I've been trying to square the physics and my experience.
Pedal B flat is the fundamental, low B flat is the 2x, F 3x, mid B flat the 4x, D the 5X, high F is 6X, G half sharp is 7X and high B flat is 8X.
The position your music teacher most likely will have told you to adjust is 2nd position - you play it slightly sharper for an A vs the E or C sharp it's also used for.
Why is that? It's the major 3rd that has the largest variation between just and equal temperament. The A is often a 3rd against the F, is that why?
But it seems to me that it's all the notes on the D embouchure that will be off -- 1st position D on the trombone is 5X the fundamental, so it's justly tuned, not equally tuned, so shouldn't it be the one that needs the most adjustment? I guess all wind instruments have this problem, so maybe I don't notice because usually I'm playing in a wind band with very few equally tempered instruments like piano, guitar and glockenspiel?
If you play piano you should find a tuner who does something better than equal temperament. When you accept that changing keys will change the tone of the song you can get a lot better music. You don't need to go to just temperament (and since you still need octave stretch it wouldn't be ideal anyway - though if you can live with playing music in exactly one key it is nice).
I tuned my piano to EBVTIII and I like it. (well I tuned 3 notes and then got my son interested and he tuned the rest). It isn't as hard to tune a piano as professionals make it out. However it takes me about 5x as long so if you can find a good tuner I'd call it worth it.
> But, how can a trombone ever be better than the piano when there’s so many variables? Well, unlike a piano, where each key produces a fixed pitch, a trombone lets me subtly adjust every note as I play.
Thanks, but I'll stick to my keyboard's pitch bend control.
The trombone's great expressiveness comes at a steep learning cost.
Piano is great for people who learned to play by sight.
Trombone is great for people who learned to play by ear.
For those who can easily hear the 13 cent difference between a justly tuned major third and an equally tuned major third, justly tuned instruments can be really hard to play.
But I am, like most, like you. I first learned on the piano and my ear is pretty bad for an experienced trombonist. I have a pretty good ear compared to the average person, but compared to a typical trombonist, it's really bad.
I play with others who have incredible ears. It makes me jealous.
And micro adjusting positions isn't that hard either. If it doesn't sound right, you adjust. The hard part is figuring out whether to adjust up or down. And that's just experience. My ear still isn't good enough to know whether I'm a little sharp or a little flat. But any note I get wrong at tonight's practice will likely be a note I've hit wrong many times in previous practices.
Programming sequencers visually and with tons of help from the tooling pushes the ear sharpening later in the learning process - and I'm only now starting to realize that maybe making music is about deciding what sounds right... I suppose the trombone and violin's "sink or swim" approach ensures the early acquisition of that skill.
I suppose one's ear gets sharpened fast, out of necessity - but I recoil at imagining what the other band members have to get through meanwhile. The process for violin is the same though.
A bad embouchure can put pretty much any brass instrument a full semi-tone out of tune. Trombone is not noticeably different in a beginner band. In my experience it's the beginner French Horn that's usually most out of tune.
But brass being out of tune is not as hard on the ears as the squeaks from a beginner clarinet or saxophone...
Probably the most parent friendly is the flute. It's really hard to get good volume out of a flute so beginners are really quiet and inoffensive. :)
This seems a decent introduction. The only thing mentioned that I wasn't really aware of is the effect of the tongue in addition to the lips on the embouchure of higher notes. Can anyone recommend some more info on that?
The interrupting parenthetical was so disruptive to the sentence that I thought it said, essentially, "The trombone is the only brass instrument. Parenthetical. The trombone is played by moving the slide."
I've been trying to square the physics and my experience.
Pedal B flat is the fundamental, low B flat is the 2x, F 3x, mid B flat the 4x, D the 5X, high F is 6X, G half sharp is 7X and high B flat is 8X.
The position your music teacher most likely will have told you to adjust is 2nd position - you play it slightly sharper for an A vs the E or C sharp it's also used for.
Why is that? It's the major 3rd that has the largest variation between just and equal temperament. The A is often a 3rd against the F, is that why?
But it seems to me that it's all the notes on the D embouchure that will be off -- 1st position D on the trombone is 5X the fundamental, so it's justly tuned, not equally tuned, so shouldn't it be the one that needs the most adjustment? I guess all wind instruments have this problem, so maybe I don't notice because usually I'm playing in a wind band with very few equally tempered instruments like piano, guitar and glockenspiel?
If you play piano you should find a tuner who does something better than equal temperament. When you accept that changing keys will change the tone of the song you can get a lot better music. You don't need to go to just temperament (and since you still need octave stretch it wouldn't be ideal anyway - though if you can live with playing music in exactly one key it is nice).
I tuned my piano to EBVTIII and I like it. (well I tuned 3 notes and then got my son interested and he tuned the rest). It isn't as hard to tune a piano as professionals make it out. However it takes me about 5x as long so if you can find a good tuner I'd call it worth it.
> But, how can a trombone ever be better than the piano when there’s so many variables? Well, unlike a piano, where each key produces a fixed pitch, a trombone lets me subtly adjust every note as I play.
Thanks, but I'll stick to my keyboard's pitch bend control.
The trombone's great expressiveness comes at a steep learning cost.
Piano is great for people who learned to play by sight.
Trombone is great for people who learned to play by ear.
For those who can easily hear the 13 cent difference between a justly tuned major third and an equally tuned major third, justly tuned instruments can be really hard to play.
But I am, like most, like you. I first learned on the piano and my ear is pretty bad for an experienced trombonist. I have a pretty good ear compared to the average person, but compared to a typical trombonist, it's really bad.
I play with others who have incredible ears. It makes me jealous.
P.S. Here's Jacob Collier demonstrating https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwRSS7jeo5s
The learning curve is really not that steep. You pretty quickly learn the landmarks for the 7 positions of the slide.
And micro adjusting positions isn't that hard either. If it doesn't sound right, you adjust. The hard part is figuring out whether to adjust up or down. And that's just experience. My ear still isn't good enough to know whether I'm a little sharp or a little flat. But any note I get wrong at tonight's practice will likely be a note I've hit wrong many times in previous practices.
Programming sequencers visually and with tons of help from the tooling pushes the ear sharpening later in the learning process - and I'm only now starting to realize that maybe making music is about deciding what sounds right... I suppose the trombone and violin's "sink or swim" approach ensures the early acquisition of that skill.
Eh I played trombone in high school and it is very forgiving. You can vibe play a trombone.
I suppose one's ear gets sharpened fast, out of necessity - but I recoil at imagining what the other band members have to get through meanwhile. The process for violin is the same though.
A bad embouchure can put pretty much any brass instrument a full semi-tone out of tune. Trombone is not noticeably different in a beginner band. In my experience it's the beginner French Horn that's usually most out of tune.
But brass being out of tune is not as hard on the ears as the squeaks from a beginner clarinet or saxophone...
Probably the most parent friendly is the flute. It's really hard to get good volume out of a flute so beginners are really quiet and inoffensive. :)
One trombone feature not mentioned here is that the length of the pipe apparently affects the timing enough that they have to compensate for it.
One of my favourite albums is Stuart Dempster's Underground Overlays From The Cistern Chapel.
A group of trombonists all playing in a giant underground water tank with incredibly long reverb.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=4tvMp4XDICU
This seems a decent introduction. The only thing mentioned that I wasn't really aware of is the effect of the tongue in addition to the lips on the embouchure of higher notes. Can anyone recommend some more info on that?
The role of the tongue is heavily emphasized in modern brass pedagogy. Try Claude Gordon, Physical Approach to Elementary Brass Playing, 1977
Everything I know about trombones I know from the game Trombone Champ.
It's a good game for every aspiring trobonist (or people just remotely interested in music-related video games)
"The trombone is the only brass instrument in a classical orchestra" is a statement that requires further support.
It’s slightly confusingly phrased, but the full sentence is:
> The trombone is the only brass instrument in a classical orchestra […] where the main mode of pitch control is by moving the tuning slide.
Which is correct.
I had the same confusion - I'd move the [...] to the following sentence.
Oh, I read that as an independent statement, rather than one qualifying the first.
You read "where the main mode of pitch control is by moving the tuning slide" as an independent statement? What does that mean on its own?
The interrupting parenthetical was so disruptive to the sentence that I thought it said, essentially, "The trombone is the only brass instrument. Parenthetical. The trombone is played by moving the slide."