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What I've learned about the trombone

55 points by bookofjoe

by bryanlarsen

2 subcomments

I've been trying to square the physics and my experience.
Pedal B flat is the fundamental, low B flat is the 2x, F 3x, mid B flat the 4x, D the 5X, high F is 6X, G half sharp is 7X and high B flat is 8X.
The position your music teacher most likely will have told you to adjust is 2nd position - you play it slightly sharper for an A vs the E or C sharp it's also used for.
Why is that? It's the major 3rd that has the largest variation between just and equal temperament. The A is often a 3rd against the F, is that why?
But it seems to me that it's all the notes on the D embouchure that will be off -- 1st position D on the trombone is 5X the fundamental, so it's justly tuned, not equally tuned, so shouldn't it be the one that needs the most adjustment? I guess all wind instruments have this problem, so maybe I don't notice because usually I'm playing in a wind band with very few equally tempered instruments like piano, guitar and glockenspiel?

by vintermann

0 subcomment

One trombone feature not mentioned here is that the length of the pipe apparently affects the timing enough that they have to compensate for it.

by bluGill

1 subcomments

If you play piano you should find a tuner who does something better than equal temperament. When you accept that changing keys will change the tone of the song you can get a lot better music. You don't need to go to just temperament (and since you still need octave stretch it wouldn't be ideal anyway - though if you can live with playing music in exactly one key it is nice).
I tuned my piano to EBVTIII and I like it. (well I tuned 3 notes and then got my son interested and he tuned the rest). It isn't as hard to tune a piano as professionals make it out. However it takes me about 5x as long so if you can find a good tuner I'd call it worth it.

by liotier

3 subcomments

> But, how can a trombone ever be better than the piano when there’s so many variables? Well, unlike a piano, where each key produces a fixed pitch, a trombone lets me subtly adjust every note as I play.
Thanks, but I'll stick to my keyboard's pitch bend control.
The trombone's great expressiveness comes at a steep learning cost.

by frankfrank13

1 subcomments

I loved playing trombone in school. It's such a simple mechanism, it invites a lot of curiousity, and this piece captures that well. Instruments like piano, violin, and guitar are very visual, essentially wysiwyg. Instruments like saxophones, clarinets, flutes, take a long to mentally map and reason through (this combination of keys achieves note X). Trumpets, and other 3 valve instruments map exactly to trombone positions! Eg. no-valves = 1st position, 1st valve is 3rd position, 1+2 is 4th position. But visually you don't see this, and it doesn't invite the curiousity. Trombone super unique in that you get a little wysiwyg, but you have to square that with embouchure. But learning trombone, and then mapping that knowledge to a euphonium, trumpet, tuba, etc, gives you a knowledge about that instrument (eg ok if note X is 1st valve, and note X+1 is 1+2, then i know adding 2-to-1 adds a half step, because position 3 is a half step from position 4).

by _spduchamp

0 subcomment

One of my favourite albums is Stuart Dempster's Underground Overlays From The Cistern Chapel.
A group of trombonists all playing in a giant underground water tank with incredibly long reverb.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=4tvMp4XDICU

by Esn024

1 subcomments

This seems a decent introduction. The only thing mentioned that I wasn't really aware of is the effect of the tongue in addition to the lips on the embouchure of higher notes. Can anyone recommend some more info on that?

by dark-star

0 subcomment

Everything I know about trombones I know from the game Trombone Champ.
It's a good game for every aspiring trobonist (or people just remotely interested in music-related video games)

by jeffbee

1 subcomments

"The trombone is the only brass instrument in a classical orchestra" is a statement that requires further support.

by DonHopkins

0 subcomment