Royal Marines Band Service

Royal Marines Band Service
Cap Badge of the Royal Marines
Active	1903-
Country	United Kingdom
Branch	Naval Service
Type	Musicians Secondary: medical orderlies, ambulance drivers, chemical decontamination
Role	Rapid reaction force/Home defence
Size	Five Squadrons (Bands)
Part of	Royal Marines
Garrison/HQ	Band of HM Royal Marines Portsmouth Band of HM Royal Marines Plymouth Band of HM Royal Marines Collingwood Band of HM Royal Marines Commando Training Centre Band of HM Royal Marines Scotland
Nickname(s)	Bandies
Motto(s)	Per Mare Per Terram (By Sea By Land) (Latin)
Colours	Blue Gold Green Red Blue
March	Quick - A Life on the Ocean Wave Slow - Preobrajensky
Commanders
Captain-General	HRH The Duke of Edinburgh
Commandant-General	Major-General Rob Magowan, RM
Notable commanders	Lt Col Sir Vivian Dunn KCVO FRAM Royal Marines

The Royal Marines Band Service is the musical wing of the Royal Navy. It currently consists of five Bands plus a training wing The Royal Marines School of Music at HMS NELSON and its headquarters is at HMS Excellent, Whale Island, Portsmouth. It is currently the only branch of the Royal Marines which is open to women.

The development of music in the Royal Marines is inextricably linked with the evolution of British military bands. Lively airs and the beat of the drum enabled columns of marching men to keep a regular step. The drum was the normal method of giving signals on the battlefield or in camp. As long ago as the days of Drake and Hawkins the drummer's rhythm would advertise the changing watches or beat the men to quarters.

Without doubt, groups of musicians existed in the Service before 1767, when Royal Marines Divisional Bands were formed at the naval dockyard-bases of Chatham, Plymouth and Portsmouth and the naval gathering-point of Deal in the Downs, and Marine bands (along with professional bands paid for by captains) plus their respective corps of drums provided music on board ships before and during battles of the Napoleonic Wars (e.g. during the long sail into action at the Battle of Trafalgar). The modern history of the Service, though, begins late in the 19th century, when the task of forming a Royal Naval School of Music to provide Bands for the Royal Navy was assigned to the Marines, with the school being founded in 1903. From then on the Band Service became an integral part of the Corps. Its original home was Eastney Barracks, Portsmouth; where it remained until 1930 when it was transferred to the Royal Marine Depot, Deal.

By the end of World War II, 225 musicians and buglers had been killed in action, which was a quarter of their strength at the time, and the highest percentage of any branch of any service, after Bomber Command. After the outbreak of World War II, the service moved to Malvern, then divided with the Junior Wing moving to the Isle of Man and the Senior Wing to Scarborough.