In Praise of Smaller Trombones in Orchestras

I recently had the pleasure of playing two different programs with an excellent summer festival orchestra made up of marvelous musicians from all over the United States. One program included Mozart's Magic Flute Overture and Schubert's Great C Major Symphony; the other Brahms' Third Symphony and Tchaikovsky's 1^st Piano Concerto. Both of these symphonies are on my list of favorites to play, with important thematic material and many magical moments given to the trombones. Knowing the excellent principal trombone player only a little bit, but knowing that he also plays sackbut and is comfortable on a variety of instruments, I asked ahead of time whether and how much he would be scaling down from his primary large bore instrument. He said he would certainly play an alto on Mozart and most likely a small bore tenor for the rest. As it turned out, the instrument he chose was a fantastic Mt. Vernon Bach 8.

This seemed like the perfect opportunity to bring out my 1940 Conn 70H, an instrument I bought from a friend on the West Coast, who had bought it from Don Waldrop, who had bought it from a fellow member of the Navy Band, I assume the original owner. This Conn is a beautiful instrument that has been played and cared for by professionals for its whole life. The lacquer is worn and scratched, and there are several small dings throughout and some wear on the inner slide chrome plating, but there's no sign that the bell was ever dented badly, and the instrument is mechanically sound and reliable. Although there was a detachable 2^nd valve added and then removed, one bend in the valve section had to be replaced, and it looks like the bell section was re-lacquered at some point, it is essentially an original pre-war Conn, and even though I bought it primarily for its historical value, this is a player's horn, responding evenly and beautifully throughout the entire range of the bass trombone.

The more I played it the more I appreciated what the 70H allowed me to do; I could simply play, without worrying about overpowering the small orchestra when I wanted an exciting tone color. And the soft dynamics! No pinching, no straining, no worrying, just relax, think the note and play, and there it is. I've tried to play this instrument in similar repertoire before, but usually had to abandon it because the rest of the trombone section was playing such big instruments that I couldn't blend with them beyond about mezzo-forte. The bassoon player sitting in front of me, with whom I play often, told me repeatedly how much she liked the sound of this instrument. She never put in earplugs or asked for a sound shield.

Could I have played these concerts on my everyday bass trombone, a not-overly-big Shires? Absolutely. I know I could have balanced well and played with an appropriate color. If the principal trombonist had played his large bore instrument, I'm fairly sure that the Shires would have been a better choice, but the 70H, with its smaller bell, narrower slide, and old-world design and construction, made my job significantly easier in this situation. Furthermore, from where I sit in the orchestra, I love – love! – the sound of the trombone section with the small bore on top, particularly one as warm and rich sounding as this particular Bach 8 in the hands of this particular musician.

A horn-playing colleague I used to work with, who has now moved on to be principal horn of a major North American orchestra, would sometimes wonder aloud why trombone players were so often buying new equipment that allowed them to play louder and louder with bigger, wider sounds. They were rarely asked for more sound, he noted, and frequently asked for less. Why not find equipment that makes it easier to play softly instead?

While thinking about this experience and these issues, I re-read Doug Yeo's “ME, MYSELF and I:Are Orchestral Brass Players Losing the Concept of Being Team Players?”, published in 1997 in the trombone and tuba association journals. While I don't agree with everything he wrote, he brought up many essential points and argued them persuasively. Many things have changed since 1997, if not necessarily for the reasons he presented. In my time doing sales for the S. E. Shires Company between 2004 and 2009, I saw the aesthetic among orchestral trombonists shift quite a bit, from a one-sound “mf quality at all dynamics” concept towards a much more lively sound at all dynamics and instruments that allow much more variation in tone color. Consequently, lightweight bells have become extremely popular choices among Shires customers, and what was established as “standard weight” when the company was founded in 1995 is now significantly heavier, duller in response, and thicker-sounding than most professional players want. When I was in school in the late 80s and early 90s, many players were looking for trombones that would be darker and broader than their Bachs, and today we've seen the resurgence of the Bach 42 and 50, especially as customized by the Greenhoe company. The recently introduced Alessi model Edwards is a fundamentally more brilliant, colorful – and slightly smaller – instrument than the combinations Mr. Alessi was playing previously. Very similar changes have happened among many orchestral trumpeters.

I don't mean to imply that all the trombone players in every orchestra should scrap the instruments with which they won their jobs, or that the players at the top of our profession, who have chosen their primary instruments to match their very large orchestras and concert halls, are in any way misguided. But I would suggest that we take our prevailing aesthetic another significant step farther, that we all find smaller instruments that we can play comfortably when the repertoire, orchestra size and concert hall call for them. Then, I would suggest that we experiment with open minds regarding how often these smaller instruments are the right tools for the job at hand, the ones that allow us to simply play in beautiful balance of dynamics and tone colors with the musicians around us. I think we might find that we use them more often than we thought we might, and that our jobs are significantly easier and more enjoyable.