University of Delaware historian David Suisman is known for his research on music and capitalism, particularly his excellent book Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution in American Music (Harvard UP, 2009), which won numerous awards and accolades. Suisman’s new book, Instrument of War: Music and the Making of America’s Soldiers (U Chicago Press, 2024), brings that same erudition to the subject of music in the military. It is the most comprehensive look at military music to date, full of fascinating historical anecdotes and insights on what music does for military states and their soldiers. Our conversation explores music as a martial technology, used for purposes of morale, discipline, indoctrination, entertainment, emotional relief, psychological warfare, and torture.

In the public episode David and I talk about the military’s use of music from the Civil War through World War Two. Our Patrons will also hear David’s critique of how we think about music in the Vietnam War–he says Hollywood has completely misinformed us on the role of music in that conflict. We’ll also talk about the iPod and our more recent conflicts in the Middle East, and hear a detailed discussion of David’s research and writing methods, plus his reading and listening recommendations. 

If you’re not a Patron, you can hear the full version, plus all of our other bonus content for just a few bucks a month–sign up at Patreon.com/phantompower. 

00:00 Introduction

04:20 The US Military’s Investment in Music

05:30 Music’s Role in Soldier Training and Discipline

12:32 The Evolution of Military Cadences

23:22 The Civil War: A Turning Point for Military Music

28:21 Forgotten Brass Instruments of the Union Army

29:38 The Role of Drummer Boys in the Civil War

33:32 Music and Morale in World War I

35:48 Group Singing and Community Singing Movement

37:28 The YMCA’s Role in Soldier Recreation

38:41 Racial Dynamics and Minstrel Shows in Military Music

41:47 Music Consumption and the Military in World War II

45:27 The USO and Live Entertainment for Troops

49:56 Vietnam War: Challenging Musical Myths

50:26 Conclusion and Call to Support the Podcast

​[00:00:00 ] 

David Suisman: I describe music as functioning in some ways as a lubricant in the American War machine.

It makes the machine function or allows the machine to function. It enables the machine to function. 

Introduction: This is Phantom Power.

Mack Hagood: Welcome to another episode of Phantom Power, a podcast about sound. I’m Mack Hagood. I just noticed that this month makes seven years that we’ve been doing this podcast, which feels like a pretty nice milestone. And in that time, we’ve really tried to keep the focus on sound as opposed to music.

There are a lot of fantastic podcasts about music, not nearly as many taking a really deeply nerdy approach to [00:01:00 ] questions about sound. And so that’s been our lane. That said, no one has managed to build a wall or police the border between sound and music. It’s a pretty fuzzy boundary and we’ve definitely spent a lot of episodes exploring that fuzzy boundary between the two.

And I guess the reason I bring this up is that this season has actually been Pretty musical so far. Our first episode this season was with Eric Salvaggio. We were talking about AI and its implications for music and then our second episode, with Liz Pelley, looked into the effects of Spotify on how we listen to music.

So two shows about how new sound technologies are reshaping music. Today’s show puts a slightly different spin on the relationship between music and technology. Today, we’re looking at music as a technology. A technology of war. My guest today is [00:02:00 ] University of Delaware historian, David Suisman. David is probably best known for his research on the history of music and capitalism.

Especially his excellent book, “Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution in American Music” that’s probably his best known work. Now, he’s bringing that same kind of erudition to the subject of music in the military. His new book is called Instrument of War: Music and the Making of America’s Soldiers.

Long time listeners will know that I sometimes get a little cranky about music scholars and media scholars and the ways that we often focus on the kind of content that we like. We get a little fannish, we want to think about things like music as a force of self expression and political liberation.

Of course, music can be those things, but music can also be a technology of domination, of indoctrination, of disciplinarity, even [00:03:00 ] torture. And David Suisman’s “Instrument of War” is the most comprehensive look at military music that I’m aware of. If the subject matter sounds a bit grim, you’ll be happy to hear that this book is full of fascinating historical anecdotes. And in the public episode of this show, David and I are going to talk about the military’s use of music from the civil war all the way through World War II.

Our patrons will also hear David’s critique of how we think about music in the Vietnam War. He says that Hollywood has completely misinformed us on the way music worked in that war. We’ll also talk about the iPod and our more recent conflicts in the Middle East and hear a detailed discussion of David’s research and writing methods, plus his reading and listening recommendations.

If you’re not a patron, you can hear all of that material plus all of our other bonus content for just a few bucks a month. Sign up at [00:04:00 ] patreon.com/phantompower Okay, so without further ado, here’s my interview with historian David Suisman. 

David, welcome to the show. 

David Suisman: Thank you Mack. It’s great to be here.

Mack Hagood: Your opening sentence concerns a rather staggering figure about the United States military budget. Could you maybe tell us about that. 

David Suisman: It stopped me dead in my tracks when I found this little factoid in the course of my research. And that is that in 2015, 10 years ago, the US Congress allocated some $437 million to music by military bands and not just a raw number, but that was about three times the size of the entire budget of the National Endowment for the Arts. Just let that sink in for a second. Like the government was spending almost three times as much on military music as all other support [00:05:00 ] for the arts combined. 

That really knocked me out.

Mack Hagood: It’s really incredible, and I love this as a strategy for opening a book because the number just speaks for itself, right? It boldly proclaims the stakes of the book for one thing, right? If music wasn’t perceived as deadly serious by the Pentagon, they really wouldn’t be spending this kind of money and fighting budget hawks on this issue since the Civil War, right?

There have been skeptics about the value of music to the military. But it also signals to scholars, to music scholars, that the military should really be front and center in our research agenda as well, right? 

David Suisman: Yeah, 

Mack Hagood: Why hasn’t it been?

David Suisman: Sound studies has done a lot of really creative work. but the state has not been very present in a lot of scholars’ frameworks. And one of the things that I was seeking to do, or one of the things that I was exploring in the course of working on this whole project, was trying to understand the [00:06:00 ] relationship between sound and the state.

I was thinking the state is important in the construction of modern, social formation. And so what is the role of sound in it? And what is, what does sound mean for the state? These were pretty abstract questions that I didn’t know how to answer for a long time. And then I found a few different places where they were manifested, but one of them was in thinking about music in the military. That was one of the places where the military is so important to the constitution of the state and the function of the state. And sound in the form of music being so central I realized, to the military. So that’s how I came to it and why I think it makes sense for the scholarship

Mack Hagood: And there’s certainly been some good research done. I’m thinking of Suzaane Cusik’s..

David Suisman: Acoustics work 

Mack Hagood: Acoustics work on musical torture, or Martin Daughtry’s work in his book “Listening to War” but in terms of a comprehensive study [00:07:00 ] of how music has been used by the United States military, I’m not familiar with any other book that really does this work.

David Suisman: There is surprisingly little on music in the military that’s not about, particularly songs, when people have written about music in the military, it’s often been song focused. About song lyrics, essentially. 

And, as I’m sure we’ll talk about, my book is much broader. More capacious than that.

Mack Hagood: Well, in fact that’s really why I thought it was a good fit for a sound studies podcast like this because, you don’t really focus on musical compositions or composers. Like I was really surprised at how little oral estate John