Live or Digital? The Bugler's Lips Are Sealed

[Bill Jarboe <billjarboe@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Tim Parker for The New York Times
Glenn Hasheider with the bugle he "plays" at military funerals. The conical
device that fits inside the bugle contains a digital version of taps
recorded by an expert bugler at Arlington National Cemetery.

Musical Instruments

Live or Digital? The Bugler's Lips Are Sealed
By JAMES DAO

T. LOUIS, Sept. 12 =8B It was bound to happen in our technology-mad world. A
device has been invented that not only replaces humans, but also lays them
to rest.

It looks like a bugle. It sounds like a bugle =8B hauntingly enough to move a
funeral mourner to compliment Glenn Hasheider on his rendition of taps last
week at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery near St. Louis.

But what Mr. Hasheider did not have the heart to tell the mourner was this:

It's not a bugle, exactly.

It is a bugle discreetly fitted with a battery-operated conical insert that
plays the 24 notes of taps at the flick of a switch. It is all digital, wit=
h
no human talent or breath required. All you do is hold it up, turn it on an=
d
try to look like a bugler.

Which Mr. Hasheider, a 61-year-old retired Air Force technical sergeant who
says he can not play a simple scale on a real horn, managed to pull off wit=
h
enough panache to win a mourner's praise.

"He said: `That was the best bugle I've ever heard,' " said Mr. Hasheider,
who serves in the cemetery's military color guard. "It really made his day.=
"

After a six-month trial involving more than 1,000 funerals in Missouri, the
Pentagon announced this month that the device, known as a ceremonial bugler=
,
could be used across the world at military funerals for which a
uman bugler is not available.

Veterans groups are pleased. They say mourners would rather hear taps from
an electronically enhanced bugle =8B with real person attached =8B than from a
boombox. Because of a shortage of horn players in the armed services, tape
and CD players are the buglers of convenience at most military funerals.

"It's not perfect, but it's certainly more aesthetically pleasing and more
dignified than a boombox," Steve Thomas, a spokesman for the American
Legion, said.

But whether the digital bugler can be as eloquent, mournful or soulful as a
human is the subject of debate. Purists respond with outrage to Pentagon
assertions that the device is "virtually indistinguishable from a live
bugler."

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