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Both you and your students should listen to reference recordings to figure out what kind of vibrato the piece calls for. The most important thing to remember with slide vibrato is style. Students will eagerly start whipping their slide back and forth, blissfully unaware that they sound like Tommy Dorsey having a mariachi nightmare. Slide vibrato is a very intuitive motion that’s difficult to perform correctly. Jazz style, including the loud, edgy hits common to big band trombone writing, comes from articulation far more than it comes from a change in sound. Indeed, famous jazz trombonists from many eras have deliberately accessed darker, more orchestral tone colors, including Curtis Fuller and Bill Watrous. While more advanced players (who can access more potential tone colors without sacrificing technique) may strive for more edge in a big band, it’s not necessary for young trombonists to do this in order to be stylistically appropriate. I think it’s a common misconception that young brass players need to fix or change their embouchure, air support, or general tone color between concert band and jazz band. Good brass tone is good brass tone, and it doesn’t matter if you’re playing Gordon Goodwin or Percy Grainger. The simple fix here is not to fix anything at all. Simply false tone an Eb rather than worry about getting the slide all the way in for the F that doesn’t really exist.īy introducing the ghosted notes in a swinging environment and using lip slurs to show that the notes don’t need to speak normally, but aren’t necessarily “swallowed,” young trombonists will learn more quickly. But in the second measure of this example, ghosting the note eliminates the need to make an awkward direction change with the slide. In the first measure, ghosting the note is simple the position doesn’t change. This gets easier when the ghosted note is on a different partial than the notes that need accents (and when the line is idiomatic). Instead, it’s more of a note that doesn’t quite speak. However, for trombonists, no swallowing is required – the term doesn’t match what actually happens with the mouth.
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Sometimes ghosting is described as “swallowing” the note. It’s also important in swing, but to a lesser extent. Ghosting notes is a crucial aspect of playing bebop correctly. For example, F3 is sharp in first position and must be lowered, but F3 in fourth position is so extremely flat that it’s basically in third-and-a-half position. In many cases on trombone, alternate positions have opposite tuning tendencies from the typical position. This is because you only need to tongue every other note and the positions stay close together.Ī word of warning about alternate positions: as with any instrument, alternate fingerings have different tuning tendencies. This scale can be worked up to pretty extreme tempos without much difficulty. The second scale would be more difficult if we played Ds and Fs in first position, rather than their alternates.īe sure to encourage your students to swing the scale – that’s how you get comfortable using it in a solo! Notice that by using alternate positions we also get to take advantage of many natural slurs. Translating those movements out a position (to move the scale down a half step) maintains the simple slide motions by accessing alternate positions. In the example below, the first octatonic scale doesn’t require large slide movements or awkward direction changes. Playing more advanced scales provides an excellent opportunity to work with alternate positions. Of course, use good slide technique (very little wrist, minimal pressure, only the thumb and one or two fingers on the brace, etc.) but alternate positions go a long way.
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Often, alternate positions are the key to navigating tricky bebop or soli lines that would otherwise border on impossible. The most important thing about alternate positions is to use them. Here are five quick fixes you can make to improve the trombone section in your jazz band. It’s tempting to focus on the shout chorus and the sax soli and leave the trombones to their own devices, but a few simple adjustments can bring your young jazz trombonists up a notch, and add power, balance, and consistency to your horn section. Having a strong trombone section can take your big band to the next level.