THE MOST DIFFICULT part of the trombone to use is the slide. Thanks to the slide, right from the beginning the trombone has been able to get notes that other brass instruments had to wait for valves to be able to produce.
But the slide is tricky. It resembles the violinist’s left hand (the hand that finds the notes on the fingerboard), and similarly a player develops a muscular memory of where particular pitches are. Also like the violin, the same notes can often be played in different ‘positions’. In difficult passages one slide ‘position’ can often be easier to play than another, and in some pieces players often have to choose carefully which position to play a note in to get it exactly in tune and to blend perfectly with what’s going on at the same time.
Sometimes a trombone can be so loud it can drown all the other instruments. Nowadays the performers sitting just in front of the trombones in a Western classical orchestra often have protective screens. But with practice a good player develops a smooth sound which can be manipulated to produce great delicacy.
Simon Gunton talks about how he uses the slide and what sort of things he can make it do.
