Let me tell ya....

They were AWESOME!!!



So were the Swedish boys! However, I liked the American boychoir better, but then I am a little prejudiced about them. (wink, wink!)

Wow. If you ever have the chance to see them, you really should. They sang their hearts out. You should hear them do "The Stars and Stripes Forever!" Of course there are no words, but these boys pounded out the march with a steady barrage of "rum, tum, tums" and other rhythmic words that got all the Americans in the crowd pretty excited!

"March music is for the feet, not for the head," John Philip Sousa once stated. "The Stars and Stripes Forever," composed in 1896, is indeed music for the feet, but it has also become a musical calling card for our nation. Sousa's genius lay in his skill as a composer of great melodies and his ability to fashion them into a cohesive and "organic" whole. "The Stars and Stripes Forever" gets people up on their feet, marching forward together.

Hurrah for the flag of the free!
May it wave as our standard forever,
The gem of the land and the sea,
The banner of the right.
Let despots remember the day
When our fathers with mighty endeavor
Proclaimed as they marched to the fray
That by their might and by their right
it waves forever.
--John Philip Sousa

On the composition of marches Sousa was unusually silent, but toward the end of his life he stated his philosophy of setting pen to paper in march time: "A march speaks to a fundamental rhythm in the human organization and is answered. A march stimulates every centre of vitality, wakens the imagination . . . . But a march must be good. It must be as free from padding as a marble statue. Every line must be carved with unerring skill. Once padded it ceases to be a march. There is no form of musical composition wherein the harmonic structure must be more clear-cut. The whole process is an exacting one. There must be a melody which appeals to the musical and the unmusical alike. There must be no confusion in counterpoint."

Tap your foot to the rhythm while you
Rejoice Evermore!

Marla