Indian military bands

This article uses bare URLs, which are uninformative and vulnerable to link rot. Please consider converting them to full citations to ensure the article remains verifiable and maintains a consistent citation style. Several templates and tools are available to assist in formatting, such as reFill (documentation) and Citation bot (documentation). (June 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

The Indian military bands consists of musicians from the Indian Army, Navy and Air Force. Indian military bands regularly participate in international festivals and take part in celebrations dedicated to various national events. These bands are permanent participants in the Delhi Republic Day parade on the Kartavya Path. Today, the Indian Armed Forces have more than 50 military brass bands and 400 pipe bands and corps of drums. A Tri-Services Band refers to a joint Indian Armed Forces military band that performs together as a unit.^[1] At the Spasskaya Tower Military Music Festival and Tattoo in Moscow, the band consisted of 7 officers and 55 musicians.^[2] The Military Music Wing of the Army Education Corps is the principal educational institution of the armed forces that provides instruction to musicians of all ranks.^[3] Instruction is also provided by the Military Music Training Center and the Indian Navy School of Music.^[4]

In the Indian Army, the following commands maintain their own inspectorates for music: Eastern Command, Central Command, Northern Command, South Western Command, Southern Command, and the Western Command. The military bands in the Indian Armed Forces consist of a mix of instruments from the woodwind family, brass family, and percussion family and sometimes are simply either brass bands or wind bands.^[5] The Indian military also has dedicated pipe band bands that serves as independent units and are maintained by all infantry regiments.^[6] Most senior military bands can be configured from a marching band to a concert band and can also form smaller ensembles to jazz ensembles, traditional music bands, brass quintets, woodwind and drumlines. A general military band consists of a band master and 33 musicians while a pipe band consists of a band master and 17 musicians.^[7] Bandsmen in the Indian Army are soldiers first, having the primary role in battle of medical assistants.^[8]