🥁 Marching band music
Marching band music is music for walking in step: a strong beat, left, right, left, right, with an oom-pah bass and a snare drum. Peabody plays it free for kids on Tiny Marching Band. Old Hits plays real old songs, like the Colonel Bogey March, sometimes as a marching band. Tap one and march.
Tap a station to play it. Tap again to stop.
Music rooms
- Freeze DancePeabody stops the music. You freeze!
- The GymMore moving games for the room you are in.
- Peabody RadioEvery station, and the player that keeps going on every page.
What makes a march?
A march is made for feet. It counts in twos or fours, one step on every beat: left, right, left, right. Tiny Marching Band plays at 112 to 122 beats a minute, about as fast as a brisk walk.
Listen for the oom-pah. The big low tuba goes oom on the beat, and the band answers pah in between. The snare drum rolls at the end of a line, to say: get ready, here comes the next part.
Sousa, the March King
John Philip Sousa (1854–1932) led the United States Marine Band and wrote more than a hundred marches. The most famous is The Stars and Stripes Forever (1896), the national march of the United States. The sousaphone, a big tuba that wraps around the player, is named after him.
Sousa's marches are old enough to belong to everyone now. Peabody's band doesn't play them yet. It does play the Colonel Bogey March (1914), written by a British army bandmaster, and You're a Grand Old Flag (1906), on Old Hits.
March at home
Put on Tiny Marching Band and march round the room. Lift your knees high. Swing your arms. Take turns being the leader at the front of the parade, and everyone copies. Bang a pot with a wooden spoon on every beat.
For grown-ups
Tiny Marching Band is Peabody's own band, made up on the device; Old Hits plays the tunes of songs published in 1930 or earlier, which are public domain in the US. There are no recorded marches on Peabody yet. No words, no ads, and nothing plays until a tap.