WELCOME, and thank you for taking the time to visit.
If you need a Taps Bugler for a funeral ceremony, please make your request at TapsForVeterans.org. We are ready to assist you with having the most respectful ceremony that honors your family or friend.
On this site you will find a wealth of information on the bugle call Taps, the history of bugles, and the role of bugles and buglers throughout American history. There is a section on Taps Performance Guidelines for those who are interested in sounding Taps for funerals and ceremonies, and a section on Getting Started on the Bugle, for those who are new to this subject and looking for resources. You will also find personal stories of buglers and links to other Taps and bugle-related sites on the Internet.
We also have a store where you can purchase bugle related items CLICK HERE
You can find all the posts on Tapsbugler here.
New information and photos will be posted periodically, so I encourage you to bookmark this site and return regularly to see any new material. If you have bugle stories or photos you’d like to share, please contact me at Jari Villanueva. I have made an effort to correctly attribute information and cite the sources of the material posted here. If you notice any inaccuracies on this site, please let me know, and I will correct them as soon as possible. An excellent bibliography for my Taps research can be found at the end of my booklet, Twenty Four Notes That Tap Deep Emotions: The story of America’s most famous bugle call. You can read an excerpt of Twenty Four Notes here.
All the information on this site is copyrighted, with all rights reserved. If you want to use any of it, please contact me here for permission, which I usually grant. My main goal is to share accurate details about Taps and educate people about the history of bugles in the United States. To support this, I am happy to make this material available on the Internet.
If you also feel it is important to spread this information, you can help support my efforts in one of several ways:
One, you could send bugle-related material to me for inclusion on this site. Such material could be photographs, letters, books or music.
Two, you could engage me to speak at your local Civil War Roundtable, library or community center. This is something I’ve done many times, visiting as far north as West Point, NY and as far west as Erie, PA.
Three, if you are interested in even more information than you will find here, please visit my sister website JV MUSIC, where you may purchase my booklet Twenty Four Notes That Tap Deep Emotions, along with CDs of Civil War music performed by The Federal City Brass Band and Helen Beedle; A Pictorial History of Civil War Era Musical Instruments & Military Bands, Mark Elrod’s fantastic book on Civil War brass instruments; 20 Bugle Calls of the US Armed Forces, a collection of the most commonly used modern bugle calls; and music I have arranged for brass ensemble, including many pieces from the Civil War era.
Four, you can make a donation (any amount, large or small) via PayPal, linked in the right column of this website. A portion of all donations made on Tapsbugler will go towards various events we stage throughout the year, as well as maintaining this website. Please note that all of our Taps Buglers sound taps solely on a volunteer basis.
When I first developed an interest in the bugle and began my research I found that the manuals, books, and other published information on the subject were soon exhausted. Outside of encyclopedias and music dictionaries, there was not much written on the history or use of the bugle in the United States military. Oh sure, there were articles written on the subject (most dealing with the origin of Taps) but there was no one authority on the bugle. I have spent the past twenty years doing research and developing the material that is posted on this site and published in my booklet. My information on Taps has appeared in many newspapers across the country and on many websites. I have appeared in a History Channel segment about the origins of Taps and in many TV stories that pop up around Memorial Day and Veterans Day. Now you need only to do a Google.com search with the words “Taps,” and “Jari,” and you get many hits that will lead to me.
Many historians have guided me in my quest to learn about bugles. Three individuals I especially owe a great deal to are Jack Carter, Mark Elrod, and Randy Rach. There are also many other collectors and historians whose expertise and advice I greatly appreciate. Additionally, I have learned a lot from the numerous re-enactors who portray Civil War field musicians. Through their eyes, I have gained a better understanding of how the bugle was used in battle, camp life, and ceremonies during the Civil War. I am grateful to all the buglers, both military and civilian, who have assisted me, as well as to the many historians I have had the pleasure of working with. I also want to thank my lovely wife, Heather Faust, for her hard work, without which none of this would be possible.
I hope you enjoy this site and will come back and visit us again. Please contact me with your feedback and comments via email.
[…] musical instruments is locating websites dedicated to a single one. That is the case with Jari Villanueva site called Taps Bugler: Jari Villanueva. He spent 23 years in the USAF Band located in Washington […]
Great bugle resource! I play trombone, but can get 7 notes out of my father’s old bugle. Thank you for keeping the history “alive”.
I just came across and read the history of Taps on west point.org, which led me here to your site. Thank you for what you are doing. It is nice to see that true historians still exist in this world.
As a child, I was taught the following lyric to “Taps.”
Day is done, gone the sun
From the land, from the sea, from the sky.
Sleep in peace, soldier brave,
God is nigh.