I play the slide
trombone. Perhaps a better statement is
that I maneuver the trombone's slide and mouthpiece to make noise.
The slide trombone
consists of a mouthpiece, slide, and bell.
(Other trombones exist with keys that work in concert with the
slide. That is much too sophisticated
for me.) You blow through the mouthpiece and the air goes through the slide to
the bell where the noise, the music, comes out the end. An ordinary trombone allows you to vary the
slide in different lengths from the mouthpiece.
The different lengths in combination with different mouth positions in the mouthpiece allows one
to vary the tones as they exit the bell.
The different lengths of slide are known as "positions" and
one has seven positions to create different notes in a trombone. The first position is when the slide has not
moved and that position is the one position is the same for each and every
trombone player. After that the length
for each of the six remaining positions
is an approximate length. Depending on
the length of your arm, seventh position may or may not be reachable. Unlike a keyed instrument such as a trumpet,
none of the six remaining positions is an exact length although you must be in
a range of length, a position, to achieve a note corresponding to a note shown
in the music.
I started playing
trombone in grade school. Mr. Patton,
the middle school teacher (at that time it was known as a junior high)
recruited different people to play different instruments at the grade school
level so that he had the right combination of instruments at the junior
high. His mixture of instruments then
followed to Mr. Hanson at the senior high level. Mr. Patton wanted a certain number of brass
and woodwinds. He did not want too many
of one type of brass, such as trumpets, and no lower brass, such as
trombones. For every kid that wanted to
play a trumpet he would counter with another brass instrument.
Mr. Patton began his selection process in
grade school. When I was in sixth grade,
Mr. Patton told me and my parents there was a wealth of trumpet players and not
enough trombone players. He told us playing trombone would be the
ticket to playing in the junior then senior high band. What he did not tell us was that anyone
playing an instrument would be part of the band no matter the instrument. But being a grade school kid with parents
who had no experience with instruments, my parents and I took his sales job at face
value and I became a trombone player. We
bought a trombone, a trombone I still have a play, and the trombone playing
experience began.
Mr. Patton did this
sell job to a number of other kids with similar parents. By the time we reached junior high there were
about 12 kids playing trumpet and another 12 playing trombone.
One of the truths in
navigating the trombone at the junior and senior high was one needed to
practice. It was suggested the minimum
amount of practice should be an hour per day and this should be completed
before homework was started. The inference was the musical education was more
important than education from books. To encourage this truth, each of the
players, whether trumpet or trombone, were seated according to the player's
ability. People practicing the suggested
hour per day became 1st section trombones.
People practicing every once in a while became 2nd section trombones. People who never practiced became 3rd section
trombones. In each section chairs were
assigned according to the trombone player's ability. Being 1st chair in the 1st section was the
most prestigious. In each section,
people were encouraged to challenge the person in front of them. The challenge occurred behind a curtain. Each player was given the same portion of
music and asked to play. After they
played then the band director determined the best of the players. If you were
better than the person in front of you then you moved up and he or she moved to
your seat. The band directors, both Patton and Hansen, made a big deal of this challenge and challenges occurred
constantly after the daily band practice for any instrument in the band where
there was interest in moving up.
I was one who
accepted the hype regarding the challenge.
I practiced constantly and was a 1st section trombone. I challenged to be 1st chair of the 1st
section but never was good enough, no matter the amount of practice, to become
1st chair. I was always 2nd chair or
lower throughout my junior and senior high music career. In retrospect I should
have settled for 1st chair 2nd section which meant more relaxation in high
school.
After high school I
never picked up a trombone until our church wanted to have trombones play some
Thanksgiving music in 1997. The trombone
was taken from the case and made noise for Thanksgivings in 1997, 1998, and
1999.
The trombone then
stayed in its case for the next 10 years.
The church hired a new music director and he wanted to start a church
orchestra. Since then I have played the
trombone almost every year for music in Christmas and Easter.
I realize now much
better trombone players exist. I could
practice the church music 24 hours per day and I would only be mediocre. The trombones made today have better range and
give better sound than the one I play. I
am content playing the music with lower notes, a 3rd section trombone level,
with having some one play at the 1st chair level.
With age, I realize
practicing music pieces alone is fine but I need rehearsals so that I can
determine how to play the music with the other instruments.
To show you how
outclassed I have become I can relate to you my experience for Christmas 2018.
The current church
music director decided a brass quartet would be nice to have on Christmas
Eve. He had a similar brass quartet for
Christmas Eve 2017 and he was very satisfied.
I was not part of the 2017 effort because I was recovering from a
November knee replacement surgery.
He was so satisfied
with Christmas 2017 that he sent out the music on December 14th. He then scheduled a 15 minute rehearsal that
was later cancelled. The first rehearsal
with the music occurred at 3:30 pm on December 24th for a 4:30 service. The
music director obtained a degree in organ at the Julliard School of Music in
New York City and is a prodigy on organ or piano. The quartet was comprised of two trumpets, a
father and a son who each taught trumpet, a college student playing trombone as
a major at the University of Minnesota, his mother who played trombone along
with many other instruments, and me. The rehearsal lasted 5 minutes because
"everyone knew the music".
Perhaps everyone excluding me knew the music because they were much
better players than me but I could never say that I "knew the music".
I practiced the
music for at least an hour per day from December 14th to December 23rd. But practicing alone is not the same as
rehearsing. Rehearsing allows one to
find out how fast the music will be played and how loud. For someone like me who is, I admit it,
mediocre at best, rehearsing the music a few times is invaluable.
But the show had to
go on. The quartet had five pieces. Four of the pieces were familiar Christmas
hymns and for those I "knew the music" even though the trombone position
placement was inaccurate for some notes.
The fifth piece was a different matter.
I played it with some minor goofs during the 5 minute rehearsal. However,
at the church service I got horribly lost in the music as the other four
members and the director went merrily along.
I like playing
trombone. However at this stage in my
life if I would play the trombone with an established group outside of church I
would probably be at the fourth level at the bottom chair which would probably
me sitting in a chair in a cemetery by myself playing to a captive audience.
