John Philip Sousa was born in Washington, D.C., the third of ten children of João António de Sousa, who was of Portuguese and Spanish ancestry, and his wife Maria Elisabeth Trinkhaus. Sousa started his music education by playing the violin as a pupil of John Esputa and George Felix Benkert for harmony and musical composition at the age of six. He was found to have absolute pitch.
During his childhood, Sousa studied voice, violin, piano, flute, cornet, baritone horn, trombone, and alto horn. When Sousa was 13, his father, a trombonist in the Marine Band, enlisted him in the United States Marine Corps as an apprentice to keep him from joining a circus band. Among his best-known marches are "The Stars and Stripes Forever", "Semper Fidelis", "The Liberty Bell", "The Thunderer" and "The Washington Post". Sousa began his career playing violin and studying music theory and composition under John Esputa and George Felix Benkert.
His father enlisted him in the United States Marine Band as an apprentice in 1868. After departing the band in 1875, Sousa learned to conduct. From 1880 until his death, he focused exclusively on conducting and writing music. He eventually rejoined the Marine Band and served there for 12 years as director. On leaving the Marine Band, Sousa organized his own band.
Sousa aided in the development of the sousaphone, a large brass instrument similar to the helicon and tuba. At the outbreak of World War I, Sousa was commissioned as a lieutenant commander and led the Naval Reserve Band in Illinois. Following his tenure, he returned to conduct the Sousa Band until his death in 1932. In the 1920s he was promoted to lieutenant commander in the naval reserve, but never saw active service again.