Page 30 - august2017lifeinnaples

TAPS ACROSS

AMERICA

by Lois Bolin
Old Naples Historian

T aps, the twenty-four notes of

perhaps the most recognizable
and emotionally charged
music ever played on a bugle is today
associated with military funerals, but
such was not always the case.
According to the U.S. Department
of Veterans Affairs, this melancholy
bugle call is an alteration of the
obsolete word “taptoo,” derived from
the Dutch “taptoe.” Taptoe was the
command — “Tap toe!” — to shut
(“toe to”) the “tap” of a keg.
Union Gen. Daniel Adams
Butterfield made this revision, which is
our present-day Taps, during America’s
Civil War. Before this revision, the U.S.
Army’s infantry end of the day call was
the French’s final call, “L’extinction des
feux.” Believing that the French was
too formal, he hummed the “taptoo”

music to an aide who could read and write music. In July 1862, Butterfield’s brigade bugler,
Oliver W. Norton, played his adaptation.
Other brigades appreciated this new end of the day call and asked to have a copy, which was
adopted for their regiments. It became the official Army bugle call after the war and in 1874 it
was given the official name of “Taps.” By 1891, the Army infantry regulations required Taps to be
played at military funeral ceremonies.

BUGLES ACROSS AMERICA

In 2000, Tom Day formed the nonprofit, Bugles Across America, when Congress passed
legislation stating that Veterans have a right to at least two uniformed military people to fold
the flag and play Taps on a CD player. Bugles Across America, in recognition of our Veterans
service to their country, wanted each Veteran to have a live rendition of Taps by a real bugler.
Today, Bugles Across America has over 4000 bugler volunteers located in all 50 states and are
always looking for volunteers.
BUGLER BOB MCDONALD

30 Life in Naples | August • September • October 2017