Using finger to find 3rd position

[Drombone]

I don't need to use a finger to find any position. I've gone past the "there are 7 positions" stage, and even the "OK, there are 7 positions, but some are short, and some are long."

I play on 3 trombones. Rath R4. no finger. Holton TR181. No finger. Rath R10. My finger keeps popping out and hitting the bell in 3rd.

It's driving me mad. It's not so much the fact that I do it, it's the noise it makes.

I've tried holding my slide with just thumb and index, but I slip back.

HELP!

[AndrewMeronek]

I have no problem with using a finger to stabilize 3rd position, as long as it doesn't interfere with something else. You do whatever you have to in order to sound better.

That said, banging a finger on the bell isn't good.

Different people have different shaped hands, so I don't think that there is one universal "correct" slide grip. I have very average sized hands and I have a lot of success with a "claw" grip. My fingers are not straight, but more naturally arced and I stabilize this by "catching" the slide back and forth. I haven't dropped my slide in decades doing this, nor do I hit my bell. But it won't work for everyone.

[AtomicClock]

I suspect narrow slides are ergonomically pretty different from wide slides. I'm not surprised your body reacts differently.

[hyperbolica]

Lots of people use a finger on the bell. Watch pros on TV do it all the time. Just don't ding the bell with your fingernail.

I put my middle finger on top, ring finger below and thumb floats in front as needed. It's a really loose grip. My avatar image actually captured my grip pretty well. Holding with your longest fingers keeps the index from dinging the bell, and allows you another inch at the bottom of the slide.

[harrisonreed]

It doesn't matter if you touch the bell, so long as you play in tune.

I sometimes subconsciously extend my fingers towards the bell around 2nd as well as 3rd position, but don't touch it. I don't know why exactly, but it might be giving my brain tangible information about pitch tendency. Same with touching my thumb knuckle to the heel of my left hand in and around 1st position -- I'm using my ears to tune, but I also have a physical ruler telling me the amount of adjustment that is being physically made in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd to play in tune. These can translate to other positions where I'm not using my "ruler", so the slide is more accurate.

No, I'm not really consciously thinking about any of that when I play. But my hands are providing that information to my brain. I don't think this is too different from what string players are doing. They are using their ears, yes, but they also know hand positions and relationships of the hand and fingers to the instrument neck in and out.

The way I use my fingers in proximity to the bell is not dissimilar to this, to include holding the slide with only the thumb and index finger :




The whole mantra about only using the ears to find pitch and not using visible or tactile feedback about the position of your hands and the slide in space is shortsighted -- like that information is not valuable as the pitch center drifts, or for placing the slide precisely before the note even starts? You have to physically move the slide to play in tune. Why wouldn't you want different ways of gauging where the slide is physically in space against what you're hearing?

You run into trouble when you declare that first position is "all the way closed, no matter what" and start compensating with your tuning slide to make that true. You run into even worse trouble when you try to reconcile such a rule about 1st person with "3rd position is exactly at the bell no matter what". They cant be true by themselves, and are even more false when combined.

[Sesquitone]

Lots of people use a finger on the bell. Watch pros on TV do it all the time.

This is true (usually to FIND "3rd" position)—and sometimes the thumb kicked back to touch the front side of the bell (to FIND "4th" position). I wonder if these pros first learned from a (non-trombone-playing) band director: the usual source of this "very bad habit". [What about seventh (and eleventh, . . .) harmonics?] I didn't realise (until now) that there was a finite school-of-thought that considered this to be a "good idea" (for various reasons). Perhaps we should encourage beginning players to paint "frets" on their inner slides with magic markers (the way some string instructors use tape on fingerboards for beginners). I am of the school-of-thought that strongly believes beginners should be trained to play perfectly in tune with their eyes closed and their fingers (and thumb) securely holding the bell brace (only).

[AtomicClock]

In my experience, beginners don't play in the 7th harmonic all that much, let alone eleventh.

[Sesquitone]

In my experience, beginners don't play in the 7th harmonic all that much, let alone eleventh.

Right, I was talking about so-called "pros" who still have the bad habit of Bell-Tickling that they learned from that (non-trombonist) band director when they were beginners.

[Posaunus]

In my experience, beginners don't play in the 7th harmonic all that much, let alone eleventh.

Right, I was talking about so-called "pros" who still have the bad habit of Bell-Tickling that they learned from that (non-trombonist) band director when they were beginners.

I've seem some real, tried & true pros (not "so-called") who tickle their bells, or at least use their fingers as a visual clue (hack?). It doesn't bother me, or make me feel superior - though I long ago tried to squelch this habit, and listen more closely to stay in tune.

[harrisonreed]

I don't know how you could have so many complex visual charts showing pitch tendencies of different partials, as well as knowing the exact lengths of tube needed to play different pitches, but yet utterly reject any way other than the ear of physically knowing the location of the slide in space. Your ear *can't* tell you where the slide is until after the out of tune pitch donates itself out of the bell. What is your tolerance for inaccuracies after establishing pitch?

The pet peeve about touching the bell or looking at the slide is tired pedagogue-ery, aimed at legitimate beginners who might think positions are absolute on day one. That is such an easy lesson to teach -- "there is no such thing as 3rd position". There you go. Now we can focus on ways to know exactly where your* slide hand is so you know how to adjust it accurately.

The trombone is really no different from the violin, for adjusting pitch, and they absolutely use tactile and spatial markers to know where to place their fingers, and to gauge pitch creep over time. And no, I'm not talking about physically touching the bell, not necessarily. I'm talking about knowing exactly where your slide hand is located in space.

* Ed. Spelling

[Burgerbob]

One of the best orchestral trombonists I know, making a lot of money at a top orchestra, touches his bell with his thumb every time he plays 4th position.

[Sesquitone]

I'm talking about knowing exactly where your slide hand is located in space.

Agreed. That would be muscle-memory in the arm and (for some) the wrist. That's an impressively complex subconscious process given the necessary fine adjustments for the differences between natural harmonics of the instrument (and quirks away from those), equitempered tones, and the need to slightly adjust away from equitemperament for the same (nominal) note performing different functions within different sustained chords. All within milliseconds. (Fretless) string players, the same—mostly within their fingers. As I said before, playing (memorised) tunes and exercises with eyes closed is good ear-and-arm (-and wrist) training.

[hyperbolica]

I'm not trying to say it's a good idea, just that people with more credibility than me do it. In addition to the 3rd/4th position thing, I sometimes use a pinky to gauge long 1st position for trigger C. Muscle memory is my first guess. Finger gauges are just an assist. I agree it's a bad habit, and I try not to do it, but hey, it happens to better players, so I don't feel too bad.

[CalgaryTbone]

I will jump in as a NO to using the finger to touch the bell for 3rd position. It can slow you down in technique, and if you play different instruments for different genres, the bells are likely to be located in slightly different locations. The biggest problem is that muscle memory of the finger touch can take over from the ears, and you can start placing the slide in the wrong place. Now, before everyone tells me about all of the great players that do just that, I will agree that many players do overcome this habit. It's still a bad habit - we don't encourage puffed cheeks because Dizzy Gillespie did it. In addition to giving you "questionable info" about where 3rd position is, taking your fingers off the slide cross brace takes away your control of the slide momentarily - an issue in technique and tuning.

To the OP, Joe Alessi had a fix for this that he showed us at his Seminars. Put a quarter on either side of the slide brace, and don't let them drop. It only takes a few days of scale practice that way to change this habit.

Jim Scott

[AndrewMeronek]

Some good points with the "Never touch the bell" crowd. It definitely can be a problem to associate touching the bell as "the position" without using your ears, and this can also be a learned muscle memory thing.

But - every position is a muscle memory thing AND an ear thing. If someone is going to "positions" from muscle memory always without using their ears, this is a more fundamental problem to fix than just "never touch the bell". When the ears drive the pitch, the game instead becomes something more like "OK, on this instrument, 6th partial E-flat is this close to the bell" and "5th partial C is this much farther away from the bell". The ears have to drive muscle memory, and this analysis HAS to be done no matter any touching of the bell or not. I don't mind seeing people use the bell as a visual or tactile reference, because focusing on only that really doesn't get to the real important thing that is going on.

[Finetales]

I touch the bell pretty often.

[LeTromboniste]

Yeah I touch my bell often, with the fingers or thumb. Not at all systematically, and not consciously, and certainly not in a way that I feel my tuning is affected by it. But it happens, and I decided I don't really care that much. I sometimes extend my thumb back in first position to touch the bottom of the inner slide sleeve/barrels, too. I even (gasp! ) sometimes will use these contact points on purpose for leverage in making very small tuning adjustments, or even nudge the slide out with my left hand fingers when needing to lower 1st position note by a smigde.

I'm still waiting for the slide technique police to knock on my door and tell me I only a "so-called" professional because of it

[musicofnote]

Old habits die ... slowly. I don't need to do it. I was never told "to" do it, but I ... did it anyway. But somewhere during my lessons, I simply relied on my ear to find the intonation, which often moved my teacher to comment, that he didn't quite understand, how I could play tonally and in terms of intonation so well, yet it -look- so ... wrong when he watched me. So he just stopped watching.

Of course I was coming from about 20 years of playing vented Baroque trumpet - the reason why i went to Basel to study it with Ed Tarr in the first place. And we did horizontal and vertical intonation exercises either with Ed alone or in ensemble, and had to learn to lip, both reactionally as well as pre-emptively on the partials that needed it and/or when keys changed. So I was used to "doing what was necessary" to get the right intonation with the right tone colour on the trumpet and this carried over to the trombone.

[stewbones43]

Hi Nick,
As your original trombone teacher 40+ years ago! I have two solutions:-

1 Amputation of offending digit. Guaranteed to work.

2 Try extending the length of the offending digit with a cardboard tube for home practice sessions. You should soon get used to holding that finger away from the bell rim. No guarantee with this method.

Cheers

Stewbones 43

[brassmedic]

Right, I was talking about so-called "pros" who still have the bad habit of Bell-Tickling that they learned from that (non-trombonist) band director when they were beginners.

One of my teachers advocated using your finger to find 4th position (only when your entrance starts in that position, and obviously not in the middle of rapid passages). He played with the San Francisco Opera. I wouldn't say that's a "so called pro".

What he said made sense to me. You can't use your ears until you actually start playing the note. You still have to put the slide somewhere that is your best estimate, before hearing the note, of where it needs to be. It's not a substitute for listening; it's an initial setting before listening. When I have to cut a short taper on my 1950s lathe, I set the compound feed approximately where it needs to be, using the degree marks on the carriage. Then I use a runout gauge to dial in the angle precisely. If I started out at 0 degrees and did all the adjusting with the runout gauge, it would be a ton more work. So think of your trombone slide that way, and it makes perfect sense. You want the slide as close as possible to the optimum place before you start playing the note.

I'm not advocating one way or the other. I think everyone should do what works for them. But please don't call people who do it "so called pros".

[brassmedic]

As for inadvertently hitting your finger on the bell, I had another teacher who used to say, "If you're having trouble doing something (or in this case not doing something), you have to practice it until you can do it." It sounded silly to me when he first said it, but later I thought it was actually genius.

[2bobone]

I used to use following analogy to cure students who are playing" ding the bell ". I told them to imagine entering their own home/ apartment in pitch black darkness. They very likely would be able to cross a room without bumping into a piece of furniture and locate a light switch at a certain level with no trouble because they were so familiar with the place. It is a sort of kinesthetic sense that is developed when we do something repetitively. If they have that innate sense developed to such a degree, why can't they apply it to the trombone slide? It seemed to work about half the time. Oh well!

[AtomicClock]

I am of the school-of-thought that strongly believes beginners should be trained to play perfectly in tune with their eyes closed and their fingers (and thumb) securely holding the bell brace (only).

Maybe. But I suspect there has to be a better way. Most students (certainly true for younger me) were untrained in music when starting the trombone. Relying on ones ears to find notes when ones sense of pitch is untrained means that the learning process will be very slow. I suspect that a trombonist who spends a few years on valves first will wind up ahead of the game. The pitch problems inherent in valves are dwarfed by the pitch problems due to untrained ears.

[Sesquitone]

I'm not advocating one way or the other. I think everyone should do what works for them. But please don't call people who do it "so called pros".

I'm clearly getting a lot of flack for that phrase. That was my feeble (and thereby, quite rightly misinterpreted) attempt at a play on words: pro "bell-tickling" as contrasted with con "bell-tickling". No disrespect to PROfessional, semi-PROfessional, strictly amateur, hobbyist, or student was intended. Being "self taught" and playing-by-ear, I initially suffered from this malaise myself—until I took some lessons from Henry Romersa in 1959. The first thing Henry had me do was to trade-in my Dixieland pea-shooter for a brand-new Conn 88H (of course, as Henry was a student of Emory Remington). The next thing (apart from Remington warmups, which were a given) was to have me "find" outer positions by first placing the slide (lightly) against the springs for 1st position Bb3, CLOSE MY EYES, then, with good tone, slowly gliss out to "find" A3 and lock into that "2nd position". Then slowly gliss back. Similarly to Ab3 ("3rd position") and back, and so on. At no time should the grip on the slide brace change (except for slight angular changes at very long positions). This (including the "blind" playing) was evidently something that Remington had often advocated—along with a beautiful "singing" tone, perfect legato, and relaxed, smooth-but-quick, slide technique.

[brassmedic]

I'm clearly getting a lot of flack for that phrase. That was my feeble (and thereby, quite rightly misinterpreted) attempt at a play on words: pro "bell-tickling" as contrasted with con "bell-tickling".

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[KWL]

It seemed to work about half the time. Oh well!

I must be in your other 50%. I guess some things just didn’t stick. After 65 years I still find myself touching the bell when starting in 3rd position. At least I no longer need to tie a string between a finger and the slide to get to 7th position as I did in 5th grade.

[robcat2075]

Today, I am often amused to see a highly-placed trombone player still reaching out to touch the bell. But I guess it doesn't really matter if you can play.

...and sometimes the thumb kicked back to touch the front side of the bell (to FIND "4th" position).

Yeah, i was taught in beginner band to find 3rd with the fingers and 4th with the thumb. It only worked because of the terrible grip I used... basically a fist, so the fingers and thumb could fly out when needed.

I looked at my first trombone and, yup, there's a section of the rim where the lacquer is chipped away from all the fingernail contacts.

chipped rim.png

But I understand the need of the band teacher to get something going quickly, to give some tangible mark by which to find notes.

In high school I was finally shown a proper grip which made reaching for the bell no longer convenient so I slowly dropped the habit.

[Drombone]

1 Amputation of offending digit. Guaranteed to work.

2 Try extending the length of the offending digit with a cardboard tube for home practice sessions. You should soon get used to holding that finger away from the bell rim. No guarantee with this method.

Thanks, Stewart.

• 1. I've terminalised fingers in my time, after trauma, and avulsed more nails than I can remember, but it does seem a little extreme.

• 2. Might work.

I don't do it on my Holton TR181. 3rd is past the bell, and 4th even more so. So there's no point.