TromboneChat

Wanted, not offered.

A digital tuner is part of my warm up and practice routine.

I recall someone on the forum saying that they tuned their horn with 1st position a smidgen open/not closed up tight against the stopper/pad. Is this personal preference or commonly accepted good advice ? If it is somewhat common or often preferred what is the rational? (perhaps to avoid having to close up 1st all the way so as to avoid banging horn on horn?)

Any tuning tips and advice offered will be welcomed and considered.

Practice with a drone (scales, arpeggios, lip slurs/flexibilities, etc.). Some tuners have them (harsh sounding on mine) and you'll find drones available online. I use one that is a sampling of celli (I think that's plural for cello) and includes a metronome. Free with the option to donate if you so choose.

Wow! Thanks, guys (great youtube, double thanks). You have saved me confusion and wasted time.

I used to always practice and play with the tuning slide closed. Then I had the great idea that I should use the tuner get 1st position dead square on F, Bb, and D using the tuning slide, so that when I returned to playing with the band after our mid-season break, I wouldn't have to make any positional changes between my basement playing and my band playing. So, I started doing all my practicing with the tuning slide pulled out. But, I felt just a little bit adrift when I played some of my old, familiar, favorites. And I was spending a lot of time staring at the tuner and wondering...

I adjusted, but this (your advice and tips) is good to know. I was getting off track. I will look for a drone/tone generators (any recommendations?) and will think of third position/bell as my center and work both ways from there.

Poor Chargers.

Good video, Harrison, nice job. I like that approach.

This is the one I use: http://www.dronetonetool.com

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Sun Jan 13, 2019 11:08 am

Great video; thanks!

A slide vibrato in 1st position will be easier also this way.

A minor point (no pun intended) would be that G#/Ab in the treble staff is flat, as are all 7th partials, so for the 1/1000 of our playing where this particular note matters, we have the room to pull it in tune if our tuning slide is all the way in.

I play every one of my horns with the tuning slide all the way in. 1st position is at least 1/2 inch out.

When it rains it pours ...

Once pointed in a good direction, I also found ...

https://trombonetools.com/intonation/
and
https://www.hornguys.com/products/brad- ... -edwards-1

Doubler wrote: ↑Sun Jan 13, 2019 1:58 pm

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Sun Jan 13, 2019 11:08 am

Great video; thanks!

A slide vibrato in 1st position will be easier also this way.

A minor point (no pun intended) would be that G#/Ab in the treble staff is flat, as are all 7th partials, so for the 1/1000 of our playing where this particular note matters, we have the room to pull it in tune if our tuning slide is all the way in.

That Ab is infamously played there in 1st by a couple high roller trombone soloists on the David concerto

The David concertino was written for German trombone. On a German trombone Ab in first position is not flat. Also typically on German trombones there is no "bumper". Instead there are springs. The slide is never completely in.

(Many of the Romantic trombones did not have tuning slides either. Christhard Goessling still plays a Kruspe Weschke without tuning slide in the Berlin Philharmonic. Tuning slides are a kind of foreign to the trombones anyway since they add cylindrical tubing to the conic part of the bell section. That's why people experimented with in-slide tuning systems.)

Doug Elliott wrote: ↑Sun Jan 13, 2019 2:05 pm I play every one of my horns with the tuning slide all the way in. 1st position is at least 1/2 inch out.

I play my horns with the tuningslide out about 1/2 inch and the slide at least 1/2 inch out for tuning A=440. I push tuning slide all way in if A=442 which it is over here in a lot of Symphony orchestras. There are a lot of chopped tuningslides on Bach 42's and Conn 88h's. I have one of each

Seventh position on my horns is just before the slide falls off. I play with a Hammond 12M mouthpiece which is like a Bach 5. Also to consider is if you use a bigger mouthpiece lets say a Bach 2G which is a bass mouthpiece on a tenor or some other real large mouthpiece then the horn plays more flat compared to a Bach 5, Bach 6 1/2 or smaller mouthpiece.

There are several reasons for not tuning the Bb to the bumper. I come to think of six reasons.
1. Notes on the same position is not lined up at the exact same spot, some needs to be raised against the fundamental and other lowered to be in tune. The Bb must be out from the bumper to allow for the which is flat. That D needs to be against the bumper.
2. As you said you need the space not to slam into the bumper and damage your emboushure.
3 You need the space to allow for slide vibrato on first position.
4 You need the space to be able to fine tune your instrument depending on what note in the chord you are playing. A minor third needs to be raised for example.
5 You need the space when intonation gets sharp in the string section.
6. If you have a trigger horn and tune the Bb way from the bumper then my advice is to tune the octave bass F f against the bumper, but this is not something we all need to agree on. Some tune that F to be real flat so they can reach the trigger low C on the end of the slide instead.

That's a few things on tuning the first position.

/Tom

I disagree about D needing to be played on the bumper. On many horns that harmonic is pinched towards C, and the D is actually farther out than Bb.

I'm talking about the high D, the five ledger D.

/Tom

imsevimse wrote: ↑Mon Jan 14, 2019 7:32 am I'm talking about the high D, the five ledger D.

/Tom

I believe in USA that is super D? And yes it is flatt.

Not on all horns

High D. On some horns it's flat but on many horns it's just a bad note that doesn't resonate well in 1st. It's more secure somewhere around 3rd, usually sharp 3rd about where F# is.

My Edwards is actually marignally sharp on that note, and I can actually lock onto it pretty well in 1st position. The D an octave below is 20 cents sharp, which is almost as much as the F above the staff. My Yamaha 354, not even close to playable, if it's fast I'll use it in 1st but if I have to tune I'll play it in that 3rd.

E: Also, I play with my tuning (middle) Bb off the bumpers, because the low Bb is generally flat in comparison to the octave above.

Can anyone tell me the effect of air temperature on tuning ?

As I understand it, warmer sharper, colder flater.

norbie2018 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 15, 2019 5:55 pm As I understand it, warmer sharper, colder flater.

It's related to the speed of sound. At higher temperatures sound travels faster so the same length of pipe has a higher frequency. Note that the expansion coefficient of bass with temperature will make a negligible change in horn length as it warms up.

norbie2018 wrote: ↑Tue Jan 15, 2019 5:55 pm As I understand it, warmer sharper, colder flater.

Yes and string instruments go the other way (warmer = strings stretch and loose tension so they go flat while we go sharp), hence the difficulties of Orchestras playing in extreme weather.

Back in the dark ages we had our horns "short slided". Tuning slide tubes were actually shortened. If the lead player in the section had a nice juicy 1st position slide vibrato you had to be able to blend with him. Every horn I've played since 1970 has been short slided to enable 1st position slide vibrato.

Way back in college I started playing with the tslide all the way in. I can remember several "professors" telling me I was sharp and to pull out because of what they saw visually. They just didn't get it!

Something that I don't understand with the method of playing with tuning slide all the way in.

What do you do when it's 85°F?

And when sayin' tune to Ab with slide linin' edge of the bell, do you refer to linin' the handbrace of the slide with the edge of the bell?

micka572 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 10:27 am Something that I don't understand with the method of playing with tuning slide all the way in.

What do you do when it's 85°F?

I play with tuning slide all the way in. Most rehearsals and concerts are indoors and temperature doesn't change much.

Once a year I usually do an outdoor concert in the sun. One year it was so hot I pulled the tuning slide, maybe an inch or a bit less. No reason to be a fanatic about it, and I'm not about to abandon first unless I have to.

I think that the ubiquitous electronic tuner has homogenized band pitch across groups and it doesn't vary as widely as it used to, which makes this approach easier.

micka572 wrote: ↑Wed Jul 29, 2020 10:27 am Something that I don't understand with the method of playing with tuning slide all the way in.

What do you do when it's 85°F?

And when sayin' tune to Ab with slide linin' edge of the bell, do you refer to linin' the handbrace of the slide with the edge of the bell?

When it's hot, tune Ab to be lined up with the bell. The brace in line with the edge of the bell. The tuning slide might be out half an inch if it's that hot.

I don't pay any attention to the bell.

Play in tune, that's my advice.

If it's an outdoor gig in the heat, everybody else on a wind instrument is equally affected.
What I have done in the sun is to spray water on the bell. A hot bell causes more problems than just pitch.

Some etiquette advice:

Adjust quickly. No matter what you think, no one plays completely dead on with a tuner in performance, so things fluctuate and shift and that is fine. If your ears are trained well, it shouldn't be an issue.

Don't tell everyone how you never play As flat, so therefore everyone else needs to adjust to you, even though you were the only one out of tune.

You think I wouldn't have to say this...

The "D" above tuning B flat, as well as the octave up are flat on most older horns (in 1st position) and are slightly sharp (in 1st) on most newer instruments. Manufacturers learned to adjust some dimensions in their trombones to accomplish this since flat harmonics are a bigger problem than sharp ones (at least in 1st position).

Does it matter whether you're reading music or not?

I recently recorded a hymn for our virtual church services. I think I sounded pretty good, for me anyway, and it was a straight run through so I didn't go back and fix any inconsistent articulations. So there are some chips.

I played the melody on the first verse, Easy key, familiar tune, so I played it by ear. To my ears I'm in tune.

Organ covered verse 2, I played a descant on verse 3. I needed sheet music for that. To my ears I drift sharp on a few notes.

There could be lots of explanations, but it made me wonder if the extra mental step converting ink to pitch had anything to do with it.

timothy42b wrote: ↑Fri Jul 31, 2020 8:03 am There could be lots of explanations, but it made me wonder if the extra mental step converting ink to pitch had anything to do with it.

Absolutely. One thing that studying jazz has drilled into me: for many people, reading music vs. playing only by ear can result in wildly different playing "personalities". I've seen many, many people (including myself) who sound completely different playing a jazz solo vs. playing section big band stuff.

Eyes vs ears

It happens in other contexts too...

Improvising - I know that I play differently when reading chords versus playing by ear hearing the chords

Left brain, right brain. Nearly impossible to combine them, it's one or the other.

AndrewMeronek wrote: ↑Fri Jul 31, 2020 8:12 am

timothy42b wrote: ↑Fri Jul 31, 2020 8:03 am There could be lots of explanations, but it made me wonder if the extra mental step converting ink to pitch had anything to do with it.

Absolutely. One thing that studying jazz has drilled into me: for many people, reading music vs. playing only by ear can result in wildly different playing "personalities". I've seen many, many people (including myself) who sound completely different playing a jazz solo vs. playing section big band stuff.

Me too!!!

/Tom