TROMBONE TECHNIQUE

What is a trombone?

BRASS FAMILY
The sound of all brass instruments is produced when the player vibrates his or her lips (it is known as embouchure) causing a vibration in the air column inside the trombone.
The trombone is usually described and characterized by its telescopic slide on which the player adjusts the length of the tube to change its pitches.

POSTURE

When standing, stand up straight, look straight ahead of you. Breathe normally, relax your shoulders.

When you sit and play, sit upright, as if you were standing. Stand from the waist up, sit from the waist down, with feet flat on the floor in front of you. Your posture from the waist up should be the same as when standing. Your goal is to stand or sit strong, proud, yet relaxed.
Use a mirror to check your posture. Look at your face, neck, shoulders, and waist. Take a full deep breath and let it out slowly.



Holding the Instrument

Hold the instrument’s weight entirely in the left hand and move the slide with the right hand. The slide hand does not hold the instrument, but only moves the slide. Holding the instrument up with the slide hand can harm the instrument, and makes it harder to move the slide freely.


Breathing and Blowing

Breathe full, relaxed breaths through the mouth. If you breathe through your nose you are limiting your air capacity, and therefore your tone production. Inhale as if you were yawning – an open throated, full breath.

Blow with the throat open and relaxed. Blow, don’t squeeze, force, or bear down. Blow more like a sigh – fast air movement, not high pressure. Once you attack a note, let your air go immediately – don’t hold it in. Blow a steady air stream.

Mouthpiece Buzzing

Buzz specific notes on your mouthpiece a few minutes or more each day. Listen for a good buzz, one that is clear, not airy, and take care to keep your embouchure corners firm and your throat relaxed as you blow.
Buzz melodies on the mouthpiece. This is good ear training and helps to build embouchure sensitivity and breath control. Plus, it’s fun.
Buzz any note. While buzzing, slowly pull the mouthpiece away from your lips until you feel the connection end. Your goal is to learn how much mouthpiece pressure is enough for good sound without applying too much pressure. This will help with many things, including tone production and high range.

THE EMBOUCHURE

Sounds on the trombone, as on all brass instruments are made by the regular vibration of air within the instrument.
If the lip surfaces are to vibrate, they must be held in a state of controlled tension.
Make sure that your not pinching off the sound with your lips. When you buzz on their mouthpiece make sure that you are getting a good flow of air through the mouthpiece. You can check this by putting your hand in front of the mouthpiece as you buzz. Part of the problem often comes from bad habits that were formed when people begin the study of the trombone. It is very typical for beginning trombone players to produce a sound on the trombone by keeping the lips pressed together and forcing an opening in the lips when they blow. Such an embouchure technique requires less air. The aperture, which is the hole created between the upper and lower lip in an embouchure, should be open even when your not blowing.

TONGUING

Checking your airflow while playing is the second best way to improve the sound of your trombone.The most critical part of this is the position of the your tongue while blowing.

Try saying "Tee" and then with that tongue position blow air onto their hand. Then try saying "Toe" and repeat the blowing process with that tongue position onto your hand. You will not believe the difference in the amount of airflow.


Proper Air Support

Make sure that you are breathing correctly.
While this is part of the correct breathing process, the diaphragm should play a much bigger role in supported breathing than simple chest breathing. The breath should start with the extension of the stomach, which engages the involuntary muscle known as our diaphragm. Pulling this muscle down with the extension of our stomach draws air into the lungs.

Mouthpiece Pressure

Make sure your not using too much mouthpiece pressure. As the mouthpiece presses harder onto the lips, the lips will tense and pucker or thicken to avoid damage to the muscle group. This is a natural reflex response. As this muscle group tenses, the embouchure becomes stiffer and less likely to vibrate; hence, the sound thins and diminishes. When you warm up one your trombone, remember to lighten up on the mouthpiece pressure. Relaxing the left hand grip of the instrument can help minimize this problem.

Slide Technique

Hold the slide properly. Grasp the slide brace firmly, but not too tightly, between the thumb and fingers of your right hand. Make sure to use wrist motion and arm motion when moving the slide – this will help make the movement quick and smooth.
Moving the slide while playing should be a quick, precise action. Always move the slide in rhythm. Do not “slide through” the positions – STOP the slide at each note you wish to play. Trace a straight line when moving the slide – don’t allow the bell to move with the slide.
Coordinate the tongue perfectly with the slide movement. In other words, when you articulate a note, your slide must be in exactly the right position at exactly the same time.

Tuning

Some trombones are tuned through a mechanism in the slide section rather than via a separate tuning slide in the bell section. This method preserves a smoother expansion from the start of the bell section to the bell flare. The tuning slide in the bell section requires two portions of cylindrical tubing in an otherwise conical part of the instrument, which affects the tone quality.

Listening to the Trombone

A way to achieve great sound on the trombone is to listen to what great players sound like.