TromboneChat

I saw an interesting comment on Facebook.

It was in reference to starting short armed people on the Yamaha 350C, which has an ascending valve to C. So you would never need to go past 5th.

The comment was that the trigger notes on the C horn side sound fine up high, unlike trigger notes on the F side of the usual trombones. (but, like the trigger/valve notes on horns, trumpets, euphoniums, tubas, etc.)

The 350C is listed as a .500 on one page and a .500/.525 dual bore on another. The valve tubing looks fairly small bore in the photo.

Sounds like an interesting concept, but kind of unnecessary. If you think about it, how many notes does a beginning player need to play in sixth or seventh position? Really, there are only four notes (on a straight horn) that require them (C, F, B and E) and your first year players aren't even going to see those right away anyway.
That's one of my arguments for not starting kids on a Bb/F horn in sixth grade, and I would probably say the same for this, but it might still be fun to play with.

In general, the longer the instrument, the more hard it can be to get the pitch to center. The farther out on a trombone slide you are, the more "squirrelly" the notes get up high, even more so on the F-attachment.

With the ascending valve, what you really have is a trombone in C/Bb, that usually keeps the valve engaged. So at the most you have the length of a regular tenor horn, and when you are in the C side, you are actually REMOVING the attachment tubing, so it should be even more stable.

tbonesullivan wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2020 12:01 pm In general, the longer the instrument, the more hard it can be to get the pitch to center. The farther out on a trombone slide you are, the more "squirrelly" the notes get up high, even more so on the F-attachment.

I'm not sure that's the case. It may be those pitches are squirrelly merely because we don't play them enough to get them dialed in.

The F attachment may be another case entirely, being squirrelly because of the bore mismatch (attachment tubing to big compared to the slide tubing.)

timothy42b wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2020 1:10 pmThe F attachment may be another case entirely, being squirrelly because of the bore mismatch (attachment tubing to big compared to the slide tubing.)

It's the same size as the outer slide tubing, and when you have the trombone in 6th and 7th position, you've got a lot of that larger diameter tubing in the mix. The tonal character and slotting are quite a bit different higher up in the extended positions. I spent quite a bit of time warming up there, and when I play bass, my warmup routing goes up to the 12th partial. Yes, I have a 12th Partial F in first when I play bass trombone. Gotta play it before you can practice it.

timothy42b wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2020 1:10 pm

tbonesullivan wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2020 12:01 pm In general, the longer the instrument, the more hard it can be to get the pitch to center. The farther out on a trombone slide you are, the more "squirrelly" the notes get up high, even more so on the F-attachment.

I'm not sure that's the case. It may be those pitches are squirrelly merely because we don't play them enough to get them dialed in.

The F attachment may be another case entirely, being squirrelly because of the bore mismatch (attachment tubing to big compared to the slide tubing.)

To some degree, yes that is true. If you've ever played a french horn, we have the opposite setup essentially. So on a 350C, you would basically be playing a 3rd position C in first position, by length of instrument not playing a 6th position middle C in first as you would on a Bb/F instrument.

Unlike other brass instruments, we can fine tune every note so I generally shy away from playing higher partial F attachment notes because we don't need to and there's seldom anything I would play that is so fast that I can go from 1st to 4th just as fast as I could rotate the trigger, at least from a practical standpoint.French horn players need that Bb side to play certain notes in tune because its easier than lipping it up or down depending on the context.

Matt K wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2020 2:15 pm
Unlike other brass instruments, we can fine tune every note so I generally shy away from playing higher partial F attachment notes because we don't need to

For most of those higher partial F attachment notes there isn't an advantage. They're too close in position to Bb partial notes.

And that's the theoretical advantage of the G attachment. Especially if it sounds good up high.

I've had a conductor that specifically requested fairly high notes be played with the trigger, or even with a half trigger because that was the noise that he wanted.

More to the point, though... is the handslide long enough on the 350C that you could get 8 or 9 half-steps out of the C side of the horn? That opens up possibilities as well.

The handslide is short on the 350C. It's a proportional C trombone, but by default the Bb valve is engaged. Lots of kids here in Japan use them. Don't forget that it is only a whole step valve, which doesn't affect the sound like a longer quart valve would.

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2020 3:47 pm The handslide is short on the 350C. It's a proportional C trombone, but by default the Bb valve is engaged. Lots of kids here in Japan use them. Don't forget that it is only a whole step valve, which doesn't affect the sound like a longer quart valve would.

That sounds like a good idea, and cheaper than starting them on alto. John Kenny did a lecture on starting kids on alto sometime back, and I see he's going to be at ATW again.

Can you swap the linkage so it's in C by default? Or, what about a longer crook, to put the horn in A, giving you the minor third choice?

Whoops, just looked at Dillon. The 350C is $2,000, and they have altos in that range also, so really not that much better. That sounds expensive for a student trombone. The 354 is $1400 though.

timothy42b wrote: ↑Fri Feb 14, 2020 7:30 am

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2020 3:47 pm The handslide is short on the 350C. It's a proportional C trombone, but by default the Bb valve is engaged. Lots of kids here in Japan use them. Don't forget that it is only a whole step valve, which doesn't affect the sound like a longer quart valve would.

That sounds like a good idea, and cheaper than starting them on alto. John Kenny did a lecture on starting kids on alto sometime back, and I see he's going to be at ATW again.

Can you swap the linkage so it's in C by default? Or, what about a longer crook, to put the horn in A, giving you the minor third choice?

The horn is actually in C and then you engage the trigger to put it in Bb - but the trigger is always active. So you could make it C/A but not Bb/A. If you wanted something like that to toy with a used Conn 36H is probably your best bet and as you noted, cheaper than the Yamaha. You can swap the rotor for <$200. I had a Conn 36H that was previously owned by Conrad Herwig who had made that same modification to play on an Eddie Palmieri gig.

No, the trombone is in C, but the Bb valve is engaged, so by default it's in Bb. Pressing the valve closes it, and puts it into its true key of C. They call it an ascending valve. I doubt it has pull to A, and if it did, then you'd be stuck with a trombone in A with an open C horn....

Matt K wrote: ↑Fri Feb 14, 2020 8:06 am

timothy42b wrote: ↑Fri Feb 14, 2020 7:30 am

That sounds like a good idea, and cheaper than starting them on alto. John Kenny did a lecture on starting kids on alto sometime back, and I see he's going to be at ATW again.

Can you swap the linkage so it's in C by default? Or, what about a longer crook, to put the horn in A, giving you the minor third choice?

The horn is actually in C and then you engage the trigger to put it in Bb - but the trigger is always active. So you could make it C/A but not Bb/A. If you wanted something like that to toy with a used Conn 36H is probably your best bet and as you noted, cheaper than the Yamaha. You can swap the rotor for <$200. I had a Conn 36H that was previously owned by Conrad Herwig who had made that same modification to play on an Eddie Palmieri gig.

Okay, rather than make the horn longer to get the minor third, make it shorter.

Start with the alto in Eb, but make it truly proportional to the tenor trombone. I haven't done any measurements on percentage slide vs bell, so the math will have to come later. A tenor trombone is roughly 9 feet, and an alto 6 feet of total tube. But for an alto to have 7 positions, the bell must be a smaller percentage of the total footage.

6/9 of 7 would be 4.67 positions. Let's say we could stretch it to 5 and still maintain a decent bell percentage. I'm thinking the percentage of bell to slide has been optimized over the years, and it would work well for alto.

But then we no longer have a Bb in 6. So, we add a descending minor third valve, putting the horn in Eb/C.

The alto is now no longer so nose heavy, the squirrely partials go away, and the timbre (maybe) improves. We get a couple of important notes back, need that Bb for sure, and some technical facility improvement.

There's still another design consideration: where is the bell? Short gooseneck and long flare, or vice versa? Harrison likes third at the bell, for tuning consistency, but maybe the horn plays differently or gives different feedback to the ear.

Does anybody make a 5 position alto?

I'm not following why the alto would have fewer positions. Wouldn't everything be proportional, meaning it still has 7 positions?

Burgerbob wrote: ↑Mon Mar 09, 2020 2:49 pm I'm not following why the alto would have fewer positions. Wouldn't everything be proportional, meaning it still has 7 positions?

Yeah, I might have had brain cramp on this one.

timothy42b wrote: ↑Mon Mar 09, 2020 4:19 pm

Burgerbob wrote: ↑Mon Mar 09, 2020 2:49 pm I'm not following why the alto would have fewer positions. Wouldn't everything be proportional, meaning it still has 7 positions?

Yeah, I might have had brain cramp on this one.

Huh. Doing some rough measurements, my mini pBone has a slide that is 61% of the horn, and my Getzen straight tenor has a slide 56%. Doesn't seem enough to make a difference.

Never mind.