Trombone
From DIMA
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Author: Mircea Neamt
A musical instrument composed of a system of bronze tubes, with a slide to vary the length of the tube. There are three types of trombones: alto, tenor and bass trombones. It is noted in the key signatures C alto, C tenor and F, having the following ways of playing a chord: legato, staccato, tremolo, vibrato, glissando, con sordino, etc.
History
The trombone, the same as the trumpet, horn or tuba, belongs to the family of brass instruments. An alloy of brass is used for their manufacturing. Unlike the other brass instruments, the trombone is characterized by a mobile slide by which the performer varies the length of the tube. Hence the notion of slide trombone (Fr. Coulisse, Germ. ZugPosaune, It. trombone a tiro). Until the 18th century, both in French and English the trombone was called sacqueboute, sackbut. The origin of sacqueboute derives from old French (sacquer = to pull; bouter = to push), but it may also derive from the Spanish word sacabuche = to take out from the interior (for example a sword).
Among the ancient predecessors of the trombone are also the instruments: the Chinese La-pa and Hau-tung, the Indian Sringa, the Greek Salpinx, the Jewish Chazozerah; the Roman buccina, tuba, lituus and cornu , tuba tractilis (saquebute)".
During the Reanissance the sacquebout – sackbut (trombone) was given its final shape. After the second half of the 15th century, it preceded the trumpet with slide and it seems that it was traded by the Flemish merchants.
In 1512 Albrecht Dürer painted on the walls of the Nurnberg city hall the city brass band, placing in the first rank a sacquebout player.
The notion of tuba ductilis, minor, maior and maxima indicates trombones of several sizes, used in the 16th-18th centuries.
Instrumental technique
Performing music demands a systematic work, in order to master the technical skills necessary to any instrumentalist: virtuosity, precision. Underlining the necessity of studying the technique, it does not follow that the instrumentalist who reached a high degree of technique does not need any future improvement. On the contrary, the instrumentalists-virtuosi must confer to the technical preparation a special attention.
The daily exercises have an important role in forming and strengthening the instrumental technique. A special place is played by the practice of scales and studies, as well as the articulation exercises (in half notes, quarters, eighths etc). The study teach one to dose their respiration, in phrasing, in intonation, in using all the types of articulation (legato, detaché, marcato, staccato, double staccato, triple staccato), in playing a score at first sight, in learning the dynamic play (from pp to ff) and the timbral one.
A special importance in working for a superior technique in playing a musical piece is to determine the tempo, which must correspond to the character of the given piece. The metronomic indications placed by the authors usually have a conventional character.
From the complexity of the problems placed by the technique of a wind instrument, the acoustic emission, that is the realization and production of the sound, is the most important domain which must remain in the instrumentalist’s attention along his entire career, but even more so at the beginning of his study, when he acquires the skills necessary in the formation and realization of quality sounds.
The main aspects of the sonorous emission are:
- the role and the technical contribution of the lips (position, flexibility and mobility of the lips);
- the role and technical contribution of the tongue (ways of articulating the sound);
- leading the air column (respiration technique).
Special effects on the trombone
The jazz phenomena had a decisive influence in the development of the technique of the trombone and other wind instruments such as: the clarinet, the saxophone, the trumpet, the tuba and the percussion instruments.
Vibrato as means of expression was introduced with the wind instruments long time before the string instruments. There are several types of vibrato: large, quick, vibrato in accelerando, vibrato with frullato. It is obtained by oscillating the slide of the trombone.
In the musical practice there are three types of tremolo in the wind instruments:
Tremolo vibrato – a rapid reiteration of the same sound or a series of sounds; with the technique of simple, double or triple articulation. It has an extremely pulsating, resounding effect.
Tremolo legato, the rapid reiteration of two sounds of different heights (starting from a minor third).
Dental tremolo (frullato or flatterzunge ) entered the musical practice at the beginning of the 20th century, given to such composers as Cl. Debussy, M. Ravel, I. Stravinski, B. Bartók. The dental tremolo is realized by the dense repetition of a sound or a group of sounds, with a special technique of the tongue which, when the air column enters the instruments, it oscillates on the teeth, pronouncing the consonants drr, trr or frr.
Glissando (gliding from one sound to another) is another technical element having a very rich expressive effect. It is characteristic to the slide trombone and used for achieving comical, sentimental, sometimes grotesque effects, reminding of the jazz music.
Slaptongue is an effect which produces sounds by slapping the tongue. It was used on the saxophone for the first time, and afterwards also employed by the jazz clarinet players.
The sourdine is used as an element with the help of which a colorful effect is obtained. The effect of the sourdine imparts the sound colours (timbres) from the dimmest to the most striking ones, as well as a manifold atmosphere, from humor and grotesque to sadness and nostalgia.
Mormorando is a kind of free improvisation on the keys. This procedure can be obtained with sound and frullato or with frullato without sound.
The Gorge effect is obtained in the following way: over the sound normally produced are overlapping guttural sounds, a kind of "buzzing". This Gorge effect, beside jazz music and the avant-garde music (flute, clarinet) is used especially by the folk music instrumentalists on the flute and the flute family.