Photos by Sam Dean | The Roanoke Times

Virginia Military Institute cadet Rob Allen plays taps to mark the end of the annual Battle of New Market parade at VMI on Wednesday.

Virginia Military Institute cadet Rob Allen polishes his bugle after warming up prior to playing taps in VMI's annual New Market Ceremony.

Allen says he understands it is difficult to find a "military bugler who's got a bugle and a uniform."

Virginia Military Institute cadet Rob Allen enters the barracks on Wednesday to play a formation call for cadets to assemble for VMI's annual Battle of New Market parade.

A good bugle player is hard to find.

Just ask Phil Turpin, commander of the Roanoke Valley chapter of Disabled American Veterans. A couple of weeks ago, the chapter's honor guard was asked to carry out military honors during a funeral, which would conclude with the traditional playing of taps. No problem there, because Turpin has a bugle outfitted with a speaker that plays a recorded version of the famous bugle call. When a member of the honor guard holds the bugle up to his lips, it sounds like the tune is being performed live.

A couple of weeks ago, however, somebody broke the bugle. The recording would not play. Turpin scrambled to find bugle backup. Fortunately, a local minister volunteered to play taps on a trumpet.

"A bugle, you just can't find," said Turpin, who estimates his group conducted military honors at more than 200 funerals last year. Most of them featured a recorded version of taps.

Today is Memorial Day, when taps will be played hundreds of times across the country during solemn ceremonies that honor soldiers who died in service to their nation. Many of those ceremonies will include a live version of taps, played mostly on a trumpet instead of a bugle. Roanoke's ceremony will feature a live trumpet version of taps performed by Albin Crutchfield.

Yet, live renditions of taps are becoming as scarce as soldiers who fought at Guadalcanal. A lack of buglers and the ease of technology have made recorded versions the preferred option of many veterans groups.

Still, some are trying to maintain the tradition of the bugle, the brass instrument without valves that traces its military use back more than 250 years.

"I think it's a disgrace to see an electronic taps played at military funerals," said Rob Allen, a rising fourth-year cadet at Virginia Military Institute who leads the bugle corps.

VMI is one of the few military schools that still relies upon live music for calls to duty -- such as reveille in the morning and taps at night -- and to announce formations. Allen, a 21-year-old electrical engineering major from Boulder, Colo., is one of five scholarship buglers, but he is the only cadet who actually plays a bugle. The rest play trumpets.

"I'm pretty obsessive about tradition," Allen said. "It's got to be a bugle."

Allen is also a member of Bugles Across America, a network of buglers and horn players available to perform taps upon request for funerals and military ceremonies. The group's Web site (buglesacrossamerica.org) claims more than 5,000 bugle-playing volunteers in all 50 states. The group also accepts volunteers who, according to the site, "can play the 24 notes of Taps with an ease and style that will do honor to both the Veterans, their families, and the burial detail performing the service."

Even though he doesn't like recorded versions of taps, Allen understands why veterans groups resort to such a tactic.

"Finding a military bugler who's got a bugle and a uniform, I can imagine that's a pretty tough thing to do," he said.

Especially with military honor guards in such high demand. With the passing of thousands of World War II and Korean War veterans each year, veterans groups have a steady workload of funerals to attend. In the past, many honor guards relied upon tape-recorded versions of taps played through boomboxes, a technique deemed too undignified by many military families.

That's why the Pentagon helped develop the "ceremonial bugle," an instrument that plays a digital recording of taps that sounds like a live version. A cone-shaped speaker inserted into the bell of a bugle can be programmed to play as many as 10 bugle calls. The instrument, which retails for as much as $800, is becoming standard for many veterans groups.

"We used to set up a tape player, but it didn't look as great" as the ceremonial bugle, said Turpin, who said the local DAV chapter spent $100 to fix its busted bugle.

"They can be high maintenance," he said.

But the expense is worth it, especially when the family of a veteran can't tell the difference between a live version of taps and a recording.

"Sometimes the family will compliment the bugler and he just goes along with it -- 'It's not easy, but I do it,' " Turpin said.

Electronics can be notoriously unreliable, however. The ceremonial bugle is powered by two 9-volt batteries, which can die at the most inopportune times.

"I just heard last week that a recording [of taps] stopped playing when some electronics went bad on it," said Crutchfield, who plays at funerals and will perform for the second time at the Roanoke ceremony, which is sponsored by the Roanoke Valley Veterans Council.

Crutchfield, 72, an associate pastor at Shenandoah Baptist Church, studied music at Wheaton College in Illinois and played with the U.S. Army Field Band in the early 1960s. A church member gave him a bugle as a gift, but he still prefers his B-flat trumpet for taps.

Because there are no valves on a bugle, a player controls the pitch completely through facial and lip formations, a technique called embouchure. The instrument's range is limited, but it can easily cover the 24 notes of taps.

Allen, the VMI bugler, learned taps from his mother, a flutist who taught him the tune as a warm-up for trumpet practice. As a youth, he played taps on a borrowed bugle to close Boy Scouts meetings. Today, he plays his own Getzen field trumpet.

Allen most recently performed taps during VMI's New Market Ceremony on May 15, a service that honors the cadets who died during the Battle of New Market in 1864. He is often called to play at funerals for VMI graduates, and he plays every week during the raising and lowering of the colors, in addition to ending the day with taps.

Some military schools have found computerized preprogrammed bugle calls to be a cheaper alternative to a bugle corps, but Allen said VMI should be commended for maintaining the tradition of live music.

"Taps is about honoring somebody else," he said. "Honoring somebody from a computer, I don't see that as a permanent solution."