pBone in teaching

[Savio]

Have any of you experience how to use pBone in teaching? I wonder to start using it as a beginner instrument. For small children.

Leif

[imsevimse]

Many music schools in Sweden use them in education. I can not see a problem with that. They are quite allright to play and the plastic slides work better than many of the used horns in metal that gets beaten up pretty fast. They are both cheap to buy and easy to hold. Unless you step on the horn it will hold together and if a child drops the slide it will probably not break. They also look cool in different colours.
If someone wants to try you could just hand it over with no worries about getting it back as a pile of garbage. You can also carry the horn in a plastic bag without making a fool of yourself.

/Tom

[lauriet]

In my opinion, this is the ONLY use for a plastic trombone.

[Ted]

Here we use them also as beginner instruments. And in the Netherlands we have Mr. pBone who teaches entire schools at once!

kr,

[dershem]

PBones can play quieter. They weigh less, so younger players can hold them with less stress. They are ... durable, so big mistakes are less traumatic.

[Burgerbob]

I started my student on one. It's a lot more fun to play trombone when you can hold it up.

[mmitchell]

I can see a pbone being a great learning instrument....the Trombone is the MOST quit band instrument, mostly because compared to other instruments available to learn when you are 9 or 10ish they are heavy, large, and frankly most kids are too small to play them!

[BGuttman]

If a kid is too small to play a brass trombone he is too small to play a pBone. Same size. There is a reason most kids start on a valved brass instrument.

The pBone is light, the bright colors are attractive, and they are resistant to damage more than brass trombones.

BUT

1. They are harder to play and definitely harder to play LOUD. Jiggs Whigham could make a garden hose sound good, but not so most kids.
2. As received the slide action is pretty bad and getting it acceptable requires quite a bit of work.

The pBone is better than a toy, but may not be the ideal learning tool.

[ronnies]

If a kid is too small to play a brass trombone he is too small to play a pBone. Same size. There is a reason most kids start on a valved brass instrument.

Unless it's a pBone mini. My son has one and they are quite fun though it plays very flat with my Wick 5BS.

Ronnie

[JohnL]

As received the slide action is pretty bad and getting it acceptable requires quite a bit of work.

Granted, but once you do get the slide working acceptably well, it's reasonably easy to keep it that way. The pBone shrugs of random bumps and thumps that would seriously mess up a brass slide. Pretty much any insult either does no damage at all or breaks it completely - there's no middle ground.

[lauriet]

How do you get the working properly ?

[Redthunder]

How do you get the working properly ?

Use it a lot, it will break itself in as the brass stockings wear down the inside of the outer slide tubes until it moves smoothly.

[BGuttman]

How do you get the working properly ?

Use it a lot, it will break itself in as the brass stockings wear down the inside of the outer slide tubes until it moves smoothly.

We actually had another topic about this. You might want to look for other pBoe threads.

One suggestion was to polish the brass stockings with fine steel wool (like 0000) to take off the burrs at the edges.

[JETbone]

I've used the pBone mini and the pBuzz to introduce concepts to children too young to make a serious practice commitment. Occasionally a parent will bring in their child who saw a instrument presentation at school (preschool or elementary) for private lessons. (After all there aren't any keys. How hard could it be? ). I find myself trying to walk the line of encouragement to keep them excited about the wonder of the "slide-job" (as my former mechanic called it) and realistic expectations about the necessary practice in order to get to the real fun. I usually suggest one or both pInstruments depending on ability and insist parents participate to facilitate good basic technique.

My personal pBone mini gets "played" by my own young kids to sometimes "accompany" my practice.

[lauriet]

I relented and bought one to take on holiday for a month. I also bought a shush mute. The slide is sooooo tight, I have not played it much at all. I will sell it off when I return home.
I can only see it being any use for the absolute beginner.

[torobone]

There is a lot of variance in the quality of pBones. Try before you buy.
When they first came out, I went to my local store, looking for a blue one on which to play the blues. There was literally a pBone pile in the corner. The best playing one was red, so that's what I bought.