{"id":80,"date":"2017-09-18T22:39:30","date_gmt":"2017-09-18T22:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gcornish.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/MHS123_Fall2017\/?p=80"},"modified":"2017-09-18T22:39:30","modified_gmt":"2017-09-18T22:39:30","slug":"the-trombone-and-its-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gcornish.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/MHS123_Fall2017\/uncategorized\/the-trombone-and-its-history\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trombone and It’s History"},"content":{"rendered":"

What is the first thing you think about when you hear the word trombone or see someone playing one? Is it a marching band<\/a> going down the street in bright red uniforms? Is it a long glissando in an old cartoon when a character does something silly or falls down? I bet it\u2019s not a 15th century brass instrument most commonly found alongside two schawms<\/a>. One of the things I find so interesting about the trombone is it\u2019s versatility. Today, one can find trombonists playing all kinds of styles and genres ranging from jazz combo<\/a> to symphony orchestra. Trombone plays a vital part in brass quintet<\/a>, as well as big band. There are usually at least three of them in any wind ensemble, and even more in a larger symphonic band! New music in the 21st century loves the trombone because of it\u2019s uniqueness in being the only brass to legitimately get a long and very crass glissando. I personally think it\u2019s very annoying when I come across a piece of music written in the last one hundred years and my part is primarily whole notes at a loud dynamic, followed by a bunch of glissandi (that are sometimes physically impossible due to a composer\u2019s lack of knowledge regarding the physics of the trombone). The reason for this being the fact that trombone is also extremely capable, like most all other instruments, of playing a beautiful melody or complimenting a melodic line in other ways than extended technique. <\/span><\/p>\n

Encyclopedia Britannica describes the trombone<\/a> as such: \u201cTrombone, French trombone, German Posaune, brass wind musical instrument sounded by lip vibration against a cup mouthpiece. It has an extendable slide that can increase the length of the instrument\u2019s tubing. The slide thus performs the function of the valves on other brass instruments.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I like this description a lot, but the one thing it leaves out is the sackbut. Saqueboute<\/a> in French, translates nicely to describe the modern trombone in the words \u201cpush-pull\u201d. The first sackbuts appear in the year 1400 in Southern France<\/a> (Eliason), and by 1420 had become while not universal, an accepted fact of the musical scene. The Sackbut was a development of the trumpet with an extendable slide<\/a>\u00a0instead of valves that increased the length of tubing, changing the pitch like the modern trombone. Like the trumpet, it had cylindrical bore flared to a bell, but a larger mouthpiece and cross section resembling a coronet. The bell<\/a> of the sackbut had a five inch diameter and no finish on the rim, and also crooks<\/a> that made the pitch of the instrument higher or lower depending on their material and size. These were considered tenor sackbuts, but by the beginning of the 17th century there were different sized<\/a> instruments for alto, bass, and contrabass.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The early trombone, or sackbut, had a multitude of different functions when it was introduced to the musical world. In the early 16th century, vocal groups were commonly alternating with organs or instrumental groups, but eventually the instruments would accompany and often times double the vocal parts<\/a>. \u00a0The trombone has been described as the closest instrument to the human voice, so this feature of doubling is not surprising. This tradition carried on into the mid 19th century<\/a>, as the trombone became less of a novelty and more respected in the orchestral setting.<\/p>\n

By the mid 1800’s, sackbuts had become trombones in a much more modern sense. The bells became much larger and thicker to create the intended larger sound of composers such as Wagner and Berlioz of the time. Wagner<\/a> used trombones heavily to portray feelings of heroism, might, and barbarism. But also by that time and into the early 20th century with people like Tommy Dorsey and Emory Remington, the trombone started to develop its lyrical singing side, putting aside the loud and pompous ideals that Wagner and earlier composers thought so important, creating a new and much more versatile personality for an instrument with an unfortunate first name.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What is the first thing you think about when you hear the word trombone or see someone playing one? Is it a marching band going down the street in bright red uniforms? Is it a long glissando in an old cartoon when a character does something silly or falls down? I bet it\u2019s not a … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Trombone and It’s History”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gcornish.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/MHS123_Fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gcornish.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/MHS123_Fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gcornish.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/MHS123_Fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gcornish.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/MHS123_Fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gcornish.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/MHS123_Fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/gcornish.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/MHS123_Fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":95,"href":"https:\/\/gcornish.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/MHS123_Fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80\/revisions\/95"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gcornish.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/MHS123_Fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gcornish.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/MHS123_Fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gcornish.digitalscholar.rochester.edu\/MHS123_Fall2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}