Playing bass bone

[hyperbolica]

Question for those of you who enjoy playing bass bone - What is it about bass that you enjoy? Do you enjoy it more than tenor bone? I've been struggling with this for years, and just want to see what motivates bass bone players.

[BPBasso]

I prefer lower frequency instruments in general. I love tenor trombone's sound and its repertoire, but prefer the usually darker, less bright tone of the bass trombone. I love what a good bass trombonist can do below the bass clef too.

In a nut shell, movie soundtracks turned me on to low brass sounds. Then more specifically John Williams, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner all 3 shared an equal part in my decision to play bass trombone.

When I was in middle school, I heard a high school concert with a bass trombonist that was playing way too loud, but they sounded amazing. They're now in a popular military band producing fantastic recordings.

[tbdana]

I'm a natural born tenor player, but I love playing bass trombone. I love it equally to playing tenor, but it's different. What I love about it probably sounds pedestrian, but I love to play the fundamentals and be the foundation of the orchestra/band, play with the tuba/bass(es). And yeah, stuff like the film scores BP mentioned are hella fun to play on bass trombone. Who wouldn't like that?

[MStarke]

I play everything from alto to contra in a broad range of musical settings. However bass trombone still feels most like "coming home" for me.

I would say it has the largest really usable range of all trombones, really broad variety of sound and is actually a really versatile and agile instrument - which surprises many, even sometimes other trombonists.

Also it just has this specific growl/darkness/whatever in the sound.

Also it often has a not necessarily more important, but often more distinct role in many types of music than other trombone parts.

I also really enjoy other parts, but bass bone is great!

[ghmerrill]

I love to play the fundamentals and be the foundation of the orchestra/band, play with the tuba/bass(es).

This is pretty much what I like -- along with the rhythms played by the bass that contribute to the overall effect and stand out when something special is needed. It was the same for me with the tuba, but the bass trombone contribution is broader than the tuba's since it also contributes significantly as separate voice of the "trombone quartet" in so many cases.

For me, that's all been in "band" or smaller ensemble environments of various sorts. I have played (woodwinds) in orchestras at times, but really just don't care for it. I'm not sure I can articulate why.

[2bobone]

Bass trombone can have the growl of a Grizzley Bear or the warmth of a hot kiss but mainly is the foundation on which everything above it depends. Try building a house from the roof downwards -------.

[jpwell]

I play bass in a brass band. I like playing tonic being the foundation every thing is built on. I am the punctuation for the tubas. The music director always wants more ( I give her all I got). Wish my lungs were bigger. 4 bar phrases lol. It’s like a solo instrument all the time without the melody. I love fiddling with the 2 Indy valves too

[hyperbolica]

Ok, people like playing the root of the chord I guess.

With that info, what kind of stuff do you practice? Do you just blow low Bb for 30 minutes? Do you play lyrical stuff? Is it ok to play short choppy phrases? Do you get any satisfaction or enjoyment practicing by yourself at home or only with ensembles? What does "getting better" at bass bone entail for you?

[MStarke]

With that info, what kind of stuff do you practice? Do you just blow low Bb for 30 minutes? Do you play lyrical stuff? Is it ok to play short choppy phrases? Do you get any satisfaction or enjoyment practicing by yourself at home or only with ensembles? What does "getting better" at bass bone entail for you?

I practice a variety of stuff on bass. Including flexibility, scales, interval stuff, etudes (e.g. Bordogni) etc. I do emphasize long tones a bit more on bass (think Phil Teele style) and often end my daily practice with 15-25 minutes of those on bass. That also carries over quite well to tenor for me. I do actually enjoy practicing serious things on my own though...

Getting better on bass bone is for me among others extending range/further improving useability of the range. E.g. minimizing any shifts. Also improving consistency of response and sound. Increasing versatility in the valve range. And applying all of this musically.

[JTeagarden]

I love the "sonic authority" of it: laying down the foundation frequently, adding to the richness of the overall sound, turning on a dime and then the menace of it.

I appreciate that every instrument is asked to blend with other instruments in ensembles all the time, I just happen to really enjoy what the bass trombone adds to the mix, and it is frankly less work for me to reflect the sound in my head on bass trombone then on tenor, it just speaks more easily for me (I wish I had started playing it much earlier!)

[JTeagarden]

Ok, people like playing the root of the chord I guess.

With that info, what kind of stuff do you practice? Do you just blow low Bb for 30 minutes? Do you play lyrical stuff? Is it ok to play short choppy phrases? Do you get any satisfaction or enjoyment practicing by yourself at home or only with ensembles? What does "getting better" at bass bone entail for you?

We all have a tendency to overdo things we are already naturally good at, and while short choppy statements are very satisfying to play, the bass trombone can do so much more!

It used to be emphasized for its 'ripping sheet metal" qualities (listen to Alan Raph on Quincy Jones' Big Band Bossa album for really great examples of that!), but it's more lyrical qualities are just as nice to my ears, and to me require a lot more cultivation than just letting it rip.

George Roberts once famously noted that he wanted to sound like Tommy Dorsey, just an octave lower, I think of F2 to F3 as the wheelhouse, where so much of the good stuff happens.

[ghmerrill]

With that info, what kind of stuff do you practice?

Mostly I practice the charts we're working on in the big band I'm in. I'm still coming up to speed with that. Often -- in our rehearsal cycle -- this amounts to working on a pretty big bunch of charts as we winnow them down to the two dozen we typically do in a performance. Finally, after a year of this (and acquiring a better bass trombone), I'm getting to the point where I'm starting to feel comfortable with it.

I also try to work on various exercises from several sources. One of them is a "20 minute Warmup", then there's Ryan Haines' "Flow Studies with a Jazz flavor", Brad Edwards' "Lip Slurs", Hering's "Etudes for Bass Trombone", Sharpe's "Bass Trombone Double Valve Technique", Vining's "Daily Routines for Bass Trombone", and (largely for fun) Joe Tarto's Basic Rhythms and the Art of Improvisation". Of course, I don't do all of these all of the time, and so my approach to that is kind of random and spotty.

I spend a lot of time on those sections of the big band charts where the bass trombone MUST be there and play it well. There's a trade-off in focusing on the pieces we'll be performing and on the fundamentals that support doing that with more ease and facility.

Sometimes that does come down to blowing low Bb for extended periods (or more important, the double valve low C or even the B natural), or just four measures of the low G or Ab in the staff, or the Db below the staff, totally in tune.

Oh, and one other thing I work on is playing off the Bari Sax part. I'm finding that for the charts we're doing in our performances, I'm doubling the Bari Sax in two or three pieces because there's no bass trombone part for those, and doubling the sax part provides better overall results than doubling the 3rd trombone or just sitting out. I don't, of course, double those portions of the sax part where the saxes are playing as a section, but pretty much just those sections where the Bari is playing a separate bass/foundational part. I need to be able to sight-read the Bari part and then also play it well in performances. If you're playing mostly in a concert/community band or an orchestra, you probably don't want to do this.

[hyperbolica]

The thing I enjoy most is playing quartet parts where the bass is an independent real bass part. In quartets, the bass is often both the rhythm and the tonal base/bass. These would be tunes like Birdland, Fly Me To The Moon/Come Fly With Me, My Favorite Things, Hey Jude, "Be Cool". There are some big band tunes I enjoy playing, but those charts are generally tuba parts or string bass parts. Most other things I find intolerable. I really don't like playing bass by myself. On tenor I love the lyric stuff with a sweet sound that's kind of high, but sounds like a melody or sweet harmony. In comparison, bass parts are just uninteresting and dull.

I'm in a clique of pretty good retired trombone players, but none of them have the flexibility to handle bass. Many of the charts the tbone quartet does require a real bass bone player with real bass bone chops, which isn't me. Of course the other guys all take turns playing pedal F on their tenors knowing that I can barely get one on my big bass. With friends like these... huh?

So anyway, I got the bass job, and now I'm kind of stuck with it. There are times when I really enjoy it. I'm making a real effort to actually "become" a bass bone player. For the last several years I just consider myself as a tenor player who holds a bass bone. 80% of the playing is really just 4th parts, or maybe a walking bass (which is a skill all its own).

I just need some motivation because bass bone just seems so much work, and honestly a bit of a drag sometimes. I think I've optimized my equipment as much as it's going to be optimized. I've done some arrangements to try to get better bass parts. Everything that's left is just me. I need some inspiration. I feel the tenor chops starting to slip. I can't keep both tenor and bass going where I want them to be. Inspire me! Maybe a need a fun book, like the Aharoni Non-Classical stuff, or Real Book down and octave or something like that.

[ssking2b]

Get Tommy Pederson Advanced Etudes for Bass Trombone. They'll work your ass off, and are interesting to play. When you can play them, you can play anything.

[Kbiggs]

It’s the sound I can create and the roles I can play. I get to roar like a lion, sing like an angel, and everything in between.

I (attempt to) play anything on bass that I might play on tenor: long tones, slurs, flexibilities, scales/intervals, valve coordination exercises, etudes, etc. In addition to stuff written for bass, I’ll use tenor trombone music (If needed I’ll put it into tenor clef and read it down one octave), tuba music, cello/bass music (same as with tenor trombone), or anything else. Lately I’ve been reading some of the Bach flute sonatas and partitas.

The bass trombone plays so many different roles and parts:
In orchestra: bottom of the trombones, bridge between trombones and tuba, “crown” on the tuba, bass along with bassoon and cello and others, percussion, soloist (very rare), etc.
Similar with concert band and wind ensemble.
Big band: bottom of the trombones, play with the bari sax and bass, soloist, etc.
Chamber and solo music: the full range of the instrument, along with the full range of dynamics, articulations, tempos, etc.

It’s a lot of responsibility. You’re one of the loudest (if not the loudest) instruments in almost any group, so you have to have good time, good pitch, and a beautiful sound. It also helps to play musically.

[MStarke]

Get Tommy Pederson Advanced Etudes for Bass Trombone. They'll work your ass off, and are interesting to play. When you can play them, you can play anything.

Plus the Bob McChesney bass trombone/Tuba etudes. Challenging in the same way.

Other than that I always come back to Bordognis, as written or an octave down.

Or solo repertoire, including tuba concertos.

[tbdana]

Never mind

[robcat2075]

Question for those of you who enjoy playing bass bone - What is it about bass that you enjoy? Do you enjoy it more than tenor bone? I've been struggling with this for years, and just want to see what motivates bass bone players.

I got switched to bass trombone on my first day of college.

I liked being out of the tenor trombone pissing match
I liked that no one was competing to displace me
I liked being having a part and stand to myself
I liked that it sounded rich and orchestral all by itself
I liked being the bass of the section
I liked playing octaves with tubas

Of course there are many negatives but all-in-all I like having been a bass trombone player.

[GGJazz]

Hi .
I fell in love with bass trbn when I was 19 , during my last two years of studying at the Conservatory.

The main reason was exclusively the TONE : a day , a pro bass trombonist was giving a demonstration in our class , and I was immediatly attracted by that huge , big , full , sound !

I like to play the bass trbn in the medium/ medium high register also , because I love how he speaks in this range .

Regards
Giancarlo

[whyking]

I think playing bass is cool because I look really cool holding a big instrument, and all the extra tubes and stuff look dope. Also it can be really loud when you play the low notes! I've been doing this practice thing that I found online lately and it really helps me play louder than the others. I think it could really help you like playing bass more!

67FD1B2C-BF24-4E2E-867F-C6761C5F54B3.PNG

[TomInME]

It's all about color for me, and having a unique role. I can punch, growl, kick, roar, purr, slap, sing, spit, scream, and humm. But I refuse to moo.

[blast]

It's not the toughest instrument to play in an orchestra. I'm a root sort of person, who didn't want to carry a tuba around. You get some great moments and reduced orchestrations are often bass trombone, like my present gig playing a reduced Merry Widow. It's a good instrument to earn a living on, though I still think of the small tenor as the real trombone.

[BGuttman]

It's not the toughest instrument to play in an orchestra. I'm a root sort of person, who didn't want to carry a tuba around. You get some great moments and reduced orchestrations are often bass trombone, like my present gig playing a reduced Merry Widow. It's a good instrument to earn a living on, though I still think of the small tenor as the real trombone.

I don't think the German and Austrian composers of the 19th Century thought that. I've often found the 3rd trombone parts of that genre were the more interesting.

[hyperbolica]

I think playing bass is cool because I look really cool holding a big instrument, and all the extra tubes and stuff look dope. Also it can be really loud when you play the low notes! I've been doing this practice thing that I found online lately and it really helps me play louder than the others. I think it could really help you like playing bass more!

67FD1B2C-BF24-4E2E-867F-C6761C5F54B3.PNG

Is there anyone who doesn't think this account is using AI? Do we have a policy on this sort of stuff?

[WGWTR180]

I think playing bass is cool because I look really cool holding a big instrument, and all the extra tubes and stuff look dope. Also it can be really loud when you play the low notes! I've been doing this practice thing that I found online lately and it really helps me play louder than the others. I think it could really help you like playing bass more!

67FD1B2C-BF24-4E2E-867F-C6761C5F54B3.PNG

Is there anyone who doesn't think this account is using AI? Do we have a policy on this sort of stuff?

Yeh either AI or someone who's trying to sound dope. LOL

[BPBasso]

Whyking's warmup is absolutely amazing. I'm already playing 10db louder.

[ghmerrill]

Whyking's warmup is absolutely amazing. I'm already playing 10db louder.

I was just assuming that you're supposed to read it down one or two octaves.

[fiddlefestival]

Without the obnoxiously sized pdf, whyking's comment would have been funny. Don't think AI bots on chat websites are yet smart enough for that. It would be more "find a good teacher", "take a lesson from Doug Elliott" (and spam links).

[hyperbolica]

Without the obnoxiously sized pdf, whyking's comment would have been funny. Don't think AI bots on chat websites are yet smart enough for that. It would be more "find a good teacher", "take a lesson from Doug Elliott" (and spam links).

If you look at the content of the pdf, it's obnoxiously irrelevant, and trails off into gibberish here and there. Musically, it makes no sense. At first I thought it was just another high school testosterone poster boy, but it didn't start a sentence with the word "so" or use the word "literal" for something figurative. Computers may be too smart to fall into those traps, but this is a special kind of ignorance only a computer could forge. Maybe AI is working on irony.

[ghmerrill]

I asked an AI if that posting was more likely human or AI. Its summary (supported by more detail elsewhere in its answer) was:

Most Likely Human.

* The grammar is natural but imperfect (e.g., "this practice thing").
* The tone is casual and personal.
* There’s a level of emotional expressiveness and superficiality that feels typical of a younger or beginner-level poster sharing an opinion, not something AI typically outputs unless mimicking that tone.

It could plausibly be mimicked by AI—but if it is, it's very well tuned to sound like an enthusiastic beginner. More likely, it’s a genuine human post, possibly from a younger musician.

I'm inclined to view what I got as a plausible and reasonable analysis.

The AI also offered to rewrite the posting so that it sounded "more AI-like or more adult-human-like" -- just for comparison.

[hyperbolica]

I asked an AI if it was more likely human or AI. Its summary (supported by more detail elsewhere in its answer) was:
...
I'm inclined to view what I got as a plausible and reasonable analysis.

Yeah, but...

The music image is all BS. Section 1 has a lot of nonsense characters and spelling. And the characters over the F and B, misplaced decrescendo...
Section 2 has stems going the wrong way, notes misnamed and no key signature, plus what's that 4 over the C
Section 3 Legato tonguing with no legato, same with staccato
Section 4 misnamed notes and no key or accidentals, oddly misspelled words, long stems on notes
Section 5 Bizzaro stems, misnamed notes
copyright...c'mon.

A human would have to go way out of their way to create something this wrong. For a computer, it's easy. AI images are often full of nonsense characters. Maybe the text part of the post had a human collaborator behind it, but the image is 100% ai.

[BGuttman]

Think this is the music equivalent of the 6 fingered hand?

[ghmerrill]

Yeah, but...

Yeah, but ... we've seen all of that produced by any number of music editing or transposing packages used by humans.

A human would have to go way out of their way to create something this wrong.

Apparently not with software used (by humans) to produce examples posted on various forums (by humans). Just a little while ago I was asking for decent transposing packages and getting all kinds of hideous examples.

But we may be talking at cross-purposes here. You may be quite right that the sheet music example was produced by transposition software (which you might choose to call "AI"). But the posting and its text is much more likely from a human source.

[tbdana]

Think this is the music equivalent of the 6 fingered hand?

"My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die. Doobie-doobie do!"

[sf105]

And also, I don't have much of an upper range.

In orchestras, playing lines with a good tuba player, or in earlier music sitting at the bottom of the brass section.

In big bands, laying it down for the rest of the section to bounce off.

[MrHCinDE]

I like listening to good bass bone playing for sonic reasons, that rich and full sound is just satisfying to my ears.

Playing wise, I like that most parts in section playing (symphonic, brass band or big band) can be played without having to be particularly well in practice so it’s great to double on if mainly playing tenor. If I am focussing on bass and try to pick up tenor, I have a much harder time to play the 1st/lead parts than when mainly playing tenor and picking up a bass once in a while.

Don’t get me wrong, to master bass trombone needs a lot more talent and dedication than I have but to be able to play 95% of non-solo repertoire which amateur groups are likely to encounter I can get by with one or two quick half hour sessions on bass to get back up to speed.

[MaxPirone]

I play every day or every time i need but practice always with bass,Tenor and tuba...