31 Oct : Book on Military Music titled The Martial Music of the Indian Army was released today by the Chief of the Army Staff, General Deepak Kapoor at a function held at Kashmir House in New Delhi. The Book has been edited by Major General SS Nair, Additional Director General of Army Education and published under the aegis of the Directorate General of Military Training of the Army Headquarters.
The Indian Army has an old and rich tradition of martial music and has one of the largest collections of practicing musicians in the world. The military musicians of the Indian Army have been performing for years at important events of national significance like Republic Day Parades, Beating the Retreat Ceremonies and other similar ceremonial occasions. Over the years, performances of the musicians of the Indian Army have been lauded all over the world. Musicians from different bands of the Indian Army have had occasions to play abroad at various prestigious events and tattoos.
The musicians are trained at a training facility at the Army Educational Corps Training College and Centre located at Pachmarhi in Madhya Pradesh. The training facility is a unique institution and is today acknowledged as a centre of excellence with a number of musicians from various foreign countries also regularly coming here to receive training in military music.
Though the profession of arms and music has been coexisting inseparably since the first battlefields and with structured and scientific training programmes in military music of ;the more recent times, there was a distinct void in the availability of any authoritative and extensive literature on the subject. The book "Martial Music of the Indian Army" is an attempt to bridge this gap in information and provide the readers with an encyclopedic treatise on almost all aspects of military music. The compilation has been done with utmost care to make it relevant to both professional musicians as well as an initiate.
General Deepak Kapoor lauded the Directorate General of Military Training and the publication team for the pioneering work.