[Trombone-l] Embouchure Dictations Of The Bass Trombone Valve Register (not an immaculate conception)

[Joshua Hauser]

I guess that I have a couple of general theories about doubling as it
applies to my playing.  Fundamentally, I try to think of what I want to
sound like on that instrument and go from there.  Sound concept goes a long
way for me trying to sound like a trombone on trombone and like a euphonium
player when I play euph, etc.  The last thing that I want to hear is someone
say that I did a good job on euph for a trombone player or vice versa.  I
try to approach each instrument as if that is just what I do.

My general ideas are:

1. Find an ideal sound.  What song or excerpt do you hear with that sound?
For me, I don¹t play euph that often, so when I do I need to get my sound
back quickly.  A couple of times through the euph solo in the 1st mvt of the
Holst Suite in F and I am most of the way back to my sound.  After that,
it¹s just time reminding my fingers what to do.
2. Each horn I play slots differently, so I do a lot of slow slurs to figure
out where the partials line up.  Like Steve said about compensating, if you
are trying to play a small bore tbn and pick up a 547, you are going to blow
differently and your face may do something for the Œwrong¹ horn.  For a long
time, I only played jazz on my small horn, so I was able to say Œjazz=small
bore¹ Œlegit=large bore¹.  Then I got my Shires 547 and now I use that for
almost everything on tenor because it¹s just a better horn overall.
3. Another issue with compensating could be that you are putting the slide
in the wrong place for the horn.  I try to advocate that my students try to
let the horn play them instead of forcing the horn to do what they want.
Try glissing down from a middle F.  Does the sound stay exactly the same
regardless of where you are or does it change tone?  If there is a change,
often your lips and slide are not moving at the same rate as you gliss.
When that happens, especially on longer slide positions (or valve
combinations) and in the upper range when partials get closer together, this
can result in actually missing notes because you could be buzzing the
correct pitch, but the horn wants to play a note slightly lower because of
where the slide is.  That means that you end up lipping the note up to get
closer to the right note and, if the partials are too close together, you
can end up slipping into the wrong partial by accident.

Fundamentally, I try to buzz the note I want and learn where to put the
slide to get that.  When I play valves, I try to fall into the horn more and
let the resonance and resistance of the euph help the support so that I can
lip things in tune as needed.

As much as I hate to agree with J.C. (LOL), doubling for me is about sound
concept and learning where to put the slide more than worrying about my
face.

Josh


______________________________________________
Joshua Hauser, Associate Professor of Trombone
Box 5045
Department of Music and Art
Tennessee Technological University
Cookeville, TN 38505
931/372-6086
jhauser at tntech.edu 
http://iweb.tntech.edu/jhauser
http://www.tntech.edu/brass/trombone
Trombones at Tech new CD Project!!
http://www.tntech.edu/publicaffairs/rel/2006/dec06/music.html
http://www.tntech.edu/publicaffairs/rel/2007/march07/trombones.html