Seventy-Six Trombones

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"Seventy-Six Trombones" is the signature song from the 1957 musical play The Music Man, written by Meredith Willson. The song also appeared in the 1962 and 2003 movie versions.

Seventy-six trombones led the big parade,

With a hundred and ten cornets close at hand ...

One of Willson's arrangements of the song seamlessly integrates other popular marches at the time, such as "The Stars and Stripes Forever", "The Washington Post" by John Philip Sousa (with whom he played in his band), "The National Emblem" by Edwin Eugene Bagley and "Second Regiment, Connecticut National Guard" by D.W. Reeves.

'Professor' Harold Hill uses the song to help the townspeople of 'River City' visualize their children playing in an enormous marching band. An average-sized high-school marching band might have 10 musicians playing the trombone, and a large university band seldom has more than 30. The band that Harold is describing includes 76 trombones, 110 cornets, "over a thousand reeds," and "fifty mounted cannon" (actually quite popular in bands of the time); if such a band actually existed, it would be over a mile long.