Is the bugle the hardest brass instrument to play?

I'm not a musician, but I can see that the bugle is the most rudimentary of all brass wind instruments; without any valve regulator or any device to alter pitch. It's all down to the player's embrouchure. I tinkered with one as a kid and wasn't even able to deliver a note. Although my elder brother, being stronger built, managed "Taps" to the delight of our father.

 

The bugle is fairly easy to play. It has no keys or slides. That means it only has a certain range of notes, these are determined by your lip armature. (I played trumpets and baritone in H.S. and was in my university ROTC drum and bugle corps-or "dumb and bungle corps, as we used to call it.)

 

Aha! A bugler! Thanks for the reply.

 

I've an old cavalry bugle, without taking it down from its shelf upstairs, "Chicago Depot 1918" stamped on it. My father acquired it somewhere along the line, he could sound the Army calls of his youth (he grew up in the Army, born in Douglas AZ while his father was off chasing Pancho Villa and his father retired a Colonel in 1934 - not bad for a guy who retired a Rear Admiral). I was never much good at it, but, oh, say, 25 years ago or so, when it was time for the children to start for home from their neighborhood adventures in the late summer afternoons, I would step outside and sound the only call I could make with any real success, appropriately, "recall", twice as it should be done.

My old neighbor across the street, a retired Marine, loved it. He'd come out and sit on his porch to await recall.

http://www.riciok.com/Sounds/Recall.mp3

 

Plenty of Buglers in Australia...I thought i'd post a bugle sounding at the AFL...We have an ANZAC round, and an official ANZAC game always between Essendon Bombers and (my team) Collingwood Magpies. So many ANZACs played Aussie Rules (even whilst posted), so this is a fitting way to remember them...



This year 2018, the bugler came from the Navy.

You can see the big "A" on the Collingwood jumper.

 

Here is a five minute overview of the game from the AFL



The game has changed over the years…less fights, but the young blokes now make it super quick…the average player runs about 14km a game…that’s a mini marathon, except marathon runners don’t sprint, hit people or get hit…they don’t have to kick goals. The reason there are four posts is to encourage the kicker to go for goal far out, the thinking being that even if you miss you get a point. This psychological test proved correct from the first game it was instituted. And the bouncing of the ball every 16 yards is for the same reason basketball players have to dribble…if they didn’t have to, they’d just sprint up the other end and throw…pretty boring. AFL doesn’t want people tucking the ball under an arm and running up the other end of the field, that’s a different game. We want something to slow the ball carrier so the opposition can catch them…so the ball carrier has to either hand ball it, or kick it…The idea works just as well for AFL as it does for basketball.

There are a truck load of Americans playing AFL in the States…The rules are that at least 50% of the players in each team have to be American. There is one team I believe that is purely American. My American team is the New York Magpies!

 

New York Magpies

 

Some American USAFL teams…

 

I just LOVE how everyone stays on topic in this forum!

 

OK back on track...ANZAC day has been remembered differently the last couple of years due to Covid and the old people involved...Australians have been encouraged to have a dawn service in their street...This includes civilians playing the last post on the bugle (and trumpet)