Can playing the trumpet help my trombone playing?

[chouston3]

I have heard mentions of trombonists occasionally picking up trumpet to help their high range on trombone. Has anyone tried this? Does it help?

[Burgerbob]

IMO? No.

[Doug Elliott]

Correct playing for your particular face is what helps all range. Doing that on trumpet AND trombone can help high range.

At one point many years ago I feel like I helped my LOW range by playing a bit of trumpet and better understanding how to descend.

[AndrewMeronek]

I'm not sure if it really helps high range. Yes, mechanics are basically the same no matter the mouthpiece size, but mouthpiece size does actually matter in some basic ways.

I emphatically opinionate that learning trumpet will make a trombonist a better musician, generally. As does picking up any "double".

[heldenbone]

I have played trumpet at a high level for 55+ years, attaining a Master of Music in Trumpet Performance in the eighties. I started learning tenor, then bass as a double several years ago. Playing trombone definitely has been beneficial to my trumpet playing. It teaches relaxed production, use of air, and open air passages with efficient tongue leveling. The converse isn't quite true. Playing trumpet followed by trombone requires me to reacquire the relaxed use of more air for the larger instrument, particularly bass. The adjustment only takes a few minutes during warm-up, but seems to continue through the playing session in lots of little ways, especially in the double trigger register. Things go better on bass if I have not played trumpet for a few days.

[Doubler]

YMMV, but...

Playing trumpet definitely made the upper register relatively easy on trombone for me, but I did add the trombone after many years of trumpet. I always loved the sound of the trumpet, and I like the sound of the trombone as well, so the motivation to double was there. My father-in-law, who also was a trumpet player, spent a year on trombone, and he said it helped his chops all around. I'd say that there is a symbiotic relationship between playing both instruments; requirements for one reinforce ability on the other.

Time is a factor, though; playing two instruments requires more time than just one. I'm still able to play trombone after my trumpet chops become tired. Maybe it's just me, but there was a time that after my brass chops got tired, if I still wanted to play music, I'd pick up my flute. Other than the hand/finger contortions, I'd be able to play flute as much as I cared to (Could I be considered a "tripler"?). I think that the way we focus our embouchure and use our air in order to play brass instruments gives us ample training to apply those abilities to the flute, too.

[Pezza]

I found playing cornet / flugelhorn with trom / eupho I wasn't doing any of them any good.

[Ozzlefinch]

Short answer: no.

I play a tenor horn along side my 'bones and they are completely different. I see no indication whatsoever that playing a tenor horn in treblecleff with a 18mm mouthpiece helps in any way when I play a basscleff 'bone using a 6 1/2 mouthpiece.

If anything, transitioning between them takes some time to get used to and hinders rather than helps.

[Matt K]

I do find that playing trumpet with my Jim Nova / Greg Black soprano piece helps endurance. When I travel I typically take my trumpet (just acquired a cheapo "pocket" trumpet that works even better) with a silent brass mute. It does not help my intonation very much... but I feel like a million bucks when I do that for a week.

[imsevimse]

I have been doing a lot of practicie on trumper, cornet, flugelhorn and french horn. I started during the pandemic. What I've noticed is I get better at switching between all mouthpieces I play the more I do it, and the different mouthpieces do not negatively affect my tromboneplaying. All practice helps overall skills on all instruments in some sense but I do need to practice each instrument/mouthpiece to be able to keep my skills.
I haven't noticed any major improvement in my high register on trombone from playing trumpet but my emboushure feels more solid now on any mouthpiece so I guess all practice help. It's a good thing to question how it's done and how the emboushure works, and I have had a lot of "eureka moments" where I have acctually overcome some problemes in an instant, just by beeing smart. I try to incorporate some of the emboushure advice I've picked up both from this forum and from youTube and some of those things I read did help progression.

For me: To improve the high register on trumpet is easier if I practice the high notes soft and if I use a much, much smaller mouth cavity compared to what I use on trombone. In fact the tiniest space I can make between the tounge and the tip of the teeth seems to be enough space for me on the highest notes I can do on trumpet. That change was what made my high notes pop out of the horn (finally), and my high notes at the moment are around 8va . From that tiny sound I now get I will work to gradually be able to play louder. That's the plan. At the moment I'm satisfied I get the notes.
I do not play my high notes on trombone the same way. At the moment I think of the emboushures as very different. One thing the emboushures share is the feel in the actual lips. When my best sound is produced I do not feel vibrations in the lips (but they obviously do vibrate) and there is no hard work to produce the sound. It's just enough air and I make sure my bottom lip supports.
High notes (for me) on trumpet needs fast air but it doesn't need to be a lot of hard compressed pushed air. Maybe that's next octave

/Tom

[BrassSection]

I play low brass more than trumpet, but my practice horn is the trumpet. I can practice the trumpet during the week, come Sunday morning pull out euph or trombone and no adjustment needed. Seems if I keep trumpet chops, it spills over to everything but the tuba. Tuba takes a few measures to reacquaint my face, but then again tuba is generally a once a year horn vs weekly for most others. Recently left French horn unused for over two months, got it out for practice, first note written on chord sheet was an E. Nailed it and every other note I played on it with “cold” lips. (I generally don’t warm up before practice) My routine may not work for everybody, but as a general and long time low brass player trumpet fills the bill for keeping my chops in shape.

[Chronos91]

I play low brass more than trumpet, but my practice horn is the trumpet. I can practice the trumpet during the week, come Sunday morning pull out euph or trombone and no adjustment needed. Seems if I keep trumpet chops, it spills over to everything but the tuba. Tuba takes a few measures to reacquaint my face, but then again tuba is generally a once a year horn vs weekly for most others. Recently left French horn unused for over two months, got it out for practice, first note written on chord sheet was an E. Nailed it and every other note I played on it with “cold” lips. (I generally don’t warm up before practice) My routine may not work for everybody, but as a general and long time low brass player trumpet fills the bill for keeping my chops in shape.

This doesn't seem terribly far from my own situation. I've been taking trumpet lessons for the last 6 months to try to add that, and while I've been doing that I mostly just practice trumpet (though I do try to practice trombone at least once a week). It at least seems to be higher maintenance than the trombone for me. Recently I wasn't able to practice trumpet really for almost two weeks, and everything basically fell apart for it during my lesson and the jazz band rehearsal I had after. I even played bass trombone in that rehearsal and contemplated switching for our performance that was in two weeks. But if I'm going into the community orchestra, the bass trombone just works whether or not I've played it in the last week.

Looking at the original question, I wouldn't say that trumpet has necessarily helped my trombone at all. But I have been able to apply plenty of concepts from my trumpet lessons to my trombone playing. I think the take-away there is just how good it is to have a good teacher.

[Richard3rd]

This is sort of one of those logic questions. I started playing trumpet in my youth. In college I switched to french horn. Easy switch. My range was better than the other french horn players. Then going back to trumpet, ooops, I had lost much of my trumpet chops.

Years later, playing trumpet again, I did the switch to french horn. Same thing happened. Then I went to euphonium. Bang, easy switch and I had unlimited high range. Then on to tuba, and same thing again.

But here is where it gets sticky. Back to trumpet, and trying to maintain tuba and euphonium at the same time. Very hard to do.

The moral of the story is that going from trumpet to other instruments makes for a good switch. Going from anything else to trumpet, not so good. To gain a benefit from trumpet, you will need to spend a lot of time on trumpet. You will need to essentially become a trumpet player with a respectable range. That requres 1-3 hours every day. Then when you go back to trombone, bingo, better range. Is it worth that?

[Finetales]

Learning alto trombone helped my low brass high range more than trumpet did.