The Myanmar Police Band () is a

military A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

/ police band formation in the

Myanmar Police Force The Myanmar Police Force ( my, မြန်မာနိုင်ငံ ရဲတပ်ဖွဲ့), formerly the People's Police Force (), is the law enforcement agency of Myanmar. It was established in 1964 as an independent department under ...

. Being a battalion-sized organization (it consists of 240 musicians in total), it follows a British and Malaysian military format for marching bands. It is today regarded as

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

's oldest brass band, having established in 1945. It is also one of many militarized marching bands in the

Myanmar Armed Forces Tatmadaw (, , ) is the official name of the armed forces of Myanmar (formerly Burma). It is administered by the Ministry of Defence and composed of the Myanmar Army, the Myanmar Navy and the Myanmar Air Force. Auxiliary services include t ...

, with the police band being based in

Yangon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

History

It was founded in 1945, three years prior to the country gaining its independence from the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...

. It was at that time, Indians soldiers and

Gurkhas The Gurkhas or Gorkhas (), with endonym Gorkhali ), are soldiers native to the Indian Subcontinent, chiefly residing within Nepal and some parts of Northeast India. The Gurkha units are composed of Nepalis and Indian Gorkhas and are recru ...

from

Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...

were recruited to perform during flag-raising ceremonies. The newly formed band consisted of 13 recruits that were trained in Mandalay and sent to towns to train other uniformed musicians. Since 1997, the band has played at

military parades A military parade is a formation of soldiers whose movement is restricted by close-order manoeuvering known as drilling or marching. The military parade is now almost entirely ceremonial, though soldiers from time immemorial up until the lat ...

and official receptions. The band took its first trip abroad in 2006 to

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

to perform with 10 other bands from

ASEAN ASEAN ( , ), officially the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is a political and economic union of 10 member states in Southeast Asia, which promotes intergovernmental cooperation and facilitates economic, political, security, militar ...

. In 2017, the band hosted the International Police Band Concert in the

Kyauktada Township Kyauktada Township ( my, ကျောက်တံတား မြို့နယ် ) is the center of downtown Yangon, Myanmar. The township consists of nine wards, and shares borders with Botataung Township in the east, Seikkan Township and ...

for the first time. It takes part in that event every year, where it performs with police bands from

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

and

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

Conductor

One of the musicians trained in Tharyarwaddy was U Ba Tin, who would lead the Rangoon Armed Police Band (RAP) with 35 members, working as its band director for almost three decades. His son is Major U Myo Kyi, who is the current director of the band. He took over in 1997 during the military rule of the

State Peace and Development Council The State Peace and Development Council ( my, နိုင်ငံတော် အေးချမ်းသာယာရေး နှင့် ဖွံ့ဖြိုးရေး ကောင်စီ ; abbreviated SPDC or , ) was the offi ...

. He learned

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...

in 1974 and later learned the

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pr ...

before joining the band in 1977 at the age of 18. He expanded the band's profile by personally providing background music for films and radio. One of the more famous movies he performed in was '' Sone Yay'', which was released in August 1990.

Organization

The band is organized into three companies: *A Company (42 members) *B Company (62 members) *C Company (120 members) A Company is responsible for performing at national ceremonies such as Armed Forces Day and Independence Day. B and C Companies perform at small scale events such as graduation ceremonies.

Sources

{{Reflist Burmese musical groups Musical groups established in 1945 1945 establishments in Burma Military bands Police bands