What's a good smear tune that isn't Lassus?

[Mikebmiller]

I am doing an instrument demo for a bunch of 4-8 year old kids tomorrow. Last time I did one of these I played Lassus Trombone, but apparently I am not supposed to play that any more. So is there something similar I could play that demonstrates the glissando in a short tune? Extra points if you post a link to a free pdf download.

[MrHCinDE]

The Acrobat?

[ArbanRubank]

Tiger Rag?

[norbie2018]

Why can't you play that anymore?

[Burgerbob]

Why can't you play that anymore?

Oh man. Please tell me this is a joke at this point

[norbie2018]

I asked an honest question. Why not answer it for me if you know?

[norbie2018]

I found an article that has answered my question https://www.google.com/amp/s/thelasttro ... mbone/amp/
No need to follow up with me at this point.

[BGuttman]

I like the trombone solo from Pulcinella by Stravinsky. Lots of glissandos in that.

If that's too sophisticated, do a drunken version of "How Dry I Am".

I still feel that if you don't identify the title of Lassus and just play the music, nobody would know or want to take offense. The tune could equally describe a drunken Irishman as much as a lazy African-American unless you read the subtitles Fillmore put on the piece. If asked what it is I would just say it was a funny piece from the early 20th Century. Give it another name: Drunken Paddy Trombone, maybe? Incidentally, for glisses I like "Shoutin' Liza Trombone" better. The opening sounds like the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's "Messiah". It actually gave Fillmore his nickname "Hallelujah Trombone". Again, no title, and especially no subtitle.

[Kdanielsen]

I like the trombone solo from Pulcinella by Stravinsky. Lots of glissandos in that.

If that's too sophisticated, do a drunken version of "How Dry I Am".

I still feel that if you don't identify the title of Lassus and just play the music, nobody would know or want to take offense. The tune could equally describe a drunken Irishman as much as a lazy African-American unless you read the subtitles Fillmore put on the piece. If asked what it is I would just say it was a funny piece from the early 20th Century. Give it another name: Drunken Paddy Trombone, maybe?

Fix bayonets!

[BGuttman]

...
Fix bayonets!

Irishmen got his dander up?

There is no way to put a heroic spin on Lassus Trombone. And I know of no heroic piece that uses a trombone gliss.

[ArbanRubank]

I guess I'll have to - literally - spell it out. "Hold That Tiger" doesn't have to be played As. Written. Note-by-note. With E.V.E.R.Y. Note played S.Q.U.A.R.E. on the beat. As a senior in high school, I did a demo to elementary children in an assembly of how a trombone "could" sound.

Here is how it phonetically sounded as best as I can:

Baaaaaaaaah-rum that tiger. Baaaaaaah-rum that tiger. Baaaaaaaaah-rum that tiger. Baaaaaaaaah-rum that tiger.

On the bridge, I didn't play the I.N.D.I.V.I.D.U.A.L notes. I glissed down and up and down and up and down and up - all in good timing, until I got back to the Baaaaaaaaaaaaaah-rum that tiger chorus... At the very end, I did a total gliss down AND up; from top to bottom, holding the last note at about a fff!

Even the band director, who hated me, loved what I did.

[Bach5G]

Bolero but it’s a bit of a wait.

[Pre59]

In some other universe, is a cellist pondering how to demonstrate the cello's glissandi possibilities to kids?
I doubt it, and I think that in this one we shouldn't be bringing our instrument into disrepute so willingly.
Leave all that gliss rubbish behind!

[ArbanRubank]

Most certainly to each their own!

But if the OP does decide to demonstrate the trombone in a more "drunken", "vulgar" or "raucous" style, he might insert some flutter-tongue technique into select glisses to give them more "growl".

[soseggnchips]

Leave all that gliss rubbish behind!

Yes!

"But the kids love it!"

Play them a bit of Star Wars, or something else they recognise - they'll remember that a lot longer than some funny noises.

[VJOFan]

I know of no heroic piece that uses a trombone gliss.

I guess it is open to opinion, but what about Sabre Dance? It is at least heroic adjacent. Certainly intense.

Might not work without an orchestral backing though.

[CalgaryTbone]

I know of no heroic piece that uses a trombone gliss.

I guess it is open to opinion, but what about Sabre Dance? It is at least heroic adjacent. Certainly intense.

Might not work without an orchestral backing though.

The trombone doesn't usually get the tune in that one (just the glisses), but it wouldn't be hard to figure it out to either write out or memorize. Of course, it is Russian music - an issue in a lot of circumstances at the present time.

Jim Scott

[VJOFan]

I’ve had passing thoughts about the anti Russian stuff. It was not very long ago that the Canadian government made their formal apologies for the internment of Japanese Canadians in World War II. It’s pretty obvious from how people are behaving at NHL games etc. that in the same situation as WWII, we would do exactly the same thing again.

Tribalism knows no nuance.

[JohnL]

I’ve had passing thoughts about the anti Russian stuff. It was not very long ago that the Canadian government made their formal apologies for the internment of Japanese Canadians in World War II. It’s pretty obvious from how people are behaving at NHL games etc. that in the same situation as WWII, we would do exactly the same thing again.

I dunno - immediately after 9/11, there were some rather strident cries for internment and/or deportation of Arab-Americans - but it turned out that, while there was a lot of noise being made, it was coming from a fairly small group of people and that most Americans simply weren't in favor of it. A loud noise doesn't necessarily mean a lot of people - more so today than ever before.

[Mikebmiller]

Well I just played a few glisses to show the kids what they sound like. The highlight of the show was when I had to stop to put my dog out as she wouldn’t stop barking. If you want a non critical audience, play a recital for a bunch of 6 year old kids. They thought I was great, despite lots of clams.

[ArbanRubank]

Thanks for the follow-up! Glad it went well for you.

[Pre59]

It's odd to me that one of the (supposed) markers of a great trombonist, is that you can't hear the slide at all. Not even on the same kind of lyrical passages that on the Cellist would freely almost gliss on.
And here we are..

[ArbanRubank]

It's odd to me that one of the (supposed) markers of a great trombonist, is that you can't hear the slide at all. Not even on the same kind of lyrical passages that on the Cellist would freely almost gliss on.
And here we are..

It depends upon your perspective of what a "marker" (as you put it) of a great trombonist is. For me, it's hearing that the artist understands he is playing a slide trombone and lets me hear the use of the slide from time-to-time. Not many trombone players can do it well. Most sound horrid and maybe that is the real problem. But anyway, I doubt it applies to classical music all that much; being mostly a jazz concept, I believe.

[seabrook2022]

Many dixieland arrangements include a trombone glissando. For example see the "Sheik of Araby" arrangement in ComboPak #13 at East Coast Music.

[Doug Elliott]

String players have no problem finding tasteful examples in the literature of all genres.

[Wilktone]

Works best as an ensemble performance, but if you're just looking for a quick demonstration melody Ory's Creole Trombone has some nice moments.

[johntarr]

This is getting a bit off topic but I’ll post anyway. When we were planning our faculty brass concert for the school where I teach, my colleagues picked standard repertoire for the horn and trumpet. Because I play more than just “legit” styles I wanted to show some of my different sides as well as present the trombone as a multifaceted instrument. I also wanted my portion of the concert to be informative and entertaining.

After much thought, I came up with the romantic aspect and how the slide can produce vocal like sounds, combined with the big band era: I’m getting Sentimental over You. Then on to an arrangement of the Ride, with piano to show the dramatic side of the instrument. After that I’ll be playing two pieces that have me also reciting children’s poems to show that the trombone can be humorous and that performance can incorporate other elements besides just playing. My final piece will be a Psalm and a delay pedal with the alto trombone so I can show that as well. This is the “spiritual” aspect of the trombone.

We’ll see how it’s received next week.

[timothy42b]

String players have no problem finding tasteful examples in the literature of all genres.

Interesting video, and very different from what I was told back in junior high, and quite a number of times since.

Back then "teacher said" a glissando is a series of individual discrete notes like a piano can play, and a portamento is a smooth slide across all the intermediate possible pitches.

A little google today tells me the argument continues. Here's link that supports that position, but there were many hits supporting others as well:
https://www.vsl.co.at/community/posts/t ... #post92532

[Vegasbound]

Slippery when wet ? Lots of gliss

[ArbanRubank]

I liked his demo of the portamento and the way he executed it! That is now a very useable technique for me when I play ballads.

[Doug Elliott]

I liked his demo of the portamento and the way he executed it! That is now a very useable technique for me when I play ballads.

Exactly. It can make long intervals sound very smooth without making the gliss part noticeable. And I frequently gliss between shorter intervals. That sort of thing just gives you much more vocabulary for articulation in musical interpretation. And I'm not talking about just jazz or ballads... interpretation nuances are useful in any genre, as evidenced by their extensive use on string instruments. And many other string bowing techniques too.

[robcat2075]

So is there something similar I could play that demonstrates the glissando in a short tune? Extra points if you post a link to a free pdf download.

In the original essay that kicked this off, Doug Yeo suggests (and links to) "Slidus Trombonus" as substitute smear repertoire..

https://thelasttrombone.com/2020/06/28/ ... -trombone/

EDIT: But now that I have actually listened to "Slidus Trombonus" I'll say that it is utterly lacking in everything that made "Lassus" worth playing.

[psybersonic]

Try Bayrische Polka by Georg Lohmann

[hyperbolica]

Tiger Rag is something our quartet uses frequently. It doesn't have the same Lassus gliss, but it uses a lot of slide effects. I suppose if you object to Lassus, you can find a reason to criticize any music ever written. Use your own judgment.

[Gmorganbrass]

I often use the Pink Panther theme for trombone demonstrations - you can ad lib some small glisses and falls to make it more "trombone-y" as you like.

[brassmedic]

I suppose if you object to Lassus, you can find a reason to criticize any music ever written.

Please make it stop.

[Vegasbound]

The Acrobat

[NBischoff]

I've found The Arkansas Traveler works well for this sort of thing. Think Beaky Buzzard from Looney Tunes

[officermayo]

Many dixieland arrangements include a trombone glissando.

Ooh, he said "Dixieland"!

Isn't that on the same list as Lassus?

[hyperbolica]

You could use Bolero, but that's a dance that the Spaniards used when they conquered the north Africans, so cancel that. And then there's Bartok Concerto for Orchestra, but Bartok was from Hungary, which is a well known source of exclusion, so we can't play or listen to that any more. And Beethoven was Hitlers favorite, so cancel. And I'm sure Mahler did something we would all regret during his lifetime, so add him to the list. There's the cool gliss in Stravinski Firebird, but we don't even have to mention all the distasteful stuff Stravinski was associated with in a roundabout manner. Let's see. Who's left? Mr. Rodgers and ? Teletubbies?

[CalgaryTbone]

Many dixieland arrangements include a trombone glissando.

Ooh, he said "Dixieland"!

Isn't that on the same list as Lassus?

No, it isn't.

JS

[johntarr]

You could use Bolero, but that's a dance that the Spaniards used when they conquered the north Africans, so cancel that. And then there's Bartok Concerto for Orchestra, but Bartok was from Hungary, which is a well known source of exclusion, so we can't play or listen to that any more. And Beethoven was Hitlers favorite, so cancel. And I'm sure Mahler did something we would all regret during his lifetime, so add him to the list. There's the cool gliss in Stravinski Firebird, but we don't even have to mention all the distasteful stuff Stravinski was associated with in a roundabout manner. Let's see. Who's left? Mr. Rodgers and ? Teletubbies?

I think we can be a little more nuanced than that. Was Bolero, the dance created just for the purpose of conquering North Africa or was it appropriated by the military? Was Bartok an exclusionary himself or was that the political situation at the time? I don’t know the answers so more research may be needed.

Beethoven didn’t have much to say about having composed Hitler’s favorite music so I think he’s off the hook. Of course many composers and even performers have done things in their lives that were wrong, the question is how do they handle their mistakes. The thing that distinguishes Lassus is that it was composed with the intention of demeaning a race and culture. That’s what makes it unacceptable.

[hyperbolica]

The thing that distinguishes Lassus is that it was composed with the intention of demeaning a race and culture. That’s what makes it unacceptable.

And yet when you play it you don't hear or feel any of that. You wouldn't have known about it until someone went way out of their way to make sure that wound never heals. I know you all think you're doing something righteous, but instead you're perpetuating and recreating everything that was bad long ago. There are a lot of better places to direct energy other than reopening old wounds that everyone has forgotten.

[Kdanielsen]

The thing that distinguishes Lassus is that it was composed with the intention of demeaning a race and culture. That’s what makes it unacceptable.

And yet when you play it you don't hear or feel any of that. You wouldn't have known about it until someone went way out of their way to make sure that wound never heals. I know you all think you're doing something righteous, but instead you're perpetuating and recreating everything that was bad long ago. There are a lot of better places to direct energy other than reopening old wounds that everyone has forgotten.

YOU don't hear it, but when you know you know. I wrote the following about "Shoutin' Liza" and it definitely applies to Lassus Trombone too:

I firmly believe that bad people can create great art and beauty despite their flaws. If we stopped interacting with art created by racist sexist people from the past that would "cancel" almost the entire canon. I draw the line at the art itself. Was Wagner writing music that is inherently racist? Some say yes, actually, but at its broadest level almost everyone agrees that except for a few specific examples he was not. We need to ask: Is the music itself racist?

In the case of Filmore and The Trombone Family I believe the line has been crossed. Filmore was undoubtedly a racist individual who used racism to sell music to other racists. In addition to the music's origin as a racial caricature, the notes themselves obviously are meant to mock the sounds of an African American church service. The trombone section's "A-Amen" interjections are clearly painting a picture of "Shoutin' Liza" at church on Sunday morning shouting "Amen" after every sentence of the sermon.

So what to do? I say don't play it. Just put that music away. Can we seriously say that this music is of such high quality that we are willing to overlook its origin? If we keep playing it, there is a direct unbroken line connecting us to the everyday racism of the early 20th century, which in turn connects us to the slavery and oppresion of the previous three centuries. When examining the failures of our predecessors we say "they were just a product of their time." I do not want to be a product of their time; I want to be a product of our time. We can do better.

All of this doesn't actually matter. The African American community has spoken out against this music. It's their opinion that matters most of all. If Wycliffe Gordon and Wynton Marsalis showed up at this concert, would you feel comfortable playing this music? What about African American members of our community in the Pioneer Valley? Would you feel comfortable knowing that they are unknowingly tapping their toes along with music that was designed to oppress their ancestors?

[hyperbolica]

Russian music was meant to glorify czarist oligarchy. You can't even imagine the orchestral or chamber music worlds without Russian composers. Mozart largely wrote for the glory of monarchs who treated poor Europeans no better than slaves. Copland was reputedly a communist. You can't throw a stick in Hollywood without knocking over half a dozen people who glorify the misuse of guns, and yet we don't even dare to criticize these people. If you're going to start canceling music without being hypocritical, you really have to do it. Sure, Filmore can't defend himself. Easy target. Care to take on rappers that support violence today? Courage fades. Watch television after dinner and tell me where all this violence comes from, yet there is no backlash. Every problem can be solved with a gun, right? It's very selective and cowardly to pick someone long dead and lay the woes of society at his feet. Look at the damage present day artists are doing to present day culture. The sins of the past become diminishingly small.

[sacfxdx]

it's not the NRA causing people to shoot each other over trivial disagreements. Well said Hyperbolica.

[ithinknot]

You can make a disingenuous 'slippery slope' argument for absolutely anything, and no one here has raised the arguments that you purport to refute.

WRT Lassus:

And yet when you play it you don't hear or feel any of that.

Audience depending, this can sometimes be true, but ignorance is an unreliable form of bliss.

Have you read Doug Yeo's follow-up article? He addresses many points that I sincerely think you might find interesting: separation of art and artist (and going on to separate Fillmore Sr.'s hymns from his explicitly racist songs), 'cancellation' etc, along with some of the topics Kris raises above. It's worth bearing in mind that he's hardly a baby-eating pinko like some of us; his cultural perspective is very much of the evangelical right, albeit of a more considered tradition than many prominent in the media.

There are a lot of better places to direct energy other than reopening old wounds that everyone has forgotten.

This might be a little rich coming from the person who reopened the political element of this thread, but in any case you got the reaction you obviously wanted.

[brassmedic]

And yet when you play it you don't hear or feel any of that. You wouldn't have known about it until someone went way out of their way to make sure that wound never heals. I know you all think you're doing something righteous, but instead you're perpetuating and recreating everything that was bad long ago. There are a lot of better places to direct energy other than reopening old wounds that everyone has forgotten.

YOU don't hear it, but when you know you know.

Exactly. HE doesn't hear it. It's amazing what one fails to hear when one decides to be willfully ignorant.

[hyperbolica]

willfully ignorant.

Ignorance is anyone who is alive in 2023 and has to go back more than 100 years to pick a composer that only trombonists and historic march buffs remember to find someone behaving badly. Cowardly and completely meaningless to pick someone so forgotten to beat up on when the pickings are so rich in modern day sociopathic artists and performers. Its a headshaking stretch to go all the way back to single out Fillmore, skipping over every one else.

[brassmedic]

willfully ignorant.

Ignorance is anyone who is alive in 2023 and has to go back more than 100 years to pick a composer that only trombonists and historic march buffs remember to find someone behaving badly. Cowardly and completely meaningless to pick someone so forgotten to beat up on when the pickings are so rich in modern day sociopathic artists and performers. Its a headshaking stretch to go all the way back to single out Fillmore, skipping over every one else.

So now it's "cowardly" to refrain from performing racist music? Guess I've heard everything now. If Lassus is so obscure, then what's the harm in not performing it? We're not "beating up" on anyone. For the record, I also plan to refrain from going out on a stage in blackface and singing "Mammy". Or maybe you would argue that if I didn't wear blackface that nobody would know it's a racist song. Whatever - your tortured logic doesn't convince me. There is a difference between a song written by a person who was racist or had some sort of indirect connection to someone else who was racist, and a racist song. Don't know how else to say it. You've been told this over and over, yet continue to pretend otherwise because of your own personal political stance. I find right wing outrage politics to be extremely simplistic and uninteresting. Whataboutism is a weak form of argument, and that seems to be the only thing you have brought to the table here.