Bugling Merit Badge

Start the badge the right way Milestone

Meet your unit leader, get a counselor and a signed blue card before working with them. That process is the same for every badge and is set out on its own page.

Work to the requirements in force when you start Document

These requirements are republished yearly. A Scout who has already begun may finish under the ones they started with.

Usually comes after Start the badge the right way.

Merit badge requirements are republished annually. A Scout beginning work uses the requirements as they stand then; a Scout already working may finish under the ones they started with. Guide to Advancement 7.0.4.3 governs which applies. This page records the date its copy was read. Check it against the official page before relying on it.

1. A brief history of the bugle Requirement

The shortest requirement on the badge and a good first evening while you are waiting to be appointed bugler. Brief means brief: where the instrument came from, how it reached the army and then Scouting, and why an instrument with no valves survived into an age that had better ones.

Usually comes after Work to the requirements in force when you start.

2. Two parts, both required Requirement

Not a menu. 2(a) is an explanation and a demonstration, 2(b) is a composition played to an audience. The second has to be scheduled, so read it now even though its sibling is quicker.

2(a). How the sound is made, and what else makes it that way Task

Two things, and the requirement says explain AND DEMONSTRATE, so you will be playing during this one. First how the bugle makes its sound, which turns out to be a question about your mouth rather than about the instrument. Then how it relates to the other brass wind instruments, which is that same answer with more hardware bolted on.

2(b). Compose a call, then play it to people Often forgotten Task

THE PLAYING IS PART OF THE REQUIREMENT. Compose a call for a common group activity such as assembling for a meal or striking camp, then play it before your unit or patrol. A patrol counts, which is the easier audience to arrange and the smaller room to stand up in.

THIS REQUIREMENT IS NOT FINISHED WHEN THE CALL IS WRITTEN. It has to be played before your unit or patrol, so somebody has to put you on an agenda. A patrol counts as well as the whole troop, which is both the easier slot to get and the smaller audience to face, so use it if standing up in front of the troop is the part putting you off. CHOOSE WHAT THE CALL IS FOR BY LOOKING AT YOUR OWN TROOP: something that actually needs signalling and has no signal makes a better answer than a clever tune nobody uses. Assembling for a meal and striking camp are the badge's own two examples. Keep it short and keep it to the notes the instrument gives you, because a call that cannot be played across a field is not doing the job a call exists to do.

3. Ten calls from a list of fifteen Often forgotten Requirement

The practice requirement, and the only real choice on the badge. CHOOSE THE TEN WITH REQUIREMENT 4 IN VIEW, because requirement 4 names this requirement by number and makes you explain every call you pick here.

YOU DO NOT NEED A BUGLE. A note printed above requirement 1 says a bugle, trumpet, or cornet may be used to meet these requirements, and this is the first requirement that cannot be done without one of the three in your hands. Every call on the list is playable without valves, which is why the substitution works at all. School band rooms have trumpets and cornets, and troops that once had a bugler often still own the bugle. Ask before you buy anything. CHOOSE YOUR TEN CALLS WITH REQUIREMENT 4 ALREADY IN VIEW: requirement 4 names this requirement by number and asks you to explain when each of the ten you picked is used, so the ten easiest to play are not always the ten cheapest to finish. Nine of the fifteen belong to one daily routine, from First Call in the morning through to Taps at night, and learning that run as a sequence turns requirement 4 into one story rather than ten lookups.

4. Explain when each of your ten is used Often forgotten Requirement

The only place this badge names another requirement by number. The ten are whichever ten you sounded for requirement 3, so this requirement's size was set by a decision you made there. The reading is quick and can be done first.

5. Care, cleaning and maintenance Often forgotten Requirement

An evening of reading. One thing to settle first: the requirement says A BUGLE, and the note above the badge lets you play a trumpet or a cornet, which have valves to look after that a bugle does not have. Ask your counselor which instrument they want this answered about.

6. Serve as bugler in your troop for three months Often forgotten Requirement

THE LONGEST THING ON THE BADGE BY A WIDE MARGIN, AND IT NEEDS SOMEBODY TO APPOINT YOU. Bugler is a troop position of responsibility and the ninety days run from the appointment. Ask for the job on day one. The same term counts toward Star and Life, and does not count toward Eagle.

THIS IS THE ONLY LONG THING ON THE BADGE AND IT IS PRINTED LAST. Three months as your troop's bugler, and the ninety days start when somebody appoints you rather than when you decide to earn the badge. Bugler is a troop position of responsibility, so ask the senior patrol leader and the Scoutmaster on the day you get the blue card. If the troop already has one, ask anyway: positions are often shared, frequently vacant, and in many troops nobody has thought about this one in years. Everything else on this badge can be done while the three months run, so there is no reason at all to do requirement 6 in the order it is numbered.

Counselor signs it off Milestone

The completion date is the date you met the requirements, not the date of the signature.

Usually comes after 6. Serve as bugler in your troop for three months.