Trombone Tips

Note: This section is evolving both in content and organization

Set your posture BEFORE taking in air.

When breathing IN, if your posture is correct, all YOU have to do is take air into the mouth. If your posture is right, the air will naturally go to the right place.

Work on understanding the differences between what you DO, what HAPPENS as a result of what you do, and what you ALLOW to happen when you play. For example, you DO NOT make the aperture in your embouchure. What you DO is put you lips together to form the embouchure and ALLOW the air to open the lips when you blow.

You DO NOT MAKE the sense of firmness in your abdominal blowing muscles (that feeling of "breath support"). That feeling HAPPENS as a result of blowing freely into a resistance (the embouchure) and thereby pressurizing the air.

Understanding the differences between what is CAUSE and what is EFFECT can save you much grief and frustration.

Set your embouchure BEFORE you blow.

As you are blowing through a phrase:

• do not let your posture compress or collapse - stay tall
• maintain the "lift" in your chest - do not let it collapse or cave in
• keep all the blowing action BELOW your ribcage

When doing repetitive drill, wait at least 3 seconds before starting the next repetition. When you try this, you may discover that 3 seconds seems a lot longer than you thought. You may also discover that your drill work becomes MUCH more effective when you do this.

Work out difficult rhythms with the horn AWAY from your face. Do the math, use your voice, clap your hands, stamp your feet - whatever it takes to get it right and get the physical feel of it.

The next step might be to play the difficult rhythm on your instrument, but on just one note.

After that the next step might be to systematically add the pitches a few at a time (ex.: start on the first pitch, play as written for several more notes and continue with the rhythm on THAT note - continue developing the passage this way until complete).

This is one of a million ways to approach a seemingly insurmountable problem by breaking it into "bite-sized" pieces. (The Guinness Book of World Records tells of a man who, over a period of several years, ate an entire bicycle).

Do you often realize while playing long tones or such that you've been totally lost in unrelated thoughts? Experiment with doing just the opposite - see how vividly you can be aware of what you're hearing, seeing and feeling (both kinesthetically and tactilely). Try doing this as often as you can - no matter what you are doing.

I made an important discovery at the gym one day. All the grimacing and grunting I reflexively did on the final reps of my weight training sets had absolutely no beneficial effects on my performance beyond maybe impressing people around me. In fact, by suppressing them, I was able be experience the muscular activity with greater than ever clarity. I believe my performance improved because my heightened awareness allowed me to channel my energy with much greater accuracy into only those muscles needed for the action.

How many ways do we "grimace" when we're playing a brass instrument? Squinching up the eyes, scrunching up the shoulders, pulling our chin into our neck, jamming the mouthpiece into our teeth... These are some of the most common. Our instincts tell us these are necessary but, in fact, our instincts are not always trustworthy. All such "grimacing" maneuvers do is to distract us and interfere with the fine motor control we are trying to achieve.

Experiment with this idea on your own. Watching yourself in a mirror is particularly helpful.