Poll - how slidey is your slide?

[robcat2075]

Full Question, too long for poll bot: "If you hold your slide horizontally, release the hand slide, then dip the end down three inches (7.6cm) below horizontal, does the hand slide move downward on its own?"


Edit: Angle formed by above maneuver...

slideAngle001.png

[Posaunus]

If the slides on any of my trombones don't slip off the inner slides when tilted, they either get repaired - or the trombone gets sold.

[greenbean]

If the slides on any of my trombones don't slip off the inner slides when tilted, they either get repaired - or the trombone gets sold.

^This. Life is too short to spend it with lousy slides. Mine range from very good to phenomenal.

[boneberg]

"Life is too short to spend it with lousy slides."


THIS. Well said!

[Pezza]

Depends on what instrument I'm playing. The eupho slide doesn't need to be anywhere as good as the trombone!

[robcat2075]

Well, this is certainly a revelation to me!

I've never had a slide that would move on that very slight incline and no teacher I ever had or other player I ever encountered ever told me that it should.

Even after I had mine professionally aligned it couldn't do that.

And now after all these years I find out everyone else has such a slide!

Damn!

[Bonearzt]

My test when I'm working on a slide is to have it move from first position when held in a relatively normal playing position.
Moving the slide while held in a vertical position proves nothing.

[robcat2075]

I've added an image in the top post to clarify the angle described.

[hyperbolica]

I don't futz with my slides very much. I can play with imperfect slides as long as it's not a hard kink. I use SlideOMix Rapid Comfort and water on all of them. I typically have 2-4 horns out at a time. Keeping them all lubed perfectly all the time would just be too much messing around.

[TexHipp]

I really like your full question, because it starts to get at a measurement that can easily be repeated. I would adjust it to make it a bit more quantitative: How far below horizontal do you have to tilt your trombone before it starts to move?

Physics would say nobody's slide will move when perfectly horizontal. Beyond that, it's merely a matter of how much declination do you need to get the slide moving. The smaller the drop, the more "slidey" your slide is. Then, we might be able to come to some consensus like Yup, you dipped 3 inches before your slide moved. Time for regular maintenance.

Or Whoa, you dipped 6 inches before your slide moved. Send that instrument off to the repair shop for a slide job.

[robcat2075]

How far below horizontal do you have to tilt your trombone before it starts to move?

If anyone's slide moves all the way off with a dip of less than 3 inches I will want to see a video of that, with an ocean or one of the Great Lakes in the background as the horizon line.

[JDHTbone]

I changed to the Yamaha Slide Lube versus Trombotine, glycerin and water - because I'm lazy. On the first application, I noticed an incredible difference, and so I got serious.

I wiped the inner slide down with Windex, and dried it. Then used a "cheese cloth on a rod" on the outer tubes. That improved the action even more. So all my horns (Getzen bass, Edwards large bore tenor, King 3B) get the same treatment - at least once a month. I know I can meet the 3 inch challenge and maybe beat it right after this slide routine.

BTW - both the Windex plus cheese cloth cleaning came from the Edwards website. However they used slide-o-mix or Trombotine - I forget which.

[whitbey]

If I hold my horn level, put my finger to catch out at 5thish and just blow, the slide will move. A inch or two like the suggested test, it moved before I could get it there. What is nice is it is easy to move the slide slightly.

But Most of my slides are Edwards or Bach using Yammasnot.

And my tech is Kevin Powers of Michigan Musical 734/242-4914 c734/915-5606
He makes an Edwards slide move better then Edwards.

[TexHipp]

Robert Holmén's poll made me curious about actually taking this measurement, so here's what I tried: I taped a paper yardstick (or if you prefer, a 0.9144-meter stick) to my wall with the "zero" tick at the same elevation as my embouchure. Standing a slide-length's distance from the yardstick, I held my trombone in playing position with the mouthpiece bore aimed at the zero. I then slowly (about 1 inch per second) pivoted the trombone downwards and noted the inch marker when the slide started to move. The number of inches below horizontal was the measurement we're interested in, "declination". The smaller the number the declination when the slide starts to move, the better the slide. Really good slides should start to move with a small pivot downwards. Rougher slides will require more declination to get moving.

My testing equipment:
A stock mid-1990s Bach 42BO.
Interior of slide outers cleaned with cotton-wrapped rod.
Exterior of slide inners wiped with cotton rag.
Rice grain-sized amount of Trombotine applied evenly to each slide stocking.
Slide pumped ten times each in North, Northwest, East, Southeast, etc. around the compass.
Wiped excess Trombotine off slide stockings with cotton rag.
Spray with atomized tap water.

So how slidey was my slide? Pretty slidey, but probably could be better.

slide_declination_data_2022_Nov_.jpg

In nearly all cases, the slide was easier to move from 1st position (red) compared to 3rd position (blue). In fact, the profiles are so similar that I'll only talk about the 1st position data and assume the other positions are progressively worse. I began my experiment just before my typical slide lube application. The data point to the left of the first dotted gray line at -0.5 hour shows that I had to pivot my horn 9 inches below horizontal to get the slide to move. Immediately after applying Trombotine (leftmost dotted gray line), slide action improved dramatically, needing only a 4" downward pivot. For 5–6 hours of playing after Trombotine application, slide action was pretty consistent in that I needed to pivot 4–6 inches (approx 10–16° declination). As I played an additional 6 to 12 hours, the amount of additional tilt I needed accelerated towards 9–10 inches until I re-applied Trombotine (rightmost dotted gray line).

All those observations are about what we'd expect. What interests me most is that slidey-ness can be easily, quickly, and cheaply measured and reported with a single, simple value that is straightforward to understand.

I hereby propose the Robcat Slide Slidey-ness Index (RSSI). Tape a ruler to the wall, clean and lube the trombone slide, and measure the inches of downward tilt required to get the slide to move from first position. This number, reported in inches, is a fairly objective measure of slide action. The smaller the number, the slidey-er your slide is. Using my slide as an example, the relevant datum is the red dot indicated by the arrow. I would say, "For this trombone slide, the RSSI is 4 inches."

If the trombone community adopts some standard along these lines, we'd see benefits in at least a couple of areas. First, we can better judge when a trombone slide needs professional adjustment/repair and how much improvement resulted from such a repair.

Q: Should I send my slide in for repair?
A: Measure your slide's RSSI; it's easy. If you measure RSSI more than ___ inches, send it off to the tech.

This would be especially helpful advising less-experienced players over the internet.

Second, an objective measure of slide action would help convey accurate information between buyers and sellers. Browsing the classifieds here on TromboneChat, we see the listings pronounce something like "slide action is 8.5/10". All the ratings seem to be clustered up towards 10; rarely do I see a rating less than 7/10. What does it take to earn a 5/10? Slide moves halfway and stops? What's a 0/10? Frozen stuck? Was there a day as a music major in college when the professor tells the trombone students how to rate slide action on a scale of 0 to 10? Not to mention how to make that judgment consistently over a period of years. Instead, one could say, "Beautiful Conn 8H for sale. Great condition. Slide is 3" on the RSSI."

I would love to see the results if some of you could take the time to grab the best slide from your stable, give it a one-to-ten rating, and then measure its RSSI. Then we could see if this idea has any merit.

[Oslide]

Great posting. I really like it!

[robcat2075]

Robert Holmén's poll made me curious about actually taking this measurement, so here's what I tried...

That is a fabulous analysis. Thanks for putting real numbers to it!

Looks like the 3 inch standard is hard to achieve.

[TexHipp]

Looks like the 3 inch standard is hard to achieve.

Please let me be clear: In no way do I claim my slide is any kind of exemplar. I'm merely a hobbyist with a horn of no particular distinction. You trombonists with well-crafted, well-maintained slides would probably rate mine a 7 or 8. A really good slide might be able to score 3" or less. I don't really know. But see, that's exactly the uncertainty the Robcat Slidey Slidey-ness Index would eliminate!