TromboneChat

After my miserable poll about language I give a more understandable poll which I promised earlier today. Range and register is a lot of the questions in this forum. I'm a teacher and try to avoid register questions and instead focus on social skills like communication and music as a language. However I still work for a better register in both low and high.

My favourite register is from low F to middle F.

Note....All can vote 2 times so the favourite register is at least one octave.

Leif

Not sure favorite is the most accurate description. Most comfortable might fit better. IF we're taking about playing rather than hearing.

Quote from: Russ White on Jun 09, 2016, 06:28PMNot sure favorite is the most accurate description. Most comfortable might fit better. IF we're taking about playing rather than hearing.


I prefer playing. If its listening im afraid most of us go to the extreme register.

There is a weakness in this question because it should be split in two. One poll for bass players and one for tenors. Could one of the moderatos split it?

So I took this to mean what register do I think is fun or that excites me.  That would be pedal F (really as low as pedal D) to Low Bb range.  Now - I don't want to play there all the time, but when a piece of music generally takes the bass 'bone down there, it's a pretty good piece and I just love the sound the bass trombone makes down in that range. Typically it's for one of two reasons: 1) hard-hitting pedals to really add some dramatics OR 2) chorale type stuff between low C (8vb  ) and low A ( ) to support the ensemble and add color.

I like playing all over the horn, but F in the staff just doesn't make me giddy. Neither does high Bb.   

I love playing in the bass clef. That's where I can make my most beautiful sounds. I can also nail a G  to the back wall of an auditorium. It's a win win!

..what about the cash register..

What is a soopuh high F? Mostly when I hear that note it's a poopuh ... not sooopuh

I arrived early for Big Band rehearsal on Tuesday and grabbed the 1st Trombone book since the 1st Trombonist said he'd be late.  I played a part of a ballad piece on my King 7B in the range just above the bass staff and the singer came over to me and gushed over my luscious dark tone.  I almost fell out of my chair.

So you CAN play 1st parts on a bass trombone.

Quote from: harrison.t.reed on Jun 16, 2016, 08:50PMSo you CAN play 1st parts on a bass trombone.

I have mentioned before.  I've done it.  I'd never try it with the Village Vanguard, but for the community Big Band I was able to get by.  And the audience really didn't care.

Would I always do it?  No.  If I was asked to play lead permanently I'd be using a much smaller horn.

Mind you my schizophrenic approach goes back to High School (Late Pre-Cambrian Era) where I was the only kid with an F-attachment and the only kid who could hit a high Bb.  So when we had Jazz Band I generally played 4th, but when the 1st part went high I played 1st.  All of it on an Olds Ambassador with F.

Im not surprised to see the register we don't like is f to high Bb. So it is for me. The high G in short second and the Ab in third is not easy. That's why they use the Mozart requiem on all auditions? Not so high but still a bit difficult? Its not high even for us bass trombone players....on a good day...

Anyway interesting to see this register is less voted for as a favorite register.

Leif

Quote from: harrison.t.reed on Jun 16, 2016, 08:50PMSo you CAN play 1st parts on a bass trombone.

Yeah, but singers will gush over you.

  to 

I think that our "preferences" have a great deal to do with how we are built physically...especially our lips, jaw, teeth and mouth/tongue.

When I was a serious tuba player...in high school and college (I played large BBb horns and large tuba m'pces then)...I had a real preference for the lower ranges. I could play high but somehow the 2nd, 3rd and 4th partials were where I really felt at home. That's where my chops were most comfortable. But at the same time I was playing tenor trombone, and in mainstream tenor trombone m'pces those same chops felt somewhat cramped in the lower registers. I naturally gravitated towards the higher registers, even though I was playing a classic "mid-register" m'pce, a 6.5AL. This was all well before I had any understanding whatsoever about embouchure...I just played. High school, college...as an improviser I gravitated to the middle/upper ranges of the trombone but the lower ranges of the tuba.

Now I understand that my lips are fairly full...fairly fleshy...and they roll out into the tuba m'pce. That means I have a relatively heavy "reed" on tuba if you think of the chops in the same way woodwind players think of their reeds. But...in order to fit into a tenor trombone m'pce those chops have to be somewhat rolled in or else things get very crowded. So I...quite unconsciously...developed a lighter "reed" that was more efficient in the upper ranges. The task of a serious brass player is to find where he or she really lives on a given horn/m'pce system in the most natural way possible and then connect from that register up and down into the other registers.

A lifework, actually...

This goes to my "multiple settings" approach. There comes a range point (on any rim and in any direction) where the most natural way of placing your lips in and on that particular rim simply isn't going to cut it. But there are other balances that are "natural" for those other registers.

For example...with my own setup on my .500 bore horn and 11C-ish/7C-ish rim for the middle/high range (my most "natural" range on that equipment) I can hold that exact balance doing Carmine Caruso interval exercises down from there...on a cutoff rim or m'pce buzzing this becomes really clear...to just about  and no further. No sound...it just doesn't vibrate anymore because the aperture that setting necessitates bumps into the rim and is thus stopped. (You can clearly see this process on a cutoff rim with a mirror.) But...if I re-adjust a certain way (it's a jaw drop, mostly) everything opens up from that E right on down through the double pedals. The aperture gets "taller." More "O", less "oval." You can see that too w/a cutoff rim. On a bass m'pce or rim (1G-ish) I can take that same midrange set much lower because the aperture does not get stopped by the larger rim until much lower. Pedal G-ish for me. The classic Alan Raph/Paul Faulise Pedal G shift, which at least in my case is very similar to the low E shift I need to use on smaller tenor m'pces.

This goes for altissimo playing as well. There comes a range...around  for me, just above the classic Bolero/Dorsey high C#...where the midrange setting becomes much less efficient. And it's around  /b ...the Watrous"middle" note and the Ab from hell for so many players...where the possibility of a more efficient altissimo setting starts to cut in. More rolled in. That one extends well above  8va b for me.

Just sayin'...when we say that we have "favorite" registers, what we are really saying is that our initial, most natural setting favors certain ranges. Once we understand where our natural middle is, then we can learn to expand in both directions much more easily. It's kinda like the footwork of a good martial artist or boxer. Really good ones have a basic stance from which all of their subsequent moves flow. A "balance." They then learn other "balances" in order to make their various moves. It can be a very broad and strong initial stance, an almost "on your toes" stance or any number of variations between those two extremes. You might say that a very broad and strong stance is similar to say the Phil Teele  b starting note from which he travels in both directons. A sumo stance. A still powerful but more mobile stance...say Mike Tyson in his prime...is more like the  center of most beginner's books and almost all of Carmine Caruso's classic exercises. I hear it in most fine orchestral players. Somewhere around or above    b ? Doug Elliot starts a lot of students there, I believe...depending on their embouchure type. Me too. A good balance of everything. More like Sugar Ray Robinson. Boxer/puncher. ? Again...Watrous/Fontana, I believe. Light and quick. Mobile.

And so on.

Time to go practice.

Later...

S.

I remember an older video of Bill Watrous informing a clinic he warmed up in the "middle" register. The first note he played was a high G.

It's all relative.

I remember an older video of Bill Watrous informing a clinic he warmed up in the "middle" register. The first note he played was a high G.

It's all relative.