Taps and The Light of Day

Music at life’s end

Taps, harmonic reduction

It was a really muggy day the day my uncle was buried. We were there, in black and white, gathered under the blue tent. There were rolling clouds in the dense light-blue-gray sky bright with the shining sun of late summer.

As we gathered, the heat of the day sank in. The ceremony started, and the clouds shielded the grass and the people from such heat, and a breeze blew by and it comforted us.

When he was with us, my uncle served in the United States military as a paratrooper. The priest told us he will receive military honors.

From a distant hill, a trumpet sounded. From the very first note, it was so solemn. It was so expressive, that clear muted first note. Each new note in the phrase had its grandest moment when it first saw the light of day. The musician stretched each one as far as it could go, carefully, aiming always for purity and never for flair. And he took a breath and reached the highest note and then stepped down to the lowest, before climbing back once more, just as it began, only this time, with utmost finality.

Two men in uniform folded the flag and handed it to my cousin, whose gratitude shone through her grief. The priest began his prayers over my uncle, may he rest in peace, and then, we heard the slow and light pattering of raindrops falling on the tent. There appeared a handful of umbrellas from the cemetery staff to cover those not quite under the tent to make sure they would remain dry.

The priest said when he is no longer with us he will lie right over there, and pointed to a building not far away. (He told us he is in no rush.) And the priest said he will continue to pray for my uncle, and for the other names he carries in his book of the dead, even after he has passed on from this world.

Right as the ceremony ended and as the final prayers were uttered together, the rain slowed and stopped and the clouds parted and brightness returned to the air, and we greeted and hugged each other and chatted among ourselves and stepped out slowly into the light of the day, renewed by the rain.

My uncle was my godfather and I respected him and his family. The ceremony was a powerful statement of togetherness, especially when we moved in concert with the weather, and when the weather moved in concert with the people.

It does not take much to write a deeply moving piece of music. A moving piece of art can be made with a very small list of ingredients. There are only three notes in the military taps, all notes of the major triad.

Didn’t we learn when we were younger in music school that major is happy and minor is sad? How does a major triad convey with such devotion such great loss?

Students of music very quickly learn that none of the ‘facts’ are fixed. Everything is multivariate, depending on one another.

Major can very well convey life’s mugginess; minor can very well express the faith that helps us bring back the light of day.

Remembering Edouard Boucicaut — July 22, 1949 | July 29, 2024