Practicing

[Savio]

Im on holiday now so will not practice before about 10. Of august. But i miss my trombone and think about practicing. I think about how I should practice and I see I have done a lot of legato and flexibility in my practice. Not so much on other articulation and tongue to make either tenuto, staccato or shape the beginning of notes. Maybe we trombonist do too much flexibility up and down compared to other brass instruments? I dont know? But I know flexibility must always be a part of it.

[Kbiggs]

I sometimes wonder why other brass players don’t play as many flexibilities as we do. However, trombonists tend to not play rapid scales up and down to warm up—not because we can’t, but because many (including myself) don’t put the time and effort into playing rapidly and cleanly.

When I return to playing after taking time off, I notice that pretty much everything is affected: breathing, intonation, production, range, flexibility, etc. I just have to accept that I’m not going to sound like the horn in my head for a few days, so I spend time being mindful of good mechanics, and making each skill/component work. That helps my musicality.

But yes—flexibility studies really do help.

[tbdana]

[T]rombonists tend to not play rapid scales up and down to warm up—not because we can’t, but because many (including myself) don’t put the time and effort into playing rapidly and cleanly.

Yeah, that's true. Why not? Why don't more of us practice rapid playing to the point where we can do it cleanly?

I suppose classical players never really need to, since all their literature gives those notes to the violins and woodwinds, while reserving a host of half and whole notes for the bombast section. Likewise with commercial players, who rarely see more than four 16th notes in a row.

For jazz players, I suppose it has more practical application. They get to play whatever they want, so it's not required, per se, but there is opportunity for fast (and clean, please!) playing when they want to.

I'm not terrible at fast playing. But I probably never would have learned to do it if I hadn't sat next to Bill Watrous for 15 years. His default was light speed, so it was hard not to get suckered into learning to do that, at least a little.

But I wonder if writers would give trombones more interesting stuff to play if we all could play fast and clean. Of course, no one is digging up Beethoven to get him to write fast stuff for trombone. But if players generally had the ability, maybe we'd get to play the fun stuff more often. Maybe a chicken/egg thing.

[EriKon]

Because the instrument just isn't made for it. It's much easier on trumpet or reeds. And it sounds better on those instruments too.

[LetItSlide]

Because the instrument just isn't made for it. It's much easier on trumpet or reeds. And it sounds better on those instruments too.

I strenuously object to that last sentence.

[tbdana]

Because the instrument just isn't made for it. It's much easier on trumpet or reeds. And it sounds better on those instruments too.

Yeah, I get that it's easier on other instruments. To my mind, that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. But I have a tendency to do hard things just because they're hard. For instance, I've run 21 marathons including once when I ran three within a week, ending with the Boston Marathon.

As for "sounding better" on other instruments, of course that's subjective. I think it can sound pretty darned good, at least to my ear, and of course when it's done well enough to sound clean.

[EriKon]

I know all of these examples and I stand my point.





And if we go classical:



The lines are much more present and accurate than on trombone even by two of the best ever doing this. There's so much more presence in sound on sax or tp. And the lines have a lot more freedom and better sounding jumps (where it's not just scales or arpgs).

[tbdana]

Fair enough. It's certainly easier and more natural on those instruments, I agree.

[robcat2075]

I am surprised to hear that "rapid playing" has been not a fixture of your trombone lives.

My memory of college lessons was that etudes contrived to advance my rapid-playing technical skills were a major component of what I was expected to do. Even-more in graduate school lessons.

So much so that my interest in the trombone mostly evaporated at the end. It all seemed far in excess of what was being encountered in real trombone music in real ensembles.

But you are all made of stronger stuff, I presume.

[jthomas105]

A word from the master:

[tbdana]

A word from the master:

Yeah, I do those two-octave scales up and down, starting at the bottom then starting at the top. But I do it legato rather than staccato. I find staccato is artificially easier, and doing it legato is more difficult to play cleanly, so I practice it legato. I'll also occasionally do it staccato just to keep it under my fingers, but if you can do it legato you can pretty much do it staccato.

I also do 3-octave arpeggios at speed, slurred and tongued, starting at the bottom and starting at the top, and this is very difficult but extremely helpful.

[WilliamLang]

One of the fun things about being a musician is you can choose what you want to play. It's true that there's not much use to rapid scale passage work in the industry - but again - you can play literally anything you want! If only for fun! If you let everyone else tell you what to play and then get bored, well, maybe you're boring.

I am surprised to hear that "rapid playing" has been not a fixture of your trombone lives.

My memory of college lessons was that etudes contrived to advance my rapid-playing technical skills were a major component of what I was expected to do. Even-more in graduate school lessons.

So much so that my interest in the trombone mostly evaporated at the end. It all seemed far in excess of what was being encountered in real trombone music in real ensembles.

But you are all made of stronger stuff, I presume.

[tbdana]

I have/get to play Urbie Green's "Green Bee" now and then. A good double-doodle tongue is really helpful. The secret is that most of the fast passages are chromatic within a single partial, so it's actually pretty easy. But people think it's hard, so you get a lot of props for it. (At least one other member here has heard me do this several times.)

Fast playing doesn't necessarily mean difficult playing.

[robcat2075]

...If you let everyone else tell you what to play and then get bored, well, maybe you're boring.

You forgot the [pedantic lecture] [/pedantic lecture] tags.



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[tbdana]

Perhaps we can skip the passive-aggression and micro-aggression and just try to discuss things like friends. We're all friends here, I hope.