Steve Smith: USAF Major (ret.); plays 26 instruments; band and orchestra teacher at two TUSD middle schools; Civil War buff
Monday, September 15, 2025,
3:00 pm – 4:00 pm,
ASA Koffler Great Room and Zoom
For thousands of years, music has served many purposes in military operations, and the Civil War was no exception. Steve Smith will briefly examine the use of music to convey orders in camp and on the battlefield but will focus on how music was used on a more personal level to inspire troops to enlist, to keep their spirits up on the march or in battle, and to ease their boredom and ‘longings for home’ while in camp. A few decades after the war, improvements in musical instruments (especially brass), made them them vastly more in-tune, easier to play, and more affordable. The development of relatively cheap printing also enabled composers to provide thousands of ‘parlor piano’ tunes, many sub-mediocre; however, many others became timeless ‘classics’ in the American musical idiom and are still performed today!
You can connect to Zoom either by using the following URL: https://zoom.us/j/95456511620?pwd=OC9GcnJRNmJpMTdXdXFhaUpCUkx4QT09 or by opening a browser to zoom.com/join and typing in Meeting ID: 954 5651 1620 and Passcode: 85747
