Bands help outreach and
Brass bands play a key role in The Salvation Army today and have for 125 years in Canada
By Robert White
the 1,730 members of Salvation
Army brass bands across Canada today are keeping alive a
musical tradition that benefits
both congregational worship and the
communities in which they live and
perform.
Such bands started in England in
1878 when Charles Fry and his three
sons formed an ensemble to accompany
Army founder William Booth on some
of his evangelistic campaigns. By 1882
the Army was established in Canada
and, within a year, two Salvation Army
bands started in Ontario.
One of the roles of the brass band
was to attract people to the Army’s
open-air gospel services. As the decades
passed, Army bands became a common
sight on street corners across Canada
as they played the Good News. That
tradition has fallen off in recent years,
thanks in part to increasing municipal
regulations. But at the same time many
bands have become an integral part of
Salvation Army worship services.
“The bands have played a significant role in the development of Salvation
Army worship and ministry,” writes
Kevin Metcalf, head of the Army’s na-
tional Music and Gospel Arts department, in an email interview. “From about
1900 until about 1980, congregations
seemed to rise or fall with the life of the
band. Many local congregational leaders
also happened to play in the band.”
The church has almost 350 congregations in Canada and 133 brass bands.
The brass band style continues to be central to much Salvation Army worship, although, as these numbers suggest, other
musical forms are very common.
Metcalf says some elements of the
“worship wars” – internal debates about
whether or not to adopt the guitar-led
