TromboneChat

Hi all, I’m currently playing an unmodified Holton TR180 bass bone. Recently I was confronted with a couple of big band charts with some very challenging passages with low B’s and C’s.
A friend suggested I should get a D slide made for the horn. He said it would make those passages easier to play.
With a D slide, what slide positions would the low B’s and C’s be in?
Thanks in advance for your responses.

If you get a D crook / slide made for the second valve, the low C would be about where 4th position is normally. Low B natural would be a bit past 5th. I think the TR180 has the second valve in a very flat E, not quite Eb, so it would definitely move in the B natural significantly.

The hard part is finding Holton .585 valve tubing to make a slide from.

Burgerbob wrote: Tue Oct 21, 2025 9:29 am The hard part is finding Holton .585 valve tubing to make a slide from.

The last time I made one of these (several years back), I used .590ish tubing and Yamaha wrap parts that were easily available to me through my employer at that time. It didn't look exactly like an original Holton slide but it played well.

In this application, there is no downside to using 15mm (.590") or .594 tubing, IMO. Makes actually doing the job much easier, too.

bigbanddan wrote: Tue Oct 21, 2025 8:43 am With a D slide, what slide positions would the low B’s and C’s be in?

C is pretty near (open) 4th position. B is about halfway between 5 and 6. Aharoni has a pretty good chart, available on Doug Yeo's site.

For positions on D slides, about a year ago I put a universal slide position chart together and posted it here: slide-positions.2.pdf (thread) Also, Benny Leonard has discussed and posted very cool diagrams in this thread: "The (almost) ultimate position chart" (Warning: rabbit holes, unshaved yaks!)