Trombone
Encyclopedia
The trombone is a musical instrument
in the brass
family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips (embouchure
) cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate. The trombone is usually characterised by a telescopic slide with which the player varies the length of the tube to change pitches, although the valve trombone uses three valves like those on a trumpet
.
The word trombone derives from Italian
tromba (trumpet
) and -one (a suffix meaning "large"), so the name means "large trumpet". The trombone has a predominantly cylindrical bore like its valved counterpart the baritone horn
and in contrast to its conical valved counterparts, the euphonium
and the orchestral horn
. The most frequently encountered trombones are the tenor trombone and bass trombone, while the E alto trombone has become less common as tenor technique has extended the upper range of that instrument. The most common variant, the tenor, is pitched in B, an octave below the B trumpet and an octave above the B tuba
. Trombone music, along with music for euphonium
and tuba
, is typically written in concert pitch, although exceptions do occur, notably in some brass band music where tenor trombone is presented as a B transposing instrument
.
A person who plays the trombone is called a trombonist or trombone player.
The trombone consists of a roughly cylindrical tube bent into an elongated "S" shape. Rather than being truly cylindrical, the tube is a complex series of tapers with the smallest at the mouthpiece receiver and the largest just before the bell flare. The design of these tapers affects the intonation of the instrument. As with other brass instrument
s, sound is produced by blowing air through pursed lips producing a vibration that creates a standing wave
in the instrument.
The detachable cup-shaped mouthpiece
is similar to that of the baritone horn
and closely related to that of the trumpet
. It has the venturi
: a small constriction of the air column that adds resistance greatly affecting the tone of the instrument, and is inserted into the mouthpiece receiver in the slide section. The slide section consists of a leadpipe
, the inner and outer slide tubes, and the bracing, or stays. Modern stays are soldered
, while sackbut
s (medieval precursors to trombones) were made with loose, unsoldered stays (this remained the pattern for German trombones until the mid-20th century).
The 'slide', the most visible feature of the trombone (cf. valve trombone), allows the player to extend the length of the air column, lowering the pitch. In order to prevent friction from slowing the action of the slide, additional sleeves were developed during the Renaissance
and these stockings were soldered onto the ends of the inner slide tubes. Nowadays, the stockings are incorporated into the manufacturing process of the inner slide tubes and represent a fractional widening of the tube to accommodate the necessary method of alleviating friction. This part of the slide must be lubricated frequently. Additional tubing connects the slide to the bell of the instrument through a neckpipe, and bell or back bow (U-bend). The joint connecting the slide and bell sections is furnished with a ferrule to secure the connection of the two parts of the instrument, though older models from the early 20th century and before were usually equipped with friction joints and no ancillary mechanism to tighten the joint.
The adjustment of intonation is most often accomplished with a tuning slide that is a short slide between the neckpipe and the bell incorporating the bell bow (U-bend); this device was designed by the French maker François Riedlocker during the early 19th century and applied to French and British designs and later in the century to German and American models, though German trombones were built without tuning slides well into the 20th century. However, trombonists, unlike other instrumentalists, are not subject to the intonation issues resulting from valved or keyed instruments, since they can adjust intonation "on the fly" by subtly altering slide positions when necessary. For example, second position "A" is not in exactly the same place on the slide as second position "E." Many types of trombone
also include one or more rotary valves used to increase the length of the instrument (and therefore lower its pitch) by directing the air flow through additional tubing.
Like the trumpet
, the trombone is considered a cylindrical bore instrument since it has extensive sections of tubing, principally in the slide section, that are of continuous diameter. This contrasts with conical bore instruments like the cornet
, euphonium
, and tuba
, whose only cylindrical tubing is in the valve section. Tenor trombones typically have a bore of 0.450" (small bore) to 0.547" (large or orchestral bore) after the leadpipe and through the slide. Some small bore jazz trombones, though, have two different diameters of tubing in the slide section to simulate a conical bore. Without this innovation, the trombone would sound extremely sharp and piercing. The bore expands through the backbore to the bell which is typically between 7" and 8½". A number of common variations on trombone construction are noted below.
" returned to common use again in England in the 18th century, Italian music was so influential that rather than being known by its original name the instrument was known as the "trombone", although other countries used the same name throughout the instrument's history, viz. Italian trombone and German Posaune. The 17th century trombone was built in slightly smaller dimensions than modern trombones, and had a bell that was more conical and less flared.
The instrument was used extensively across Europe from its appearance in the 15th century to a fading out in most places across the mid-late 17th century. It was used in outdoor events, in concert and in liturgical settings. The groups varied from alta capella
, wind ensembles, with voices, and in the first 'orchestra'-type ensembles in religious settings like St Mark's Basilica
in Venice in the early 17th century. Famous composers writing for the trombone in this period include Giovanni Gabrieli
and his uncle Andrea Gabrieli
, Claudio Monteverdi
and Heinrich Schütz
. There are also some solo pieces written specifically for trombone in the early 17th century.
During the later Baroque period
, Johann Sebastian Bach
and George Frideric Handel
used the trombone on a few occasions; Bach used it in combination with the cornett
to evoke the stile antico
in some of his many cantata
s and Handel
used it in the Dead March from Saul, Samson
, and Israel in Egypt
, all of which were examples of a new oratorio
style, popular during the early 18th century.
The repertoire of trombone solo and chamber literature has its beginnings in Austria
in the Classical Era where composers such as Leopold Mozart
, Georg Christoph Wagenseil
, Johann Albrechtsberger and Johann Ernst Eberlin
were featuring the instrument, often in partnership with a voice.
Joseph Haydn
and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
used the trombones in a number of their sacred works, including two extended duets with voice from Mozart, the best known being in the Tuba Mirum of his Requiem
. Mozart also used trombones in several of his operas. The inspiration for many of these works is thought to be due to the virtuosic players in the courts at Vienna
and Salzburg
, including Thomas Gschladt and several members of a family named Christian.
The trombone retained its traditional associations with the opera house
and the Church
during the 18th century and was usually employed in the usual alto/tenor/bass trio to support the lower voices of the chorus, though Viennese court orchestra Kapellmeister Johann Joseph Fux rejected an application from a bass trombonist in 1726 and restricted the use of trombones to alto and tenor only, which remained the case almost until the turn of the 19th century in Vienna
, after which time a second tenor trombone was added when necessary.
The construction of the trombone changed relatively little between the Baroque period
and Classical period with the most obvious feature being the slightly more flared bell than was previously the custom.
The first use of the trombone in a symphony
was in 1807 in the Symphony in E by the Swedish composer Joachim Nicolas Eggert
1, although the composer usually credited with its introduction into the symphony orchestra was Ludwig van Beethoven
, who used it in the last movement of his Symphony No. 5 in C minor
(1808). Beethoven also used trombones in his Symphony No. 6 in F major ("Pastoral")
and Symphony No. 9 ("Choral")
.
, particularly by the 1840s, as composers such as Franz Schubert
, Franz Berwald
, Johannes Brahms
, Robert Schumann
, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Richard Wagner
, Hector Berlioz
, Gioacchino Rossini
, Giuseppe Verdi
, Giacomo Puccini
, Franz Liszt
, Richard Strauss
, Anton Bruckner
, Gustav Mahler
, Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
, Alexander Borodin
, Bedřich Smetana
, Antonín Dvořák
, Charles Gounod
, César Franck
, Claude Debussy
, Camille Saint-Saëns
and many others included trombones in their operas, symphonies and other orchestral compositions.
The 19th century also saw the erosion of the traditional alto/tenor/bass trombone trio in the orchestra. While the alto/tenor/bass trombone trio had been paired with one or two cornett
s during the Renaissance and early Baroque
periods, the disappearance of the cornett as a partner and eventual replacement by oboe and clarinet did not fundamentally alter the raison d'être for the trombones, which was to support the alto, tenor and bass voices of the chorus (typically in an ecclesiastical setting), whose harmonic moving lines were more difficult to pick out than the melodic soprano line. The introduction of the trombones into the orchestra, however, allied them more closely with the trumpets and it did not take long for the alto and bass trombones to be replaced by tenor trombones, although the Germans and Austrians held on to the alto trombone and F or E bass trombone somewhat longer than the French, who came to prefer a section of three tenor trombones until after the Second World War.
By the time the trombone gained a regular footing in the orchestra and opera, players of the instrument were no longer usually employed by a cathedral or court orchestra and were therefore expected to provide their own instrument. Military musicians were provided with instruments by the army and instruments like the long F or E bass trombone remained in use there until about the time of the First World War, but the orchestral musician understandably adopted the instrument with the widest range which could be most easily applied to play any of the three trombone parts usually scored in any given work - the tenor trombone. The appearance of the valve trombone during the mid-19th century did little to alter the make-up of the trombone section in the orchestra and though it remained popular almost entirely to the exclusion of the slide instrument in countries such as Italy
and Bohemia
, the valve trombone was ousted from orchestras in Germany
and France
. The valve trombone continued to enjoy an extended period of popularity in Italy and Bohemia and composers such as Giuseppe Verdi
, Giacomo Puccini
, Bedřich Smetana
and Antonín Dvořák
scored for a section of valve trombones.
Especially with the ophicleide
or later the tuba
subjoined to the trombone trio during the 19th century, parts scored for the bass trombone rarely descended as low as the parts scored before the addition of either of these new low brass instruments; only in the early 20th century did it regain a degree of independence. Experiments with different constitutions of the trombone section during the 19th and early 20th centuries, including Richard Wagner's addition of a contrabass trombone in Der Ring des Nibelungen
and Gustav Mahler
's and Richard Strauss
' occasional augmentation by adding a second bass trombone to the usual trio of two tenor trombones and one bass trombone, have not had any lasting effect; the majority of orchestral works are still scored for the usual mid- to late-19th-century low brass section of two tenor trombones, one bass trombone and one tuba.
of 1791. Over the course of the 19th century, various wind band traditions were established in Europe and the United States, including military band
s, brass bands
(primarily in the UK), town bands
(primarily in the US), and circus
bands. Some of these groups, especially military bands in Europe, made use of rear-facing trombones, where the bell section pointed behind the player's left shoulder.
These different wind bands all played a limited repertoire with few original compositions that consisted mainly of orchestral transcriptions, arrangements of popular and patriotic tunes, and feature pieces for soloists (usually cornetists
, singers, and violinists). A notable work originally for wind band is Hector Berlioz
's 1840 Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale
, which uses a trombone solo for the entire second movement.
Toward the end of the 19th century, trombone virtuosi began appearing as soloists in American wind bands. The most notable was Arthur Pryor
, who played with the Sousa Band
and later formed his own.
became a centre of trombone pedagogy; the trombone began to be taught at the new Musikhochschule founded by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Later, the Paris Conservatory and its yearly concours would also contribute to trombone education. At the Leipzig academy, Mendelssohn's bass trombonist, Karl Traugott Queisser
, was the first in a long line of distinguished professors of trombone. Several composers penned works for Quiesser, including Ferdinand David
(Mendelssohn's concertmaster) who wrote in 1837 the Concertino for Trombone and Orchestra, Ernst Sachse and Friedrich August Belcke
, whose solo works all remain popular today in Germany. Queisser almost single-handedly helped to reestablish the reputation of the trombone in Germany and began a tradition in trombone playing that is still practised there today. He championed and popularised Christian Friedrich Sattler's new tenorbass trombone during the 1840s, leading to its widespread use in orchestras throughout Germany and Austria.
), the innovations of Schlangenverzierungen (snake decorations), the bell garland and the wide bell flare, all of which are features that are still to be found on German-made trombones today and were widely copied during the 19th century.
The trombone was further improved in the 19th century with the addition of "stockings" at the end of the inner slide to reduce friction, the development of the water key to expel condensation from the horn, and the occasional addition of a valve to increase the range of the tenor and bass trombones. Additionally, the valve trombone came around shortly after the invention of valves in the 1830s
, and was in common use in Italy and Austria in the second half of the century.
the trombone maintained its important place in the orchestra with prominent parts in works by Richard Strauss
, Gustav Mahler
, Arnold Schoenberg
, Alban Berg
, Maurice Ravel
, Darius Milhaud
, Olivier Messiaen
, Igor Stravinsky
, Dmitri Shostakovich
, Sergei Rachmaninov
, Sergei Prokofiev
, Ottorino Respighi
, Edward Elgar
, Gustav Holst
, Ralph Vaughan Williams
, Benjamin Britten
, William Walton
, Jean Sibelius
, Carl Nielsen
, Leoš Janáček
, George Gershwin
, Aaron Copland
, Leonard Bernstein
and Béla Bartók
.
With the rise of recorded music and music schools in the 20th century, orchestral trombone sections around the world began to have a more consistent idea of a standard trombone sound. British orchestras abandoned the use of small bore tenors and G basses in favor of an American/German approach of large bore tenors and B basses in the 1940s. French orchestras did the same in the 1960s.
in the public school system, high school and university marching band
s and concert band
s became ubiquitous in the US.
A typical concert band trombone section consists of three tenor trombones and one bass trombone, but using multiple players per part is common practice, especially in public school settings.
's Octandre, Paul Hindemith
's Sonata, Charles Wuorinen
's Trombone Trio and Luciano Berio
's Sequenza V
led the way for lesser-known composers to build a wider repertoire. Popular choices for recital music today include Stjepan Sulek
's Vox Gabrieli, Jacques Casterède
's Sonatine and Jean Michel Defaye
's Deux Danses. Some well known trombone concertos from this period include works by Derek Bourgeois
, Lars-Erik Larsson
, Launy Grøndahl
, Nino Rota
, Christopher Rouse and Henri Tomasi
. Jan Sandström
composed two concertos to be performed by Christian Lindberg
, his Trombone Concerto No. 1 (1990) is called Motorbike Odyssey
or Motorbike Concerto.
music, the trombone has remained a relevant instrument, though not always a prominent one. Nearly all flavors of jazz have used one or more trombones throughout the century. Originating in the Caribbean, salsa
and ska
music almost always incorporates a horn section
including trombones. Rock
bands with horn sections are relatively less common, but make for a distinctive sound in groups such as Chicago
, Blood, Sweat & Tears
, and Tower of Power
. In the 1970s and 1980s, groups in the New Orleans brass band tradition began adding elements of funk, hip hop, and bop to their repertoires, but kept the instrumentation of sousaphone, trombones, and trumpets.
, symphony orchestra
s, marching band
s, military band
s, brass band
s, and brass choirs. In chamber music, it is used in brass quintet
s, quartets, or trios, or trombone trios, quartets, or choirs. The size of a trombone choir can vary greatly from five or six to twenty or more members.
Trombones are also common in swing
, jazz
, merengue
, salsa (Jimmy Bosch
, Luis Bonilla
, and Willie Colón
serving as three prominent examples), rock
(prominent examples: Bill Reichenbach and James Pankow
), R&B
, ska
(prominent example: Don Drummond), and New Orleans brass bands (prominent example: Trombone Shorty).
Trombones are usually constructed with a slide that is used to change the pitch. Valve trombones use three valves (singly or in combination) instead of the slide. The valves follow the same schema as other valved instruments-the first valve lowers the pitch by 1 step, the second valve by 1/2 step, and the third valve by 1-1/2 steps.
Some slide trombones have one or (less frequently) two rotary valves operated by a left-hand thumb trigger. The single rotary valve is part of the "F attachment" which adds a length of tubing to lower the instrument's fundamental pitch from B to F. Some bass trombones have a second trigger with a different length of tubing. One advantage of the second trigger is to facilitate the playing of the otherwise problematic low B.
on B is frequently seen in commercial scoring but much less often in symphonic music while notes below that are called for only rarely as they, "become increasingly difficult to produce and insecure in quality" with A or G being the bottom limit for most trombonists.
As with all brass instruments, progressive tightening of the lips and increased air pressure allow the player to move to a different partial
in the harmonic series
. In the first or closed position on a B trombone, the notes in the harmonic series begin with B2 (one octave higher than the pedal B1), F3 (a perfect fifth higher than the previous partial), B3 (a perfect fourth higher), D4 (a major third higher), F4 (a minor third higher), A4 (a minor third higher than the previous partial; this tone (the "seventh partial (sixth overtone)") is always 31 cents, about one sixth of a tone, flat of the twelve-tone equal temperament minor seventh, "however it can be brought into tune by an adjustment of the slide," it may be avoided and played in an alternate position, though it has been the practice in Germany and Austria to play the note in position, see harmonic seventh
and just intonation
), B4 (a major second higher), C5 (a major second higher), D5 (a major second higher), E (a minor second higher, but almost exactly a quarter tone
higher than it would be in twelve-tone equal temperament), F5 (a major second higher). Very skilled players with a highly developed facial musculature can go even higher than this, to G5, A5, B5 and beyond.
In the lower range, significant movement of the slide is required between positions, which becomes more exaggerated on lower pitched trombones, but for higher notes the player need only use the first four positions of the slide since the partials are closer together, allowing higher notes to be played in alternate positions. As an example, F4 (at the bottom of the treble clef) may be played in first, fourth or sixth position on a B trombone. The note E1 (or the lowest E on a standard 88-key piano keyboard) is the lowest attainable note on a 9' B tenor trombone, requiring a full 2.24 m of tubing. On trombones without an F attachment, there is a gap between B1 (the fundamental in first position) and E2 (the first harmonic in seventh position). Skilled players can produce "falset
" notes between these, but the sound is relatively weak and not usually used in performance.
Joseph Fröhlich, in 1811, described the modern system of seven chromatic slide positions rather than four diatonic ones, and a tenor trombone in B rather than A. For ease of comparison (for example, in the old system contemporary 1st-position was considered "drawn past" then current 1st), the following chart may be helpful:
, by moving the slide without interrupting the airflow. During a trombone glissando the slide direction must not change or the sound will break, every pitch in a glissando must have the same harmonic number, and a tritone is the largest interval that can be performed as a glissando.
'Harmonic', 'inverted', 'broken' or 'false' glissandos are those which cross one or more harmonic series, requiring a simulated or faked glissando effect.
, though effortless with valves, are difficult on the slide trombone and are easiest between a second or third
found on the same or between adjacent harmonic series and most convincing above the first octave and a half of the tenor's range
.
. Prior to the invention of valve systems, most brass instruments were limited to playing one overtone series at a time; altering the pitch of the instrument required manually replacing a section of tubing (called a "crook
") or picking up an instrument of different length. Their parts were transposed according to which crook or length-of-instrument they used at any given time, so that a particular note on the staff always corresponded to a particular partial on the instrument. Trombones, on the other hand, have used slides since their inception. As such, they have always been fully chromatic, so no such tradition took hold, and trombone parts have always been notated at concert pitch (with one exception, discussed below). Also, it was quite common for trombones to double choir parts; reading in concert pitch meant there was no need for dedicated trombone parts.
Trombone parts are typically notated in bass clef, though sometimes also written in tenor clef or alto clef. The use of alto clef is usually confined to orchestral first trombone parts intended for the alto trombone, with the second (tenor) trombone part written in tenor clef and the third (bass) part in bass clef. As the alto trombone declined in popularity during the 19th century, this practice was gradually abandoned and first trombone parts came to be notated in the tenor or bass clef. Some Russian and Eastern European composers wrote first and second tenor trombone parts on one alto clef staff (the German Robert Schumann
was the first to do this). Examples of this practice are evident in scores by Igor Stravinsky
, Sergei Prokofiev
, Dmitri Shostakovich
. Trombone parts may contain both bass and tenor clef or bass and alto clef sections.
An accomplished performer today is expected to be proficient in reading parts notated in bass clef, tenor clef, alto clef, and (more rarely) treble clef in C, with the British brass band
performer expected to handle treble clef in B as well.
and some accidentals must be adjusted. This is no mere coincidence, for brass bands used to employ a section of alto, tenor and bass trombones in the early to mid-19th century, later replacing the alto with a tenor trombone, all the while notated in the corresponding clefs. Eventually a decision was taken in the early 20th century to replace the tenor clef with the transposing B treble clef in order to aid new starters to integrate more quickly and effectively into the brass band, though the bass trombone, then in G, remained notated in concert pitch bass clef. (Company bands used B and E treble clef notation for many instruments in the band to allow players to more easily switch instruments when personnel changed.)
A variety of mute
s can be used with the trombone to alter its timbre
. Many are held in place with the use of cork grips, including the straight, cup, harmon and pixie mutes. Some fit over the bell, like the bucket mute. In addition to this, mutes can be held in front of the bell and moved to cover more or less area for a wah-wah effect. Mutes used in this way include the "hat" (a metal mute shaped like a bowler
) and plunger (which looks like, and often is, the rubber suction cup from a sink or toilet plunger
), a sound featured as the voices of adults in the Peanuts
cartoons.
Some trombones have valves instead of a slide (see valve trombone). These may be rotary valves, piston valves, or disc valves. Disc valves are modern versions of a valve invented in the 1820s which was discarded in favour of the rotary and the Périnet (piston) valve.
of that tone, its volume
, the player's subjective level of comfort, and the instrument's playability in a given pitch range.
Mouthpiece selection is a highly personal decision. Thus, a symphonic
trombonist might prefer a mouthpiece with a deeper cup and sharper inner rim shape in order to produce a rich symphonic tone quality, while a jazz
trombonist might choose a shallower cup in order to achieve brighter tone and easier production of higher notes. Further, for certain compositions, these choices between two such performers could easily be reversed.
s and snake decorations on the slide and bell U-bows.
Most trombones played in Germany today, especially by amateurs, are built in the American fashion, as those are much more widely available and thus far cheaper.
and whilst other sizes were made there, the French usually preferred the tenor trombone to any other size. French music, therefore, usually employed a section of three tenor trombones up to the mid-20th century. Tenor trombones produced in France during the 19th and early 20th centuries featured bore sizes of around 0.450", small bells of not more than 6" in diameter, as well as a funnel-shaped mouthpiece slightly larger than that of the cornet
or horn
. French tenor trombones were built in both C and B, altos in D, sopranos in F, piccolos in high B, basses in G and E, contrabasses in B.
label. Currently, B/C trombones are available from many manufacturers, including German makers Günter Frost, Thein and Helmut Voigt, as well as the Yamaha Corporation.
s of the late 19th and early 20th century, prominent American manufacturers included Graves and Sons, E.G. Wright and Company, The Boston Musical Instrument Company
, E.A. Couturier
Co., Ltd., H.N. White Company, J.W. York
, and C.G. Conn, Ltd.. In the 20th century, leading manufacturers of trombones included F.E. Olds, Vincent Bach
, King Musical Instruments, Conn, F.A. Reynolds
, Yamaha Musical Instruments, and recently Jupiter Band Instruments
.
Musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...
in the brass
Brass instrument
A brass instrument is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips...
family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips (embouchure
Embouchure
The embouchure is the use of facial muscles and the shaping of the lips to the mouthpiece of woodwind instruments or the mouthpiece of the brass instruments.The word is of French origin and is related to the root bouche , 'mouth'....
) cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate. The trombone is usually characterised by a telescopic slide with which the player varies the length of the tube to change pitches, although the valve trombone uses three valves like those on a trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
.
The word trombone derives from Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
tromba (trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
) and -one (a suffix meaning "large"), so the name means "large trumpet". The trombone has a predominantly cylindrical bore like its valved counterpart the baritone horn
Baritone horn
The baritone horn is a member of the brass instrument family. The baritone horn has a predominantly cylindrical bore as do the trumpet and trombone. A baritone horn uses a large mouthpiece much like those of a trombone or euphonium, although it is a bit smaller. Some baritone mouthpieces will sink...
and in contrast to its conical valved counterparts, the euphonium
Euphonium
The euphonium is a conical-bore, tenor-voiced brass instrument. It derives its name from the Greek word euphonos, meaning "well-sounding" or "sweet-voiced"...
and the orchestral horn
Horn (instrument)
The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
. The most frequently encountered trombones are the tenor trombone and bass trombone, while the E alto trombone has become less common as tenor technique has extended the upper range of that instrument. The most common variant, the tenor, is pitched in B, an octave below the B trumpet and an octave above the B tuba
Tuba
The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...
. Trombone music, along with music for euphonium
Euphonium
The euphonium is a conical-bore, tenor-voiced brass instrument. It derives its name from the Greek word euphonos, meaning "well-sounding" or "sweet-voiced"...
and tuba
Tuba
The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...
, is typically written in concert pitch, although exceptions do occur, notably in some brass band music where tenor trombone is presented as a B transposing instrument
Transposing instrument
A transposing instrument is a musical instrument for which written notes are read at a pitch different from the corresponding concert pitch, which a non-transposing instrument, such as a piano, would play. Playing a written C on a transposing instrument will produce a note other than concert C...
.
A person who plays the trombone is called a trombonist or trombone player.
Construction
 |
|
Brass instrument
A brass instrument is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips...
s, sound is produced by blowing air through pursed lips producing a vibration that creates a standing wave
Standing wave
In physics, a standing wave – also known as a stationary wave – is a wave that remains in a constant position.This phenomenon can occur because the medium is moving in the opposite direction to the wave, or it can arise in a stationary medium as a result of interference between two waves traveling...
in the instrument.
The detachable cup-shaped mouthpiece
Mouthpiece (brass)
On brass instruments the mouthpiece is the part of the instrument which is placed upon the player's lips. The purpose of the mouthpiece is a resonator, which passes vibration from the lips to the column of air contained within the instrument, giving rise to the standing wave pattern of vibration in...
is similar to that of the baritone horn
Baritone horn
The baritone horn is a member of the brass instrument family. The baritone horn has a predominantly cylindrical bore as do the trumpet and trombone. A baritone horn uses a large mouthpiece much like those of a trombone or euphonium, although it is a bit smaller. Some baritone mouthpieces will sink...
and closely related to that of the trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
. It has the venturi
Venturi effect
The Venturi effect is the reduction in fluid pressure that results when a fluid flows through a constricted section of pipe. The Venturi effect is named after Giovanni Battista Venturi , an Italian physicist.-Background:...
: a small constriction of the air column that adds resistance greatly affecting the tone of the instrument, and is inserted into the mouthpiece receiver in the slide section. The slide section consists of a leadpipe
Leadpipe
In a brass instrument, a leadpipe is the pipe or tube into which the mouthpiece is placed.For example, on the illustration of a trombone, the leadpipe would be between #3 and #4, the mouthpiece and the slide lock ring. In the illustration of a French horn, the leadpipe is #2.Some instruments have a...
, the inner and outer slide tubes, and the bracing, or stays. Modern stays are soldered
Soldering
Soldering is a process in which two or more metal items are joined together by melting and flowing a filler metal into the joint, the filler metal having a lower melting point than the workpiece...
, while sackbut
Sackbut
The sackbut is a trombone from the Renaissance and Baroque eras, i.e., a musical instrument in the brass family similar to the trumpet except characterised by a telescopic slide with which the player varies the length of the tube to change pitches, thus allowing them to obtain chromaticism, as...
s (medieval precursors to trombones) were made with loose, unsoldered stays (this remained the pattern for German trombones until the mid-20th century).
The 'slide', the most visible feature of the trombone (cf. valve trombone), allows the player to extend the length of the air column, lowering the pitch. In order to prevent friction from slowing the action of the slide, additional sleeves were developed during the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
and these stockings were soldered onto the ends of the inner slide tubes. Nowadays, the stockings are incorporated into the manufacturing process of the inner slide tubes and represent a fractional widening of the tube to accommodate the necessary method of alleviating friction. This part of the slide must be lubricated frequently. Additional tubing connects the slide to the bell of the instrument through a neckpipe, and bell or back bow (U-bend). The joint connecting the slide and bell sections is furnished with a ferrule to secure the connection of the two parts of the instrument, though older models from the early 20th century and before were usually equipped with friction joints and no ancillary mechanism to tighten the joint.
The adjustment of intonation is most often accomplished with a tuning slide that is a short slide between the neckpipe and the bell incorporating the bell bow (U-bend); this device was designed by the French maker François Riedlocker during the early 19th century and applied to French and British designs and later in the century to German and American models, though German trombones were built without tuning slides well into the 20th century. However, trombonists, unlike other instrumentalists, are not subject to the intonation issues resulting from valved or keyed instruments, since they can adjust intonation "on the fly" by subtly altering slide positions when necessary. For example, second position "A" is not in exactly the same place on the slide as second position "E." Many types of trombone
Types of trombones
There are many different types of trombone. The most frequently encountered trombones today are the tenor and bass, though as with other Renaissance instruments such as the recorder, the trombone has been built in every size from piccolo to contrabass...
also include one or more rotary valves used to increase the length of the instrument (and therefore lower its pitch) by directing the air flow through additional tubing.
Like the trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
, the trombone is considered a cylindrical bore instrument since it has extensive sections of tubing, principally in the slide section, that are of continuous diameter. This contrasts with conical bore instruments like the cornet
Cornet
The cornet is a brass instrument very similar to the trumpet, distinguished by its conical bore, compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B. It is not related to the renaissance and early baroque cornett or cornetto.-History:The cornet was...
, euphonium
Euphonium
The euphonium is a conical-bore, tenor-voiced brass instrument. It derives its name from the Greek word euphonos, meaning "well-sounding" or "sweet-voiced"...
, and tuba
Tuba
The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...
, whose only cylindrical tubing is in the valve section. Tenor trombones typically have a bore of 0.450" (small bore) to 0.547" (large or orchestral bore) after the leadpipe and through the slide. Some small bore jazz trombones, though, have two different diameters of tubing in the slide section to simulate a conical bore. Without this innovation, the trombone would sound extremely sharp and piercing. The bore expands through the backbore to the bell which is typically between 7" and 8½". A number of common variations on trombone construction are noted below.
Renaissance and Baroque periods
When the "sackbutSackbut
The sackbut is a trombone from the Renaissance and Baroque eras, i.e., a musical instrument in the brass family similar to the trumpet except characterised by a telescopic slide with which the player varies the length of the tube to change pitches, thus allowing them to obtain chromaticism, as...
" returned to common use again in England in the 18th century, Italian music was so influential that rather than being known by its original name the instrument was known as the "trombone", although other countries used the same name throughout the instrument's history, viz. Italian trombone and German Posaune. The 17th century trombone was built in slightly smaller dimensions than modern trombones, and had a bell that was more conical and less flared.
The instrument was used extensively across Europe from its appearance in the 15th century to a fading out in most places across the mid-late 17th century. It was used in outdoor events, in concert and in liturgical settings. The groups varied from alta capella
Alta capella
Alta capella were town wind bands found throughout continental Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries, which typically consisted of shawms and slide trumpets or sackbuts. Waits were the British equivalent. These were not found anywhere outside of Europe....
, wind ensembles, with voices, and in the first 'orchestra'-type ensembles in religious settings like St Mark's Basilica
St Mark's Basilica
The Patriarchal Cathedral Basilica of Saint Mark is the cathedral church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Venice, northern Italy. It is the most famous of the city's churches and one of the best known examples of Byzantine architecture...
in Venice in the early 17th century. Famous composers writing for the trombone in this period include Giovanni Gabrieli
Giovanni Gabrieli
Giovanni Gabrieli was an Italian composer and organist. He was one of the most influential musicians of his time, and represents the culmination of the style of the Venetian School, at the time of the shift from Renaissance to Baroque idioms.-Biography:Gabrieli was born in Venice...
and his uncle Andrea Gabrieli
Andrea Gabrieli
Andrea Gabrieli was an Italian composer and organist of the late Renaissance. The uncle of the somewhat more famous Giovanni Gabrieli, he was the first internationally renowned member of the Venetian School of composers, and was extremely influential in spreading the Venetian style in Italy as...
, Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi – 29 November 1643) was an Italian composer, gambist, and singer.Monteverdi's work, often regarded as revolutionary, marked the transition from the Renaissance style of music to that of the Baroque period. He developed two individual styles of composition – the...
and Heinrich Schütz
Heinrich Schütz
Heinrich Schütz was a German composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach and often considered to be one of the most important composers of the 17th century along with Claudio Monteverdi...
. There are also some solo pieces written specifically for trombone in the early 17th century.
During the later Baroque period
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
, Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
and George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
used the trombone on a few occasions; Bach used it in combination with the cornett
Cornett
The cornett, cornetto or zink is an early wind instrument, dating from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods. It was used in what are now called alta capellas or wind ensembles. It is not to be confused with the trumpet-like instrument cornet.-Construction:There are three basic types of...
to evoke the stile antico
Stile antico
Stile antico, literally "ancient style", is a term describing music from the sixteenth through the twentieth centuries. It refers to a manner of composition which is historically conscious, as opposed to stile moderno...
in some of his many cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
s and Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...
used it in the Dead March from Saul, Samson
Samson (oratorio)
Samson is a three-act oratorio by George Frideric Handel, considered one of his finest dramatic works. It is usually performed as an oratorio in concert form, but on occasions has also been staged as an opera...
, and Israel in Egypt
Israel in Egypt (oratorio)
Israel in Egypt is a biblical oratorio by the composer George Frideric Handel. Many historians believe the libretto was compiled by Handel's collaborator Charles Jennens, and it is composed entirely of selected passages from the Hebrew Bible, mainly from Exodus and the Psalms.Israel in Egypt...
, all of which were examples of a new oratorio
Oratorio
An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
style, popular during the early 18th century.
Classical period
The use of the trombone in this period was mostly limited to Austria.The repertoire of trombone solo and chamber literature has its beginnings in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
in the Classical Era where composers such as Leopold Mozart
Leopold Mozart
Johann Georg Leopold Mozart was a German composer, conductor, teacher, and violinist. Mozart is best known today as the father and teacher of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and for his violin textbook Versuch einer gründlichen Violinschule.-Childhood and student years:He was born in Augsburg, son of...
, Georg Christoph Wagenseil
Georg Christoph Wagenseil
Georg Christoph Wagenseil was an Austrian composer.He was born in Vienna, and became a favorite pupil of the Vienna court'sKapellmeister, Johann Joseph Fux. Wagenseil himself composed for the...
, Johann Albrechtsberger and Johann Ernst Eberlin
Johann Ernst Eberlin
Johann Ernst Eberlin was a German composer and organist whose works bridge the baroque and classical eras. He was a prolific composer, chiefly of church organ and choral music...
were featuring the instrument, often in partnership with a voice.
Joseph Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
used the trombones in a number of their sacred works, including two extended duets with voice from Mozart, the best known being in the Tuba Mirum of his Requiem
Requiem (Mozart)
The Requiem Mass in D minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was composed in Vienna in 1791 and left unfinished at the composer's death. A completion by Franz Xaver Süssmayr was delivered to Count Franz von Walsegg, who had anonymously commissioned the piece for a requiem Mass to commemorate the...
. Mozart also used trombones in several of his operas. The inspiration for many of these works is thought to be due to the virtuosic players in the courts at Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
and Salzburg
Salzburg
-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...
, including Thomas Gschladt and several members of a family named Christian.
The trombone retained its traditional associations with the opera house
Opera house
An opera house is a theatre building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building...
and the Church
Christian Church
The Christian Church is the assembly or association of followers of Jesus Christ. The Greek term ἐκκλησία that in its appearances in the New Testament is usually translated as "church" basically means "assembly"...
during the 18th century and was usually employed in the usual alto/tenor/bass trio to support the lower voices of the chorus, though Viennese court orchestra Kapellmeister Johann Joseph Fux rejected an application from a bass trombonist in 1726 and restricted the use of trombones to alto and tenor only, which remained the case almost until the turn of the 19th century in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, after which time a second tenor trombone was added when necessary.
The construction of the trombone changed relatively little between the Baroque period
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
and Classical period with the most obvious feature being the slightly more flared bell than was previously the custom.
The first use of the trombone in a symphony
Symphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
was in 1807 in the Symphony in E by the Swedish composer Joachim Nicolas Eggert
Joachim Nicolas Eggert
Joachim Nicolas Eggert was a Swedish composer and musical director.Eggert was born in Gingst on Rügen, at that time part of Swedish Pommern. At a very young age he started studying to play the violin. In Stralsund he continued his musical education in the subjects violin und composition...
1, although the composer usually credited with its introduction into the symphony orchestra was Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
, who used it in the last movement of his Symphony No. 5 in C minor
Symphony No. 5 (Beethoven)
The Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, was written by Ludwig van Beethoven in 1804–08. This symphony is one of the most popular and best-known compositions in all of classical music, and one of the most often played symphonies. It comprises four movements: an opening sonata, an andante, and a fast...
(1808). Beethoven also used trombones in his Symphony No. 6 in F major ("Pastoral")
Symphony No. 6 (Beethoven)
Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68, also known as the Pastoral Symphony , is a symphony composed by Ludwig van Beethoven, and was completed in 1808...
and Symphony No. 9 ("Choral")
Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)
The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, is the final complete symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven. Completed in 1824, the symphony is one of the best known works of the Western classical repertoire, and has been adapted for use as the European Anthem...
.
19th century orchestras
Many composers were directly influenced by Beethoven's use of trombones, and the 19th century saw the trombones become fully integrated in the orchestraOrchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
, particularly by the 1840s, as composers such as Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
, Franz Berwald
Franz Berwald
Franz Adolf Berwald was a Swedish Romantic composer who was generally ignored during his lifetime. He made his living as an orthopedic surgeon and later as the manager of a saw mill and glass factory....
, Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
, Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
, Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
, Gioacchino Rossini
Gioacchino Rossini
Gioachino Antonio Rossini was an Italian composer who wrote 39 operas as well as sacred music, chamber music, songs, and some instrumental and piano pieces...
, Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
, Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
, Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
, Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
, Anton Bruckner
Anton Bruckner
Anton Bruckner was an Austrian composer known for his symphonies, masses, and motets. The first are considered emblematic of the final stage of Austro-German Romanticism because of their rich harmonic language, complex polyphony, and considerable length...
, Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
, Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...
, Alexander Borodin
Alexander Borodin
Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a Russian Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian–Russian parentage. He was a member of the group of composers called The Five , who were dedicated to producing a specifically Russian kind of art music...
, Bedřich Smetana
Bedrich Smetana
Bedřich Smetana was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music...
, Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Dvorák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
, Charles Gounod
Charles Gounod
Charles-François Gounod was a French composer, known for his Ave Maria as well as his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette.-Biography:...
, César Franck
César Franck
César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....
, Claude Debussy
Claude Debussy
Claude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
, Camille Saint-Saëns
Camille Saint-Saëns
Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns was a French Late-Romantic composer, organist, conductor, and pianist. He is known especially for The Carnival of the Animals, Danse macabre, Samson and Delilah, Piano Concerto No. 2, Cello Concerto No. 1, Havanaise, Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and his Symphony...
and many others included trombones in their operas, symphonies and other orchestral compositions.
The 19th century also saw the erosion of the traditional alto/tenor/bass trombone trio in the orchestra. While the alto/tenor/bass trombone trio had been paired with one or two cornett
Cornett
The cornett, cornetto or zink is an early wind instrument, dating from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods. It was used in what are now called alta capellas or wind ensembles. It is not to be confused with the trumpet-like instrument cornet.-Construction:There are three basic types of...
s during the Renaissance and early Baroque
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
periods, the disappearance of the cornett as a partner and eventual replacement by oboe and clarinet did not fundamentally alter the raison d'être for the trombones, which was to support the alto, tenor and bass voices of the chorus (typically in an ecclesiastical setting), whose harmonic moving lines were more difficult to pick out than the melodic soprano line. The introduction of the trombones into the orchestra, however, allied them more closely with the trumpets and it did not take long for the alto and bass trombones to be replaced by tenor trombones, although the Germans and Austrians held on to the alto trombone and F or E bass trombone somewhat longer than the French, who came to prefer a section of three tenor trombones until after the Second World War.
By the time the trombone gained a regular footing in the orchestra and opera, players of the instrument were no longer usually employed by a cathedral or court orchestra and were therefore expected to provide their own instrument. Military musicians were provided with instruments by the army and instruments like the long F or E bass trombone remained in use there until about the time of the First World War, but the orchestral musician understandably adopted the instrument with the widest range which could be most easily applied to play any of the three trombone parts usually scored in any given work - the tenor trombone. The appearance of the valve trombone during the mid-19th century did little to alter the make-up of the trombone section in the orchestra and though it remained popular almost entirely to the exclusion of the slide instrument in countries such as Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
, the valve trombone was ousted from orchestras in Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. The valve trombone continued to enjoy an extended period of popularity in Italy and Bohemia and composers such as Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
, Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
, Bedřich Smetana
Bedrich Smetana
Bedřich Smetana was a Czech composer who pioneered the development of a musical style which became closely identified with his country's aspirations to independent statehood. He is thus widely regarded in his homeland as the father of Czech music...
and Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Dvorák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
scored for a section of valve trombones.
Especially with the ophicleide
Ophicleide
The ophicleide is a family of conical bore, brass keyed-bugles. It has a similar shape to the sudrophone.- History :The ophicleide was invented in 1817 and patented in 1821 by French instrument maker Jean Hilaire Asté as an extension to the keyed bugle or Royal Kent bugle family...
or later the tuba
Tuba
The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...
subjoined to the trombone trio during the 19th century, parts scored for the bass trombone rarely descended as low as the parts scored before the addition of either of these new low brass instruments; only in the early 20th century did it regain a degree of independence. Experiments with different constitutions of the trombone section during the 19th and early 20th centuries, including Richard Wagner's addition of a contrabass trombone in Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...
and Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
's and Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
' occasional augmentation by adding a second bass trombone to the usual trio of two tenor trombones and one bass trombone, have not had any lasting effect; the majority of orchestral works are still scored for the usual mid- to late-19th-century low brass section of two tenor trombones, one bass trombone and one tuba.
19th century wind bands
Trombones have been a part of the large wind band since its inception as an ensemble during the French RevolutionFrench Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
of 1791. Over the course of the 19th century, various wind band traditions were established in Europe and the United States, including military band
Military band
A military band originally was a group of personnel that performs musical duties for military functions, usually for the armed forces. A typical military band consists mostly of wind and percussion instruments. The conductor of a band commonly bears the title of Bandmaster or Director of Music...
s, brass bands
Brass band (British style)
A British-style brass band is a musical ensemble comprising a standardised range of brass and percussion instruments. The modern form of the brass band in the United Kingdom dates back to the 19th century, with a vibrant tradition of competition based around local industry and communities...
(primarily in the UK), town bands
Community band
A community band is a concert band ensemble, generally sponsored by the town or city in which it is located and consisting primarily of amateur performers...
(primarily in the US), and circus
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...
bands. Some of these groups, especially military bands in Europe, made use of rear-facing trombones, where the bell section pointed behind the player's left shoulder.
These different wind bands all played a limited repertoire with few original compositions that consisted mainly of orchestral transcriptions, arrangements of popular and patriotic tunes, and feature pieces for soloists (usually cornetists
Cornet
The cornet is a brass instrument very similar to the trumpet, distinguished by its conical bore, compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B. It is not related to the renaissance and early baroque cornett or cornetto.-History:The cornet was...
, singers, and violinists). A notable work originally for wind band is Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
's 1840 Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale
Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale
Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale , Op. 15, is the fourth and last symphony by the French composer Hector Berlioz, first performed on 28 July 1840 in Paris...
, which uses a trombone solo for the entire second movement.
Toward the end of the 19th century, trombone virtuosi began appearing as soloists in American wind bands. The most notable was Arthur Pryor
Arthur Pryor
Arthur Willard Pryor was a trombone virtuoso, bandleader, and soloist with the Sousa Band. In later life, he was an American Democratic Party politician from New Jersey, who served on the Monmouth County, New Jersey Board of Chosen Freeholders during the 1930s.Pryor was born on the second floor of...
, who played with the Sousa Band
John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era, known particularly for American military and patriotic marches. Because of his mastery of march composition, he is known as "The March King" or the "American March King" due to his British counterpart Kenneth J....
and later formed his own.
19th century pedagogy
In the Romantic era, LeipzigLeipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
became a centre of trombone pedagogy; the trombone began to be taught at the new Musikhochschule founded by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Later, the Paris Conservatory and its yearly concours would also contribute to trombone education. At the Leipzig academy, Mendelssohn's bass trombonist, Karl Traugott Queisser
Karl Traugott Queisser
Karl Traugott Queisser played trombone and viola in Germany as a member of the Gewandhaus Orchestra under Felix Mendelssohn.He was Principal Viola of the Gewandhaus Orchestra from 1820 until 1843 where he also appeared as soloist on 27 occasions...
, was the first in a long line of distinguished professors of trombone. Several composers penned works for Quiesser, including Ferdinand David
Ferdinand David (musician)
Ferdinand David was a German virtuoso violinist and composer.Born in the same house in Hamburg where Felix Mendelssohn had been born the previous year, David was raised Jewish but later converted to Christianity...
(Mendelssohn's concertmaster) who wrote in 1837 the Concertino for Trombone and Orchestra, Ernst Sachse and Friedrich August Belcke
Friedrich August Belcke
Friedrich August Belcke was a celebrated trombonist in Berlin in the 19th century.In 1815, after two solos with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Belcke had a 30-year career as a trombone soloist....
, whose solo works all remain popular today in Germany. Queisser almost single-handedly helped to reestablish the reputation of the trombone in Germany and began a tradition in trombone playing that is still practised there today. He championed and popularised Christian Friedrich Sattler's new tenorbass trombone during the 1840s, leading to its widespread use in orchestras throughout Germany and Austria.
19th century construction
Sattler's influence on trombone design is not to be underestimated; he introduced a significant widening of the bore (the most important since the RenaissanceRenaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
), the innovations of Schlangenverzierungen (snake decorations), the bell garland and the wide bell flare, all of which are features that are still to be found on German-made trombones today and were widely copied during the 19th century.
The trombone was further improved in the 19th century with the addition of "stockings" at the end of the inner slide to reduce friction, the development of the water key to expel condensation from the horn, and the occasional addition of a valve to increase the range of the tenor and bass trombones. Additionally, the valve trombone came around shortly after the invention of valves in the 1830s
1830s
- Wars :* The First Opium War between the United Kingdom and the Qing Empire of China started in 1839. It would end three years later with the signing of the Treaty of Nanking on 29 August 1842.- Internal conflicts :* French Revolution of 1830...
, and was in common use in Italy and Austria in the second half of the century.
20th century orchestras
In the 20th century20th century classical music
20th century classical music was without a dominant style and highly diverse.-Introduction:At the turn of the century, music was characteristically late Romantic in style. Composers such as Gustav Mahler and Jean Sibelius were pushing the bounds of Post-Romantic Symphonic writing...
the trombone maintained its important place in the orchestra with prominent parts in works by Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
, Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
, Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
, Alban Berg
Alban Berg
Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
, Maurice Ravel
Maurice Ravel
Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
, Darius Milhaud
Darius Milhaud
Darius Milhaud was a French composer and teacher. He was a member of Les Six—also known as The Group of Six—and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century. His compositions are influenced by jazz and make use of polytonality...
, Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
, Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
, Sergei Rachmaninov
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...
, Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...
, Ottorino Respighi
Ottorino Respighi
Ottorino Respighi was an Italian composer, musicologist and conductor. He is best known for his orchestral "Roman trilogy": Fountains of Rome ; Pines of Rome ; and Roman Festivals...
, Edward Elgar
Edward Elgar
Sir Edward William Elgar, 1st Baronet OM, GCVO was an English composer, many of whose works have entered the British and international classical concert repertoire. Among his best-known compositions are orchestral works including the Enigma Variations, the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, concertos...
, Gustav Holst
Gustav Holst
Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....
, Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Ralph Vaughan Williams OM was an English composer of symphonies, chamber music, opera, choral music, and film scores. He was also a collector of English folk music and song: this activity both influenced his editorial approach to the English Hymnal, beginning in 1904, in which he included many...
, Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
, William Walton
William Walton
Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera...
, Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius
Jean Sibelius was a Finnish composer of the later Romantic period whose music played an important role in the formation of the Finnish national identity. His mastery of the orchestra has been described as "prodigious."...
, Carl Nielsen
Carl Nielsen
Carl August Nielsen , , widely recognised as Denmark's greatest composer, was also a conductor and a violinist. Brought up by poor but musically talented parents on the island of Funen, he demonstrated his musical abilities at an early age...
, Leoš Janáček
Leoš Janácek
Leoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...
, George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...
, Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
, Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
and Béla Bartók
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
.
With the rise of recorded music and music schools in the 20th century, orchestral trombone sections around the world began to have a more consistent idea of a standard trombone sound. British orchestras abandoned the use of small bore tenors and G basses in favor of an American/German approach of large bore tenors and B basses in the 1940s. French orchestras did the same in the 1960s.
20th century wind bands
During the first half of the century, touring and community concert bands lost their popularity in the United States and greatly reduced in number. However, with the development of music educationMusic education
Music education is a field of study associated with the teaching and learning of music. It touches on all domains of learning, including the psychomotor domain , the cognitive domain , and, in particular and significant ways,the affective domain, including music appreciation and sensitivity...
in the public school system, high school and university marching band
Marching band
Marching band is a physical activity in which a group of instrumental musicians generally perform outdoors and incorporate some type of marching with their musical performance. Instrumentation typically includes brass, woodwinds, and percussion instruments...
s and concert band
Concert band
A concert band, also called wind band, symphonic band, symphonic winds, wind orchestra, wind symphony, wind ensemble, or symphonic wind ensemble, is a performing ensemble consisting of several members of the woodwind instrument family, brass instrument family, and percussion instrument family.A...
s became ubiquitous in the US.
A typical concert band trombone section consists of three tenor trombones and one bass trombone, but using multiple players per part is common practice, especially in public school settings.
20th century solo and chamber music
In the second half of the century, new composers began giving back to the trombone a level of importance in solo and chamber music. Pieces such as Edgard VarèseEdgard Varèse
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, , whose name was also spelled Edgar Varèse , was an innovative French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States....
's Octandre, Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith
Paul Hindemith was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher, music theorist and conductor.- Biography :Born in Hanau, near Frankfurt, Hindemith was taught the violin as a child...
's Sonata, Charles Wuorinen
Charles Wuorinen
Charles Peter Wuorinen is a prolific Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. His catalog of more than 250 compositions includes works for orchestra, opera, chamber music, as well as solo instrumental and vocal works...
's Trombone Trio and Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio
Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI was an Italian composer. He is noted for his experimental work and also for his pioneering work in electronic music.-Biography:Berio was born at Oneglia Luciano Berio, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI (October 24, 1925 – May 27, 2003) was an Italian...
's Sequenza V
Sequenza V
Sequenza V is a composition for solo trombone by Luciano Berio, part of his series of pieces with this title. Written in 1966 for Stuart Dempster, it has since been performed and recorded by Vinko Globokar, Benny Sluchin, Christian Lindberg, and others...
led the way for lesser-known composers to build a wider repertoire. Popular choices for recital music today include Stjepan Sulek
Stjepan Šulek
Stjepan Šulek was a Croatian composer and conductor.- Biography :Born in Zagreb in 1914, Šulek began his music study very early by learning piano, violin, and composition. In 1936 he received his diploma from the Zagreb Academy of Music. Until 1952 Šulek was an active soloist who gave numerous...
's Vox Gabrieli, Jacques Casterède
Jacques Castérède
Jacques Castérède is a French composer.He studied at Lycée Buffon in Paris. He gained his baccalaureat in elementary mathematics, before he entered Paris National Conservatory of Music in 1944 and began studying piano under Armand Ferté, composition under Tony Aubin, analysis under Olivier Messiaen...
's Sonatine and Jean Michel Defaye
Jean Michel Defaye
Jean-Michel Defaye is a composer of classical music.He was born in Saint-Mandé, Val-de-Marne near Paris, on 18 September 1932. Aged ten he entered the Paris Conservatoire and completed his musical training in theory, piano and composition, taking in Nadia Boulanger's accompaniment class...
's Deux Danses. Some well known trombone concertos from this period include works by Derek Bourgeois
Derek Bourgeois
Derek Bourgeois is an English composer. Educated at Cambridge University , he spent two years at the Royal College of Music studying composition with Herbert Howells and conducting with Sir Adrian Boult.From 1970 to 1984 he was a lecturer in music at Bristol University, and then Director of the...
, Lars-Erik Larsson
Lars-Erik Larsson
Lars-Erik Larsson was a notable Swedish composer of the 20th century.-Biography:Lars-Erik Vilner Larsson was born in Åkarp in 1908...
, Launy Grøndahl
Launy Grøndahl
Launy Grøndahl was a Danish composer and conductor. Grøndahl studied the violin from the age of eight. His first work as a professional musician was as a violinist was with the Orchestra of the Casino Theatre in Copenhagen when he was aged just thirteen.He was also for a long period of time the...
, Nino Rota
Nino Rota
Nino Rota was an Italian composer and academic who is best known for his film scores, notably for the films of Federico Fellini and Luchino Visconti...
, Christopher Rouse and Henri Tomasi
Henri Tomasi
Henri Tomasi was a French classical composer and conductor.- The early years :Henri Tomasi was born in Marseille, France, in the working class neighborhood on August 17, 1901. His father Xavier Tomasi and mother Josephine Vincensi were originally from La Casinca, Corsica...
. Jan Sandström
Jan Sandström (composer)
Jan Sandström is a Swedish classical music composer, known for the so-called Motorbike Concerto for trombone and orchestra and his choral setting of Es ist ein Ros entsprungen.-Career:...
composed two concertos to be performed by Christian Lindberg
Christian Lindberg
Christian Lindberg is a Swedish trombonist, conductor and composer.As a youth, Lindberg learned to play the trumpet, and subsequently began to learn the trombone at age 17. He originally borrowed a trombone to join his friends' Dixieland jazz group, inspired by records of Jack Teagarden...
, his Trombone Concerto No. 1 (1990) is called Motorbike Odyssey
Motorbike Odyssey
Motorbike Odyssey is the Trombone Concerto No. 1 by Swedish composer Jan Sandström. The concerto for solo tenor trombone and large orchestra, written in 1989, is sometimes called Motorbike Concerto. It was dedicated to the trombone virtuoso Christian Lindberg...
or Motorbike Concerto.
Popular music
Despite the public's waning interest in classical, then jazzJazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
music, the trombone has remained a relevant instrument, though not always a prominent one. Nearly all flavors of jazz have used one or more trombones throughout the century. Originating in the Caribbean, salsa
Salsa music
Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...
and ska
Ska
Ska |Jamaican]] ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s, and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues...
music almost always incorporates a horn section
Horn section
In music, a horn section can refer to several groups of musicians. It can refer to the musicians in a symphony orchestra who play the horn . In a British-style brass band it refers to the tenor horn players. In popular music, it can also refer to a small group of wind instrumentalists who augment a...
including trombones. Rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
bands with horn sections are relatively less common, but make for a distinctive sound in groups such as Chicago
Chicago (band)
Chicago is an American rock band formed in 1967 in Chicago, Illinois. The self-described "rock and roll band with horns" began as a politically charged, sometimes experimental, rock band and later moved to a predominantly softer sound, becoming famous for producing a number of hit ballads. They had...
, Blood, Sweat & Tears
Blood, Sweat & Tears
Blood, Sweat & Tears is an American music group, originally formed in 1967 in New York City. Since its beginnings in 1967, the band has gone through numerous iterations with varying personnel and has encompassed a multitude of musical styles...
, and Tower of Power
Tower of Power
Tower of Power is an American R&B-based horn section and band, originating in Oakland, California, that has been performing for over 43 years. They are best known for their funky soul sound highlighted by a powerful horn section...
. In the 1970s and 1980s, groups in the New Orleans brass band tradition began adding elements of funk, hip hop, and bop to their repertoires, but kept the instrumentation of sousaphone, trombones, and trumpets.
20th century construction
Numerous changes in construction have occurred during the 20th century, including the use of different materials, increases in mouthpiece, bore and bell dimensions, new valve types and different mute types. The use of computer modeling in trombone manufacturing has allowed for better sonic construction and more consistency between individually produced instruments of the same model.Contemporary use
Today, the trombone can be found in wind ensembles/concert bandsConcert band
A concert band, also called wind band, symphonic band, symphonic winds, wind orchestra, wind symphony, wind ensemble, or symphonic wind ensemble, is a performing ensemble consisting of several members of the woodwind instrument family, brass instrument family, and percussion instrument family.A...
, symphony orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
s, marching band
Marching band
Marching band is a physical activity in which a group of instrumental musicians generally perform outdoors and incorporate some type of marching with their musical performance. Instrumentation typically includes brass, woodwinds, and percussion instruments...
s, military band
Military band
A military band originally was a group of personnel that performs musical duties for military functions, usually for the armed forces. A typical military band consists mostly of wind and percussion instruments. The conductor of a band commonly bears the title of Bandmaster or Director of Music...
s, brass band
Brass band
A brass band is a musical ensemble generally consisting entirely of brass instruments, most often with a percussion section. Ensembles that include brass and woodwind instruments can in certain traditions also be termed brass bands , but are usually more correctly termed military bands, concert...
s, and brass choirs. In chamber music, it is used in brass quintet
Brass quintet
A brass quintet is a five-piece musical ensemble composed of brass instruments. The most common instrumentation is two trumpets or cornets, one horn, one trombone or euphonium/baritone horn, and one tuba or bass trombone....
s, quartets, or trios, or trombone trios, quartets, or choirs. The size of a trombone choir can vary greatly from five or six to twenty or more members.
Trombones are also common in swing
Swing (genre)
Swing music, also known as swing jazz or simply swing, is a form of jazz music that developed in the early 1930s and became a distinctive style by 1935 in the United States...
, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, merengue
Merengue music
Merengue is a type of music and dance from the Dominican Republic. It is popular in the Dominican Republic and all over Latin America. Its name is Spanish, taken from the name of the meringue, a dessert made from whipped egg whites and sugar...
, salsa (Jimmy Bosch
Jimmy Bosch
Jimmy Bosch Jimmy Bosch Jimmy Bosch (c. 1960, aka "El Trombon Criollo", is an Afro-Cuban jazz and Cuban Music trombonist and bandleader born in Jersey City, New Jersey. Having performed since age eleven, by age thirteen he was playing in several local Latin music bands. While at Rutgers University...
, Luis Bonilla
Luis Bonilla
Luis Bonilla is an American Afro-Cuban jazz and Latin jazz trombonist born in Los Angeles, California of Costa Rican descent. He is a Grammy Award- winning performer, composer, and Music Professor, about whom the New York Times has described as the artist who "explodes the usual musical structures...
, and Willie Colón
Willie Colón
William Anthony Colón is a Nuyorican salsa musician. Primarily a trombonist, Colón also sings, writes, produces and acts. He is also involved in municipal politics in New York City.-Early years:...
serving as three prominent examples), rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
(prominent examples: Bill Reichenbach and James Pankow
James Pankow
James Carter "Jimmy" Pankow is an American trombone player, songwriter and brass instrument arranger best known as a founding member of the rock band Chicago.-Early life:...
), R&B
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
, ska
Ska
Ska |Jamaican]] ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s, and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues...
(prominent example: Don Drummond), and New Orleans brass bands (prominent example: Trombone Shorty).
Types
The most frequently encountered trombones today are the tenor and bass, though as with many other Renaissance instruments, the trombone has been built in sizes from piccolo to contrabass.Trombones are usually constructed with a slide that is used to change the pitch. Valve trombones use three valves (singly or in combination) instead of the slide. The valves follow the same schema as other valved instruments-the first valve lowers the pitch by 1 step, the second valve by 1/2 step, and the third valve by 1-1/2 steps.
Some slide trombones have one or (less frequently) two rotary valves operated by a left-hand thumb trigger. The single rotary valve is part of the "F attachment" which adds a length of tubing to lower the instrument's fundamental pitch from B to F. Some bass trombones have a second trigger with a different length of tubing. One advantage of the second trigger is to facilitate the playing of the otherwise problematic low B.
Technique
The pedal tonePedal tone
Pedal tones are special notes in the harmonic series of cylindrical-bore brass instruments. A pedal tone has the pitch of its harmonic series' fundamental tone. Its name comes from the pedals of a pipe-organ. Cylindrical brasses do not naturally vibrate at this frequency.A closed cylinder...
on B is frequently seen in commercial scoring but much less often in symphonic music while notes below that are called for only rarely as they, "become increasingly difficult to produce and insecure in quality" with A or G being the bottom limit for most trombonists.
As with all brass instruments, progressive tightening of the lips and increased air pressure allow the player to move to a different partial
Partial
Partial may refer to:*partial derivative, in mathematics** ∂, the partial derivative symbol, often read as "partial"*partial function, in mathematics*partial algorithm, in computer science*part score, in contract bridge...
in the harmonic series
Harmonic series (music)
Pitched musical instruments are often based on an approximate harmonic oscillator such as a string or a column of air, which oscillates at numerous frequencies simultaneously. At these resonant frequencies, waves travel in both directions along the string or air column, reinforcing and canceling...
. In the first or closed position on a B trombone, the notes in the harmonic series begin with B2 (one octave higher than the pedal B1), F3 (a perfect fifth higher than the previous partial), B3 (a perfect fourth higher), D4 (a major third higher), F4 (a minor third higher), A4 (a minor third higher than the previous partial; this tone (the "seventh partial (sixth overtone)") is always 31 cents, about one sixth of a tone, flat of the twelve-tone equal temperament minor seventh, "however it can be brought into tune by an adjustment of the slide," it may be avoided and played in an alternate position, though it has been the practice in Germany and Austria to play the note in position, see harmonic seventh
Harmonic seventh
The harmonic seventh interval , also known as the septimal minor seventh, or subminor seventh, is one with an exact 7:4 ratio . This is somewhat narrower than and is "sweeter in quality" than an "ordinary" minor seventh, which has a just-intonation ratio of 9:5 , or an equal-temperament ratio of...
and just intonation
Just intonation
In music, just intonation is any musical tuning in which the frequencies of notes are related by ratios of small whole numbers. Any interval tuned in this way is called a just interval. The two notes in any just interval are members of the same harmonic series...
), B4 (a major second higher), C5 (a major second higher), D5 (a major second higher), E (a minor second higher, but almost exactly a quarter tone
Quarter tone
A quarter tone , is a pitch halfway between the usual notes of a chromatic scale, an interval about half as wide as a semitone, which is half a whole tone....
higher than it would be in twelve-tone equal temperament), F5 (a major second higher). Very skilled players with a highly developed facial musculature can go even higher than this, to G5, A5, B5 and beyond.
In the lower range, significant movement of the slide is required between positions, which becomes more exaggerated on lower pitched trombones, but for higher notes the player need only use the first four positions of the slide since the partials are closer together, allowing higher notes to be played in alternate positions. As an example, F4 (at the bottom of the treble clef) may be played in first, fourth or sixth position on a B trombone. The note E1 (or the lowest E on a standard 88-key piano keyboard) is the lowest attainable note on a 9' B tenor trombone, requiring a full 2.24 m of tubing. On trombones without an F attachment, there is a gap between B1 (the fundamental in first position) and E2 (the first harmonic in seventh position). Skilled players can produce "falset
Falset (Music)
Falset is the latitude for a brasswind player's pitch-control of a harmonic. While only just sufficient in middle and high registers to allow for intonation adjustment, this latitude becomes very wide in the low register in the flattening direction; indeed, without this, the conventional system of...
" notes between these, but the sound is relatively weak and not usually used in performance.
Joseph Fröhlich, in 1811, described the modern system of seven chromatic slide positions rather than four diatonic ones, and a tenor trombone in B rather than A. For ease of comparison (for example, in the old system contemporary 1st-position was considered "drawn past" then current 1st), the following chart may be helpful:
| New system | Old system |
|---|---|
| 1 | - |
| 2 | 1 |
| 3 | - |
| 4 | 2 |
| 5 | - |
| 6 | 3 |
| 7 | 4 |
Glissando
The trombone is one of the few wind instruments that can produce a true glissandoGlissando
In music, a glissando is a glide from one pitch to another. It is an Italianized musical term derived from the French glisser, to glide. In some contexts it is distinguished from the continuous portamento...
, by moving the slide without interrupting the airflow. During a trombone glissando the slide direction must not change or the sound will break, every pitch in a glissando must have the same harmonic number, and a tritone is the largest interval that can be performed as a glissando.
'Harmonic', 'inverted', 'broken' or 'false' glissandos are those which cross one or more harmonic series, requiring a simulated or faked glissando effect.
Trills
TrillsTrill (music)
The trill is a musical ornament consisting of a rapid alternation between two adjacent notes, usually a semitone or tone apart, which can be identified with the context of the trill....
, though effortless with valves, are difficult on the slide trombone and are easiest between a second or third
Third (music)
In music and music theory third may refer to:*major third*minor third*augmented third/perfect fourth*diminished third/major second*Third , chord member a third above the root*Mediant, third degree of the diatonic scale...
found on the same or between adjacent harmonic series and most convincing above the first octave and a half of the tenor's range
Range (music)
In music, the range of a musical instrument is the distance from the lowest to the highest pitch it can play. For a singing voice, the equivalent is vocal range...
.
Notation
Unlike most other brass instruments in an orchestral setting, the trombone is not usually considered a transposing instrumentTransposing instrument
A transposing instrument is a musical instrument for which written notes are read at a pitch different from the corresponding concert pitch, which a non-transposing instrument, such as a piano, would play. Playing a written C on a transposing instrument will produce a note other than concert C...
. Prior to the invention of valve systems, most brass instruments were limited to playing one overtone series at a time; altering the pitch of the instrument required manually replacing a section of tubing (called a "crook
Crook (music)
A crook, also sometimes called a shank, is an exchangeable segment of tubing in a natural horn which is used to change the length of the pipe, altering the fundamental pitch and harmonic series which the instrument can sound, and thus the key in which it plays.-Master crook and coupler...
") or picking up an instrument of different length. Their parts were transposed according to which crook or length-of-instrument they used at any given time, so that a particular note on the staff always corresponded to a particular partial on the instrument. Trombones, on the other hand, have used slides since their inception. As such, they have always been fully chromatic, so no such tradition took hold, and trombone parts have always been notated at concert pitch (with one exception, discussed below). Also, it was quite common for trombones to double choir parts; reading in concert pitch meant there was no need for dedicated trombone parts.
Trombone parts are typically notated in bass clef, though sometimes also written in tenor clef or alto clef. The use of alto clef is usually confined to orchestral first trombone parts intended for the alto trombone, with the second (tenor) trombone part written in tenor clef and the third (bass) part in bass clef. As the alto trombone declined in popularity during the 19th century, this practice was gradually abandoned and first trombone parts came to be notated in the tenor or bass clef. Some Russian and Eastern European composers wrote first and second tenor trombone parts on one alto clef staff (the German Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann
Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era....
was the first to do this). Examples of this practice are evident in scores by Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
, Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Prokofiev
Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres and is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century...
, Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
. Trombone parts may contain both bass and tenor clef or bass and alto clef sections.
An accomplished performer today is expected to be proficient in reading parts notated in bass clef, tenor clef, alto clef, and (more rarely) treble clef in C, with the British brass band
Brass band (British style)
A British-style brass band is a musical ensemble comprising a standardised range of brass and percussion instruments. The modern form of the brass band in the United Kingdom dates back to the 19th century, with a vibrant tradition of competition based around local industry and communities...
performer expected to handle treble clef in B as well.
Brass bands
In brass band music, the tenor trombone is treated as a transposing instrument in B and reads the treble clef (while the bass trombone uses the bass clef in concert pitch, as in orchestral music). This puts the notes in exactly the same staff position as they would be if the music were written in a (non-transposing) tenor clef, although the key signatureKey signature
In musical notation, a key signature is a series of sharp or flat symbols placed on the staff, designating notes that are to be consistently played one semitone higher or lower than the equivalent natural notes unless otherwise altered with an accidental...
and some accidentals must be adjusted. This is no mere coincidence, for brass bands used to employ a section of alto, tenor and bass trombones in the early to mid-19th century, later replacing the alto with a tenor trombone, all the while notated in the corresponding clefs. Eventually a decision was taken in the early 20th century to replace the tenor clef with the transposing B treble clef in order to aid new starters to integrate more quickly and effectively into the brass band, though the bass trombone, then in G, remained notated in concert pitch bass clef. (Company bands used B and E treble clef notation for many instruments in the band to allow players to more easily switch instruments when personnel changed.)
Mutes
See also Brass instrument mutesA variety of mute
Mute (music)
A mute is a device fitted to a musical instrument to alter the sound produced: by affecting the timbre, reducing the volume, or most commonly both.- Musical directions for muting :...
s can be used with the trombone to alter its timbre
Timbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...
. Many are held in place with the use of cork grips, including the straight, cup, harmon and pixie mutes. Some fit over the bell, like the bucket mute. In addition to this, mutes can be held in front of the bell and moved to cover more or less area for a wah-wah effect. Mutes used in this way include the "hat" (a metal mute shaped like a bowler
Bowler hat
The bowler hat, also known as a coke hat, derby , billycock or bombin, is a hard felt hat with a rounded crown originally created in 1849 for the English soldier and politician Edward Coke, the younger brother of the 2nd Earl of Leicester...
) and plunger (which looks like, and often is, the rubber suction cup from a sink or toilet plunger
Plunger
A plunger is a common device that is used to release stoppages in plumbing. The tool consists of a rubber cup with an attached stick "shaft", usually made of wood or bronze. Before use, any objects such as hair in the plug grate should be removed and, if possible the overflow hole should be...
), a sound featured as the voices of adults in the Peanuts
Peanuts
Peanuts is a syndicated daily and Sunday American comic strip written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz, which ran from October 2, 1950, to February 13, 2000, continuing in reruns afterward...
cartoons.
Bells
Trombone bells (and sometimes slides) may be constructed of different brass mixtures. Some believe that materials affect tone quality and timbre. The most common material is yellow brass (70% copper, 30% zinc), but other materials include rose brass (85% copper, 15% zinc) and red brass (90% copper, 10% zinc). Some manufacturers offer interchangeable bells. Tenor trombone bells are usually between 7 and 9 inches in diameter, the most common being sizes from 7½ to 8½ inches. The smallest sizes are found in small jazz trombones and older narrow-bore instruments, while the larger sizes are common in orchestral models. Bass trombone bells can be as large as 10½" or more, though usually either 9½ in or 10 in diameter. The bell may be constructed out of two separate brass sheets or out of one single piece of metal and hammered on a mandrel until the part is shaped correctly. The edge of the bell may be finished with or without a piece of bell wire to secure it, which also affects the tone quality; most bells are built with bell wire. Occasionally, trombone bells are made from solid sterling silver.Valves
Tubing
More often than not, tenor trombones with an F attachment, or trigger, have a larger bore through the attachment than through the 'straight' section (the portion of the trombone through which the air flows when the attachment is not engaged). Typically, for orchestral instruments, the slide bore is 0.547" and the attachment tubing bore is 0.562". A wide variety of valve attachments and combinations are available. Valve attachment tubing usually incorporates a small tuning slide so that the attachment tubing is able to be tuned separately from the rest of the instrument. Most B/F tenor and bass trombones include a tuning slide long enough to lower the pitch to E with the valve tubing engaged, enabling the production of B2. Whereas older instruments fitted with valve attachments usually had the tubing coiled rather tightly in the bell section (closed wrap or traditional wrap), modern instruments usually have the tubing kept as free as possible of tight bends in the tubing (open wrap), resulting in a freer response with the valve attachment tubing engaged.Tuning
Some trombones are tuned through a mechanism in the slide section rather than via a separate tuning slide in the bell section. This method preserves a smoother expansion from the start of the bell section to the bell flare. The tuning slide in the bell section requires two portions of cylindrical tubing in an otherwise conical part of the instrument, which affects the tone quality.Slides
Common and popular bore sizes for trombone slides are 0.500", 0.508", 0.525" and 0.547" for tenor trombones, and 0.562" for bass trombones. The slide may also be built with a dual bore configuration, in which the bore of the second leg of the slide is slightly larger than the bore of the first leg, producing a step-wise conical effect. The most common dual bore combinations are 0.481"-0.491", 0.500"-0.508", 0.508"-0.525", 0.525"-0.547", 0.547"-0.562" for tenor trombones, and 0.562"-0.578" for bass trombones.Mouthpiece
The mouthpiece is a separate part of the trombone and can be interchanged with similarly sized trombones from different manufacturers. Available mouthpieces for trombone (as with all brass instruments) vary in material composition, length, diameter, rim shape, cup depth, throat entrance, venturi aperture, venturi profile, outside design and other factors. Variations in mouthpiece construction affect the individual player's ability to make a lip seal and produce a reliable tone, the timbreTimbre
In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...
of that tone, its volume
Loudness
Loudness is the quality of a sound that is primarily a psychological correlate of physical strength . More formally, it is defined as "that attribute of auditory sensation in terms of which sounds can be ordered on a scale extending from quiet to loud."Loudness, a subjective measure, is often...
, the player's subjective level of comfort, and the instrument's playability in a given pitch range.
Mouthpiece selection is a highly personal decision. Thus, a symphonic
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
trombonist might prefer a mouthpiece with a deeper cup and sharper inner rim shape in order to produce a rich symphonic tone quality, while a jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
trombonist might choose a shallower cup in order to achieve brighter tone and easier production of higher notes. Further, for certain compositions, these choices between two such performers could easily be reversed.
Germany and Austria
German trombones have been built in a wide variety of bore and bell sizes. The traditional German Konzertposaune can differ substantially from American designs in many aspects. The mouthpiece is typically rather small and is placed into a slide section with a very long leadpipe of at least 12"-24". The whole instrument is often made of gold brass, and its sound is usually rather dull compared with British, French or American designs. While their bore sizes were considered large in the 19th century, German trombones have altered very little over the last 150 years and are now typically somewhat smaller than their American counterparts. Bell sizes remain very large in all sizes of German trombone and a bass trombone bell may exceed 10" in diameter. Valve attachments in tenor and bass trombones were traditionally engaged via a thumb-operated rotary valve, using a leather thong rather than a metal lever. While older models with this feature are still found, modern variants use the metal lever. As with other German and Austrian brass instruments, rotary valves are used to the exclusion of almost all other types of valve, even in valve trombones. Other features often found on German trombones include long water keyWater key
A water key is a valve or tap used to allow the drainage of accumulated fluid from musical instruments such as trombones or trumpets. It is otherwise known as a spit valve....
s and snake decorations on the slide and bell U-bows.
Most trombones played in Germany today, especially by amateurs, are built in the American fashion, as those are much more widely available and thus far cheaper.
France
French trombones were built in the very smallest bore sizes up to the end of the Second World WarWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and whilst other sizes were made there, the French usually preferred the tenor trombone to any other size. French music, therefore, usually employed a section of three tenor trombones up to the mid-20th century. Tenor trombones produced in France during the 19th and early 20th centuries featured bore sizes of around 0.450", small bells of not more than 6" in diameter, as well as a funnel-shaped mouthpiece slightly larger than that of the cornet
Cornet
The cornet is a brass instrument very similar to the trumpet, distinguished by its conical bore, compact shape, and mellower tone quality. The most common cornet is a transposing instrument in B. It is not related to the renaissance and early baroque cornett or cornetto.-History:The cornet was...
or horn
Horn (instrument)
The horn is a brass instrument consisting of about of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. A musician who plays the horn is called a horn player ....
. French tenor trombones were built in both C and B, altos in D, sopranos in F, piccolos in high B, basses in G and E, contrabasses in B.
Didactics
In recent years, several makers have begun to market compact B/C trombones that are especially well suited for young children learning to play the trombone who cannot reach the outer slide positions of full-length instruments. The fundamental note of the unenhanced length is C, but the short valved attachment that puts the instrument in B is open when the trigger is not depressed. While such instruments have no seventh slide position, C and B natural may be comfortably accessed on the first and second positions by using the trigger. A similar design ("Preacher model") was marketed by C.G. Conn in the 1920s, also under the WurlitzerWurlitzer
The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to simply as Wurlitzer, was an American company that produced stringed instruments, woodwinds, brass instruments, theatre organs, band organs, orchestrions, electronic organs, electric pianos and jukeboxes....
label. Currently, B/C trombones are available from many manufacturers, including German makers Günter Frost, Thein and Helmut Voigt, as well as the Yamaha Corporation.
Manufacturers
Trombones in slide and valve configuration have been made by a vast array of musical instrument manufacturers. For the brass bandBrass band
A brass band is a musical ensemble generally consisting entirely of brass instruments, most often with a percussion section. Ensembles that include brass and woodwind instruments can in certain traditions also be termed brass bands , but are usually more correctly termed military bands, concert...
s of the late 19th and early 20th century, prominent American manufacturers included Graves and Sons, E.G. Wright and Company, The Boston Musical Instrument Company
Boston Musical Instrument Company
The Boston Musical Instrument Company was an American manufacturer of brass band instruments in the late 19th and early 20th centuries located in Boston, Massachusetts.- Corporate History :...
, E.A. Couturier
E.A. Couturier
Ernst Albert Couturier was a cornet player, feature soloist/headline act on cornet, composer, inventor and brass band instrument manufacturer.- Life :...
Co., Ltd., H.N. White Company, J.W. York
James Warren York
James Warren York was a musician, businessman, business owner and musical instrument innovator. The "York tuba sound" is considered by most tubists to be the defining timbre of a quality instrument...
, and C.G. Conn, Ltd.. In the 20th century, leading manufacturers of trombones included F.E. Olds, Vincent Bach
Vincent Bach
Vincent Bach was a musician and instrument maker, who founded the Vincent Bach Corporation.- Vincent Schrotenbach :...
, King Musical Instruments, Conn, F.A. Reynolds
F.A. Reynolds
-Life:Foster Reynolds was born December 29, 1884, was married twice and had three children. His first Marriage to Frances Dean at the age of 18 lasted 31 years before ending in divorce. His second marriage to Myrtle Rozelle in the late 1940s lasted the remainder of his life...
, Yamaha Musical Instruments, and recently Jupiter Band Instruments
Jupiter Band Instruments
Jupiter Band Instruments, Inc. is a manufacturer and distributor of woodwind, brass and percussion instruments. Jupiter was established by its Taiwanese parent company KHS in 1980.-History:...
.
External links
- Trombone History Timeline by Will Kimball Associate Professor of Trombone at Brigham Young University
- International Trombone Association
- Online Trombone Journal
- Sources for the Prescribed Sheet Music for the ABRSM practical exams
- Acoustics of Brass Instruments from Music Acoustics at the University of New South Wales.
- cdstrombone.com " Discs of trombone"
- About the Trombone from classicol.com
- NPR story about trombone bands (2003)
- Two Frequencies Trombone
Slide Positions
- Antonio J. García. (1997). "Choosing Alternate Positions for Bebop Lines", GarciaMusic.com.