Trombone’s limited audience appeal for solo career

[Retrobone]

The word "musicality" appears frequently in some of the posts on this thread. It's fascinating to me how one would define the word actually. I've been a prof player and teacher for decades, but I don't actually have a good definition myself.

[tbdana]

The quality of having a musical sound; having a certain level of sensitivity to the rhythm, beat, and meaning of music.

[robcat2075]

The word "musicality" appears frequently in some of the posts on this thread. It's fascinating to me how one would define the word actually. I've been a prof player and teacher for decades, but I don't actually have a good definition myself.

Music is organized sound that is compelling (meaning you want to keep listening), so... "musicality" is the perceived qualities of those sound and organization elements that make them compelling.

It could be the difference in tone between a beginner band trombone player and an accomplished performer.

it could be the difference in style between Charles Wuorinen and Anton Bruckner.

It could be the difference in volume between a death metal band and a string quartet.

It is a judgement call by the listener.

[Kbiggs]

The word "musicality" appears frequently in some of the posts on this thread. It's fascinating to me how one would define the word actually. I've been a prof player and teacher for decades, but I don't actually have a good definition myself.

Music is organized sound that is compelling (meaning you want to keep listening), so... "musicality" is the perceived qualities of those sound and organization elements that make them compelling.

It could be the difference in tone between a beginner band trombone player and an accomplished performer.

it could be the difference in style between Charles Wuorinen and Anton Bruckner.

It could be the difference in volume between a death metal band and a string quartet.

It is a judgement call by the listener.

[Emphasis added.]

I understand the argument here, but it leaves out much from our judgment of music, let alone our experience of it.

Say that “compelling” is on one end of a spectrum of musical styles that measure how much or little one likes a piece of music. The spectrum (a Likert scale) would then have gradations along the way such as compelling, interesting, ambivalent, disinteresting, dislike, and despise. You could even break things up and have a separate scale to account for different parameters of music: pitch, rhythm, timbre, volume, style, etc. (assuming they know what those parameters mean). While something like this would clarify what someone likes or dislikes about a piece of music, it ultimately gives us no more information than they didn’t like a piece of music.

What kinds of things make a Mozart aria or symphonic movement more appealing to the general audience than, say, a Sousa march or a Herbert Clarke or Arthur Pryor solo? Both kinds of music share harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic similarities.

Surely, we can say more about what makes a piece of music compelling, or even interesting.

[robcat2075]

Surely, we can say more about what makes a piece of music compelling, or even interesting.

Surely we can, but it won't be dispositive.

The more we refine our definitions, the more we exclude something that may have a valid claim in some circumstance. I recognize that.


BTW, "compelling" is my reactionary amendment to the music theory class definition of music as no more than "organized sound".

"Compelling" is my assertion that music isn't merely output by composers and performers, it is a transaction with the audience.

[LeTromboniste]

With regards to "musicality":

Not a big fan of that term, although I use it for lack of any better word. Maybe actually "artistry" would be better. In the question of distinguishing craft from artistry one might define craft as the technical ability (for example, in our case, intonation, control and reliability of articulation, precision of the slide, flexibility, ability to play fast notes, ease in different registers, sense of time, etc.) and artistry as the conceptualization or imagination of complex, original artistic (in our case, musical) ideas. In other words the craft is how well you're able to execute the ideas. On the other hand, it is unavoidable that the craft will also limit the artistry, because one tends to generate ideas within the scope of what they can and do regularly execute. But the less we can let the artistry be limited by the craft, and the more we can adapt and expand the craft to follow our artistic ideas, the better. Artistry is of course much harder to judge than craft because it's subjective and about ideas where the other is more objective and about technical abilities. Improving one's craft is ultimately about improving physical abilities, while improving one's artistry is about broadening the mindset and imagination.

In other words, one can be an extremely proficient and technical impeccable player but only ever use that high-level craft to execute mundane and not particularly complex, imaginative or touching artistic ideas, just as one might have great ideas but lack the craft to execute them. The baseline is that one's craft needs to be at least good enough to execute their artistic ideas. But say someone's musical ideas are 9/10, and require a 6/10 craft, and their craft is exactly that 6/10. They are likely to be more appealing as a musician than someone whose craft is 9/10 but who only ever expresses musical ideas that are 6/10, no matter what level of craft these ideas require.



With regards to people not being interested in classical music, well I don't know about that. I just played a 9PM concert on a Tuesday night in a church, of singers, gambas and trombones performing fairly obscure 400 year-old music. No big name performers. It was a 300-seat church. There were 300 people sitting, and about half as many again standing in the crammed aisles and the back of the church. It was absolutely packed. So yeah, we might not fill football stadiums, but I'm not ready to rule it out as something irrelevant that nobody wants to hear.

[Retrobone]

Thanks Max for your thoughts. Musicality is a word that falls short for me, and I stopped using it in lessons. Artistry... yes a good term, but again it isn't easy to quantify "artistry" either. Or even musicianship. I thought a lot about it over the years. Especially after I had a long association with musicians from the early music scene. Having been an orchestral musician for so long, I know that I don't often get the chance to display artistry as a soloist. Boleros and Tuba Mirums come around, but not every week! Mostly our artistry is confined to good rhythm, balance, and tuning. And then I'm looking for the meaning of the composer. And as we well know... many conductors don't get far past reminding one of exactly what's in front of us, or sticking up the left hand before you even play. Despite the hindrances, there can be great artistry in the orchestral nuts and bolts! Playing some of the great original sackbut repertoire really did present me with an artistic challenge, though. Then comes the musicianship... playing in different clefs and tuning systems. Or balancing with singers and violinists. Phrasing like string artists or vocal artists.

[robcat2075]

See if you can guess what all these composers have in common, relevant to our discussion.

Bach
Handel
Mozart
Haydn
Beethoven
Mendelssohn
Goldmark
Brahms
Dvorak
Britten
Elgar
Franck
Saint-Saens
Tchaikovsky
Sibelius
Strauss
Nielson
Glazunov
Kabalevsky
Khachaturian
Shostakovich
Prokofiev
Bartok
Barber

The answer can be seen by highlighting the text in this box:

They have all written at least one violin concerto and have written zero trombone concertos. Even the weakest of them is probably stronger than any trombone concerto.

Although they all knew of the trombone and used it in at least one work, that was the limit of their interest

[robcat2075]

and then there's this guy.

Rimsky-Korsakov

Rimsky-Korsakov is the only standard-repertoire composer to write a trombone concerto but never write a violin concerto

[JohnL]

and then there's this guy.

Rimsky-Korsakov

He also originally wrote his concerto for trombone and military band, not orchestra.

[Kbiggs]

I’m not sure what these lists say about the trombone other than Bach et al didn’t write a concerto for the instrument. Yes, they could have, but they didn’t. The same could be said of Rimsky-Korsakov and his lack of writing a violin concerto: he could have written one, but he didn’t.

Perhaps the mood never struck them… or they didn’t feel moved or compelled to write a piece for the instrument… or it wasn’t a viable solo instrument for what they wanted to say… or they didn’t know a trombone player capable of playing what they wanted to write for the instrument… or they never received a commission… or…

I think it’s important to acknowledge the relatively small number of solo compositions for trombone in the Baroque to post-Romantic periods compared to the violin. That’s an accident of history, as much as anything. I think it’s also fair to say that the few compositions that do exist aren’t as well known and, by some accounts, aren’t as compelling to an audience as a similar violin piece—although that’s likely due to greater familiarity with the violin literature and the comparative lack of familiarity with trombone literature.

I also think it’s important not to set up one instrument as a straw man next to another. (Now that’s a picture I’d like to see!)

[robcat2075]

I’m not sure what these lists say about the trombone other than Bach et al didn’t write a concerto for the instrument.

To me, the list makes painfully clear how much the era of great composers passed us by.

For 200+ years great composers practically grew on trees but they never ventured to write a trombone concerto. For 200+ years they found new ways to write violin concertos and yet they never found a first way to do that for trombone.

Perhaps the mood never struck them… or they didn’t feel moved or compelled to write a piece for the instrument… or it wasn’t a viable solo instrument for what they wanted to say… or they didn’t know a trombone player capable of playing what they wanted to write for the instrument… or they never received a commission… or…

Really. This is astonishingly bad luck. Just turn one of those conditions around for just one of those composers and we'd have a trombone concerto. It's like rolling the dice and somehow always coming up with zero.


My list omits the numerous virtuoso player-composers like Corelli, Paganini and Wienawski who saw a need for new violin repertoire and created some maybe-not-great-but-pretty-good works. Nothing like that seems to have happened among trombone players.

Now the era of great composers is over and we're left with a repertoire of also-rans, pranks, and weird performance art.

I think it’s important to acknowledge the relatively small number of solo compositions for trombone in the Baroque to post-Romantic periods compared to the violin.

I appreciate the efforts of the Paris Conservatoire to commission all those annual Concours pieces. I'm guessing that hearing their work played 20 times in one day dissuaded the composers from any further trombone involvement.

Rimsky-Korsakov

He also originally wrote his concerto for trombone and military band, not orchestra.

It's like he was trying to miss the boat twice!

[AtomicClock]

Well, we DO have a Mozart and a Haydn...if you don't look too closely.
Maybe we should seek out composers with famous surnames, and commission pieces from them!

[WilliamLang]

The amount of "new music" hate and the normalization of it is off-putting. There are plenty of classical style composers out there. There's even a John Williams Tuba Concerto that is pretty great! But if I just posted all the time about hating Jazz, and how Jazz is bad now, and the era of Jazz is over, and Jazz is just a joke, etc... I don't think it'd be received well, and rightfully so.

There is so much music out there in any style you choose! You don't have to like everything, but there's still people writing in the styles that you wish. The constant hate on what is considered "new music" is tiring, especially for those of us that love it and play it for audiences that also enjoy it.

Just please consider leaving out the constant snide comments. Everyone gets it by now.

[JohnL]

To me, the list makes painfully clear how much the era of great composers passed us by.

They wrote what sold. Violin, piano, and (occasionally) cello. A major work for any other instrument is rare and, I suspect, frequently written either as a commission or for a personal friend who played that instrument.

He also originally wrote his concerto for trombone and military band, not orchestra.

It's like he was trying to miss the boat twice!

Please tell me that wasn't intended as a pun. When he wrote the concerto, Rimsky-Korsakov was the Inspector of Naval Bands, a civilian post within the Russian Navy (he had previously been a naval officer). He wrote it for a friend, a Marine officer named Leonov.

[Macbone1]

If not already mentioned, you may want to research listening stats on YouTube, not just Spotify.

The electric guitar has obviously taken over popular music since the fifties. Just think how long ago that is. In the big band era, trumpets, trombones, clarinets and saxophones sold faster than the factories could make them.

The main appeal of the guitar is how the player's face is unencumbered by a mouthpiece, so there's more freedom of expression and a stronger stage presence. It also frees the player to sing of course.
Guitar can be harmonic, percussive and melodic and is more quickly learned and simpler to teach than wind instruments.