From the procession between Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace, through to the spectacular concert at Windsor Castle, we can expect to see hundreds of military musicians in action this month.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s new Coronation Anthem, Make a Joyful Noise, includes a new opening and closing fanfare played by the Fanfare Trumpeters of the Royal Air Force; the British Army’s State Trumpeters of the Household Cavalry will also perform at the service. Then there’s the procession, a 1.3-mile-long route that will take in some of London’s most iconic landmarks and see 4,000 military personnel – including hundreds of musicians from each of the three armed services – marching the monarch back to the Palace.

See also: 

● The Coronation – Royal Music Through Time

● The Coronation – Meeting the Composers Behind the Music

The Royal Marines Band Service (RMBS) has a history dating back centuries. There were almost certainly groups of musicians who accompanied sailors before the formation of Royal Marines Divisional Bands in 1767; in 1805, their musicians played on board warships during the protracted sail into action at the Battle of Trafalgar; later, 225 musicians and buglers – a quarter of the entire force – gave their lives in the Second World War (the second highest proportion of any branch of any service after the RAF’s Bomber Command). Since then, they’ve deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq in their medical support role, to temporary fire stations during firefighters’ strikes and also helped deliver COVID vaccines through the pandemic.

The night-time dress rehearsal for the Coronation on London's streets 

Whilst the Coronation will spotlight these musicians, then, major state occasions are just one aspect of an ever-varied life. Royal Marine musicians regularly appear at the annual Mountbatten Festival of Music at the Royal Albert Hall, accompany the red carpet for the latest James Bond premiere, or play aboard the Royal Navy flagship HMS Queen Elizabeth as the aircraft carrier hosts diplomats and VIPs off the coast of America.

So who will be among the ranks on parade on Coronation Day, and what are the unique and unseen challenges of putting such ceremonial activity together? Let’s meet three of the RMBS personnel in London for the big day…

Lieutenant Colonel Jason Burcham, Principal Director of Music

All five Royal Marines Bands will be deployed on Coronation Day. Their boss will be with the Tri-Service Guard of Honour on the forecourt of Buckingham Palace and the Queen Victoria Memorial, with the music provided by the Royal Marines Band Plymouth. Burcham will have a front row seat to watch the King and Queen process out of the Palace and up the Mall, and then return home afterwards.

But can he actually look up? “As the conductor, I’m either facing the Band or we’re stood to attention. If we’re playing for a salute – there will be a few of those as the Royal party leave and return – we present arms and give the Royal Salute; for this, I’m facing away from the Band and towards the Sovereign. I get to see what’s happening and am able to look around. The challenge is remembering to have that pinch-me moment; I am here and this is unprecedented! I can’t think of anything we’ve done that’s on a larger scale than what we have this month.”

The Royal Marines Band Service

Because of its scale, every detail has been rehearsed and accounted for. Rehearsals have been taking place over the last few weeks for each component part, and then everything is brought together and a full dress-rehearsal with all those involved takes place. On the day itself, Burcham expects to wake up at 3am for a (very) early breakfast and then to head into London from the South; they need to allow enough time to ensure any last-minute preparations for the uniforms and the instruments can take place, before the whole process starts properly around 9.30am.

This will be just the latest in a long line of unique Royal memories for Burcham. His career started as a musician aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia, which saw him perform at such historic commemorations as the 50th anniversary of D-Day and on state visits to South Africa and Russia. “It was one of the things that drew me to the RMBS in the first place: if I join the Band, hopefully I get to serve on the Yacht”. In his mid-20s, Burcham found himself one of the 26-piece Royal Marines Band that was always embarked, living on board the ship for as long as eight months; it was the Swiss Army knife of military bands, able to provide a marching, concert or dance band, an orchestra, a string quartet, a jazz trio, a dixie band, Corps of Drums, solo instrumentalist or more, ready for any kind of performance. Indeed, as a pianist, Burcham was even able to practise on the piano in the Royal apartments… mind, only when the Royal Family weren’t embarked!

“When the Royal Family were on board, we would accompany state banquets, playing within earshot but out of sight. As that finished, we’d quickly disappear and get changed into a ceremonial uniform, as the evening would usually conclude with a Beating Retreat on the jetty. It was varied; no two days were the same, and no two days were in the same place.”

For Burcham, it all reaches a finale this month, as the Coronation will be his final state commitment as Principal Director of Music. It’s quite a career path, starting with the Royal Yacht and ending with a coronation; Burcham’s experiences typify the ever-varied, global experience of a Royal Marine musician that can simply be described as majestic… in its own unique way.

Warrant Officer Chris Mace, Corps Drum Major

The role of Corps Drum Major puts Mace in charge of all the large-scale ceremonial events that the Band Service participate in, from Massed Bands Beating Retreats – where all five bands from across the UK come together – to state ceremonial occasions like last year’s Platinum Jubilee. If you watch a military band on parade, Mace would be the one stood at the front holding a Drum Major’s staff. He directs the band with the staff much as a conductor would an orchestra with a baton, since verbal communication isn’t possible when marching; the staff indicates drill movements to start and stop moving, and to signal if the music needs to be cut off. Unlike a conductor’s baton, though, the staff doesn’t indicate tempo, which is communicated to the band by the bass drum. 2023 has seen the Corps Drum Major take on an important and little-known additional role, too; Mace is overseeing uniform clothing, as the uniform cipher changes from EIIR to CIIIR to mark the change of monarch.

The Royal Marines Band Service, led by Warrant Officer Chris Mace, Corps Drum Major

So where will he be on Coronation Day? “We have all five Royal Marine Bands involved on the day, with two joined together to form a Massed Band that I’ll lead in the procession. This is the main return procession from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace, after the Coronation, leading the King back home. That’s a huge-scale military procession featuring all three services and eight massed bands; I’ll be situated with the Royal Navy and Royal Marines in Group Seven.”

The biggest practical consideration on the day is the start. “The first thing we have to get right is what’s called the step off; this procession will form up from the bottom third of The Mall right along to Westminster Abbey, and those thousands of people have to step off at the same time. All the Drum Majors will have in-ears, and the Garrison Sergeant Major stood at the Abbey will issue the instruction to step off over the airwaves. All the Drum Majors are responsible for setting off the procession.” The challenge, then, is ensemble of movement and not just sound.

The Royal Marines Band Service

The Coronation itself has some unique challenges, too, as Mace explained: “we need to keep the King moving, as the weight of the gold state coach means it can’t be brought to a stop very easily. So, it’s about keeping everything moving, and for me keeping nine paces away from the troops in front of me to make sure we’re not slowing anybody down behind us.”

The Coronation will also mark what is quite possibly a military music first. In the past, massed bands on large state occasions would march to different pieces of music and would start at different times; there had been an aspiration for multiple bands across the services to play in sync, but the closest they had come was playing pieces of a similar style and tempo at different distances. However, for the first time, the plan is for all eight massed bands across the procession to play the same piece of music at the same time. With the help of a click track in their ears – the first time such tech will be used widely on a large-scale ceremonial event like this – the Drum Majors will ensure everyone steps off together at the same tempo (108 beats per minute, slowed down from the regulation 116 beats per minute because of the size of the bands), playing the same piece. At any one time, every band should – if all goes to plan! – be playing exactly the same bar, right across the 1.3-mile-long procession…

Sound terrifying? Well, Mace has a long history of performing at Royal events, from the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo to the late Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Having joined the RMBS as a bugler in 2001, he qualified as a Drum Major in 2013 and has since led the Royal Marines Bands at the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. One of his personal highlights was to lead the Massed Bands down the Mall for the Platinum Jubilee last year; they were especially lucky to be the Band chosen to play the National Anthem on the forecourt of Buckingham Palace for the Queen’s final-ever balcony appearance. Just three months later, he marched past the same balcony in the Queen’s State Funeral procession, as her staff lined up outside the Palace.

As Mace put it: “the Band Service has such a special relationship with the monarch going back centuries, but particularly developed through our time on the Royal Yacht with the late Queen. The Band were lucky enough to be in very intimate spaces and situations with the Royal Family, such as small dinners on board; many members of the Royal Family were almost on first name terms with some of the Band, given they worked in that close environment. The Royal Family in general are quite fond of the Band and we feel in a very privileged position.”

A unique one, too: “When we perform, it’s those more intimate events that stand out in my memory. I remember performing at a Royal Household cricket match in the grounds of Windsor Castle; Her Majesty drove herself down to watch us do a display and then watched the cricket. It was such a close environment. It felt so special.”

Musician Richard Steel

The youngest RMBS rank involved at the Coronation, Steel will turn twenty the day after. This will be his first big engagement. He’ll be in the main procession, playing cymbals as part of the Band that wakes up London; his route starts at Waterloo, will march through London, and then after the coronation service he will be part of the main procession that marches the Sovereign back from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace.

Steel passed his basic military training in December 2019 and passed out of the RMBS School of Music in Portsmouth in December 2022. He’s played bassoon since Year 7, but as bassoons are not used on parade, he was taught percussion as a second instrument. This is one of the unique aspects of the RMBS, in that they have a school of music and teach their recruits new instruments; entrants are expected to play at a Grade 5-plus standard, but they are quickly taught new skills. After fourteen weeks of basic physical training alongside aspiring Royal Marine Commandos at the Commando Training Centre in Lympstone, they come to Portsmouth to work with Royal Marine musicians and civilian professors. “I had an hour-long bassoon lesson every week with a civilian professor, then I had four hours of concert band practise weekly and two hours of parade band. I also had two hour-long sessions each week to learn percussion.” With their own practise rooms set in a former prison building, and with their instruments and tuition fully funded, this is in many ways a dream school. And it has led Steel to the definition of a big first gig…

“The Coronation is such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Some people won’t ever get to do it again. In my band, there are four cymbals; having only just passed out of training, for me to be able to go out into the main procession of the Coronation is an extraordinary privilege.” And pressure; he’s learnt, from colleagues around him, that you must always “expect the unexpected. You can rehearse it so many times but it is different doing it on the actual procession.”

King Charles III with the Royal Marines Band Service

Playing as he marches, Steel explains that all the cymbal players will follow a ‘Cymbal In Command’, who takes charge of the section and rehearses them in breaks. As a listener, Steel finds it easiest to learn a march on cymbals by listening to the melody instrument, rather than absorbing the pattern or rhythm of the line itself; “I’ll listen to anybody playing an interesting melody line. I’ll zone in on one instrument and match my part to theirs.”

Marching and playing was a new skill for the then nineteen-year-old. He had no prior cadet or marching band experience, and none of his family have worked in the military. Basic drill – learnt by the non-musician Commandos side-by-side with the aspiring musicians – was taught at Lympstone: general marching, wheeling, halting and turns. The School of Music then modify what was learnt, to accommodate playing an instrument whilst moving; the first parade band sessions at the school won’t even feature instruments, then later they march whilst holding an instrument but not playing. Only later do they play and move. “The first time you play whilst marching, it’s a car crash; but it does slowly get easier. Marching whilst playing is actually quite natural, since the music is metronomic and physically, you’re moving your feet a bit like a metronome; the challenge is knowing that things are happening around you. When we counter march, halt or step off, it’s knowing to keep playing but at the same thinking of what’s coming up next.”

It's been a whirlwind for Steel, having left school aged sixteen after GCSEs in June 2019, gone straight into the RMBS in July and entered basic training at Lympstone in September. “A career in music” is what led him to enlist; a careers event at school revealed to him how few employers seemed to be offering a job in music… until his dad spotted a Royal Marines careers stall. “It was the realisation that I could have a career in music, not have to worry about paying for tuition or getting to the end of university and not being able to find a job in music; this is a career set in stone where you know you will play music and will get paid to do it. It’s what I wanted to do for a living.”

As these three military musicians illustrate – and as the contemporary composers and historic pieces of the previous articles demonstrate – the Coronation will prove a real coming-together: of established and new music, military and civilian, young and old… Everyone is getting ready for what is quite possibly the biggest British musical event of the century so far…

Royal Marines Band: Top Recordings

Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg: Over The Rainbow

Percussionists of the Royal Marines Band; ‘Mountbatten Festival of Music 2020’

Every spring, the RMBS take over London’s Royal Albert Hall for a celebration of marches, film music and classical favourites. It’s a chance for them to show off their musical versatility, and a powerful reminder that military musicians have a repertoire far wider than rousing marches alone. Sample this beautifully-understated marimba take on an American classic for proof.

Dan Page: Vanguard

Massed Bands of HM Royal Marines; ‘Mountbatten Festival of Music 2019’

A reminder of the new music that the RMBS regularly present, championing composers in their ranks: Dan Page is the Principal Percussionist of the RM Band Portsmouth. His career so far has encapsulated playing at two James Bond premieres, at the late Queen’s 90th birthday celebrations and at the funeral of former Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Then, in the pandemic, he was part of a military detachment that bolstered NHS hospitals. In this energising march, filled with roaring brass and twirling piccolo countermelodies, Page pays tribute to the submarine service.

Henry Russell: A Life on the Ocean Wave

The Band of the Royal Marines School of Music; ‘Sailing’

The official Regimental March of HM Royal Marines since 1927 (its melody composed in the 1840s by a former pupil of Rossini, no less), we can expect to hear this piece on Coronation day alongside music that reflects each of the three services, not to mention works of a national and Commonwealth flavour.