(Side note: this movement covers basically the entire range of the trombone from pedal F to F at the top of the treble clef.) The trombone rises from the unbearably long oboe tone. The hokiest probably being Lassus Trombone, the bane of every trombonist’s existence:Īnd the eeriest may be from the last movement of Ligeti’s Chamber Concerto. In use the glissando can sound anywhere along the range of hokey to eerie. Or, better yet, if you’re working with more than one trombone you can begin another player on the pitch on which the first player ends: Glissando Examples With the ability to hide that change and some quick slide motion larger glissandi can be achieved. Much like a vocalist can work to minimize the noticeability of his break, a trombonist can do the same. When you cross harmonics you get a “bump,” an audible break in the sound (think switching from normal voice to falsetto). ![]() There are some valve combinations that can handle it.) To get from that B to that F you have to cross between two harmonics. This is why the glissando from the bass trombone part to Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra is not possible on most modern trombones. You can use any of those in full or in part and have a playable glissando on the trombone. The next unique glissando would be:Īny glissando higher than these can be produced without the F valve.Īny glissando higher than that is playable either with the F attachment or on the open B flat trombone. The next two glisses overlap with those possible on the open B flat horn. With the F valve depressed you get these glissandi (maximum of a perfect fourth): The remainder of these glisses should be fine: The first conceivable gliss would be from pedal E to pedal B flat but because of its extreme low register it’s not playable by all tenor trombonists: With the open B flat trombone these glisses can be as wide as a tritone. Using the info above we can construct layer upon layer of glissandi. Jurgen Faisst that shows approximate positions and harmonics for the B flat trombone, the trombone with the F valve depressed and the trombone with a D valve engaged (notice that with the D valve the trombonist can only get a major third): See below for a slide position chart by Dr. ![]() One common system is one valve in F, the other in D (or the combination of the first and second will give D). Generally, they all have an F valve and some other valve that will give them that low B. There’s no real standard for what keys their valves are pitched in. You need to decide whether your occasion is special enough to ask a trombonist to do this.īass trombonists generally have two valves available to them and here’s where things get really wild. For special occasions they can pull the tuning slide out on the valve section and lower the pitch of the valve to E giving them the E harmonic series down chromatically to the B harmonic series. Now tenor trombonists are only missing one note: the B below the bass clef. You guessed it, that lowest C will probably not be playable by your tenor trombonist. Professional bass trombonists should be able to play at least up to the D below that F: Most professional tenor trombonists can reliably produce notes from the fundamental (B flat below the bass clef) to the twelfth harmonic (F at the top of the treble clef). This means if you blow through the instrument with the slide all the way in you will get a note from the B flat harmonic series. Know what key they are pitched in and you are well on your way to figuring out how they tick.Īs I mentioned, the vast majority of tenor and bass trombones are in B flat. There are plenty others: alto trombones, soprano trombones, contrabass trombones, piccolo trombones. You’ll generally be dealing with one of two types: tenor trombones and bass trombones. Octave, fifth, fourth, major third, minor third, flat minor third, etc. If you don’t know anything about the harmonic series take a second to digest that info (particularly the section “ Frequencies, Wavelengths…”) I’ll wait here. ![]() To know what gliss a trombone can do you have to first understand the harmonic series, then understand the layout of the trombone. The Harmonic Series (You Should Know This) ![]() Tl dr: scroll down to the “Exhaustive List” below. But 99.9999% of trombones today are pitched in B flat bringing us to the question of “what makes a trombone glissando possible?” More than likely he was writing for someone playing a bass trombone pitched in F which would make this lick most playable. To his credit, Bartók probably knew what he was doing when he mocked Shostakovich. Excerpt from the third trombone part of the Fourth Movement of Bartók’s “Concerto for Orchestra.”Ĭan’t do it (for reasons I’ll explain in a bit) but ugly little things like this keep turning up in my parts, maybe because one popular orchestration book calls it “perfect.” (Cough, Adler, cough.)
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