in the past a fife major served as the principal fifer or flautist.
Drummers were originally established in European armies to act as signallers. This is the major historical distinction between a military band and a corps of drums, 'drummers' would not play their instruments to entertain or delight, but rather as a utilitarian battlefield role. This role was fulfilled by trumpeters or buglers and timpanists in the cavalry and the artillery, who did not form into comparative formed bodies in the way that drummers did; therefore, an orthodox corps of drums will exist in the infantry arm and not in other arms (save for the light infantry).
Read more about Corps Of Drums: Corps of Drums in The British Army, Royal Marines, British Civilian and Cadet Corps of Drums, U.S.A., Germany, Netherlands and In Indonesia, South America
Famous quotes containing the words corps of, corps and/or drums:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
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“It was soldiers went marching over the rocks
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Because it was spring and the birds had to come.
No doubt that soldiers had to be marching
And that drums had to be rolling, rolling, rolling.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)