The march tempo of 120 beats or steps per minute was adopted by the Napoleonic army[1] in order to move faster[citation needed].

Since Napoleon planned to occupy the territory he conquered, instead of his soldiers carrying all of their provisions with them, they would live off the land and march faster.

There are two reason for this: First, U.S. military bands adopted the march tempos of France and other continental European nations that aided the U.S. during its early wars with Great Britain.

Composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Hector Berlioz, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Gustav Mahler, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Charles Ives, Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky, Alban Berg, Sergei Prokofiev, Paul Hindemith, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Leonard Bernstein wrote marches, sometimes incorporating them into operas, sonatas, suites, and symphonies.

British marches typically move at the standard pace of 120 beats per minute, have intricate countermelodies (frequently appearing only in the repeat of a strain), have a wide range of dynamics (including unusually soft sections), use full-value stingers at the ends of phrases (as opposed to the shorter, marcato stinger of American marches).

Notable examples include Scotland the Brave, Highland Laddie, Bonnie Dundee and Cock of the North.

Examples of Swedish marches are "Under blågul fana" by Viktor Widqvist and "På post för Sverige" by Sam Rydberg.

Most French marches are in common metre and place a strong percussive emphasis on the first beat of each bar from the band and field music drumlines, hence the characteristic BOOM-whack-whack-whack rhythm.

Greek marches typically combine French and German musical traditions, due to the modern Greek State's history of Germanic royal dynasties, combined with Francophile governments as well as French and Bavarian officers and military advisors, who brought their respective musical traditions with them, with later British influences.

Many of these marches, in the choral versions, are also popular patriotic songs, which are taught to Greek children in school and are sung along on various occasions, such as national holidays and parades.

Dutch marches typically feature a heavy intro, often played by the trombones, euphoniums, drums, and tubas, followed by a lighthearted trio and a reasonably fast and somewhat bombastic conclusion, while maintaining occasional bugle calls due to the former wide presence of field music formations (particularly in the Army).

Some well-known Dutch march composers are Jan Gerard Palm, Willy Schootemeyer, Adriaan Maas, Johan Wichers, and Hendrik Karels.

Military marches are an adapted form of the pasodoble, which feature strong percussion and have British and French influences as well, as well as German, Austrian and Italian elements.

Typical Spanish marches are "Amparito Roca" by Jaime Teixidor, "Los Voluntarios" by Gerónimo Giménez, and "El Turuta" by Roman de San Jose.

Notable Czech (Bohemian) march composers include František Kmoch and Julius Fučík, who wrote "Entrance of the Gladiators".

Sousa's marches are typically marked by a subdued trio, as in "The Stars and Stripes Forever" in which the rest of the band becomes subordinated to arguably the most famous piccolo solo in all of music.

These marches are performed at a significantly faster tempo (140 to 200 beats per minute) and generally have an abundance of runs, fanfares, and other showy features.

For example, ‘Auld Lang Syne’ played during passing out parades at various military academies is a tune that originated in Britain.

Similarly, ‘Abide With Me’, is a Christian hymn, that is traditionally played as the last tune at the Beating the Retreat ceremony on January 29 every year.

Over the years, the military bands began to play an eclectic mix of the standard marching songs, as well as jazz, Bollywood and Indian compositions.

After World War II the JGSDF and the Japanese police would adopt the march, where it continues to be a core part of their repertoire.

Others, like Nakayama's 1928 Tokyo March (東京行進曲), were meant for popular consumption and wholly unrelated to military music.

During the late 1960s this form of music begun to be widely used as a part of military drills, parades and exercises of the Armed Forces, National Police and Coast Guard, as well as by youth uniformed groups and athletes.

Prominent local march composers include Antonio Buenaventura and National Artist Lucio San Pedro.

Chinese marches tend to originate from time of the Second Sino-Japanese War, with very few still being performed that were composed before 1930 (one notable exception to this is the Military anthem of China, which dates back to the late Qing Dynasty with lyrics commissioned by Zeng Guofan).

Many marches are adapted from the North Korean revolutionary and patriotic song tradition, known as the taejung kayo genre.

Afghanistan, like Tajikistan, has military marches that are similar to those in Iran, but with more recent American and British influence in combination with the Russian tradition.

Cayetano Alberto Silva's "San Lorenzo march" is an example that combines German and French military musical influences.

Almost all states of Brazil have contributed to the growth of this tradition with a number of marches composed by local musicians, many of patriotic nature.

Marches like these (including the anthem of the 114th Armored Battalion "Apure Braves", "Fatherland Beloved") show British, American and Prussian influence.