Even though I've played a trombone with a valve for decades, and occasionally one with two (the bass), I'm not much of a valve player. But after hearing me play euphonium on Janacek’s Sinfonietta (an easy part consisting of whole notes) with the Atlanta Symphony, a local conductor asked me to play the euphonium part on Holst’s Planets (a very soloistic part). That was a hoot! I had to practice all summer though, just to get the fingers to move right. I guess that’s what valve players do. Duh…

So recently while working on a transposed Arban interval study to incorporate the F-attachment, I had an epiphany about how the valve needs to work—just like the slide:  i.e., one position or the other—here or there—up or down—"click" or "click".  Duh… again.

But just like my Duh with the valves, it’s amazing how many trombonists don't get this when it comes to slide technique. When changing notes with a valve, it's obvious—there is no in-between unless you're going for an effect of some sort. Doc Severensen says to really "bang the valves down." My concept has always been the same for trombone slide motion:  it should be in one place or another, but never in between (excepting for glissando or portamento).

But inevitably, when I tell a student to speed up the slide motion to get the syrup out of their legato, they will do one or both of two things:  choke the air between notes (out of sympathetic tension in the throat), and/or rush (because they're accustomed to leaving the previous position too soon).

I advocate practicing with no tongue to work on the former. I advocate studying quantum physics to address the latter.
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Not really. But a physicist named Werner Heisenberg has a theorem named after him for discovering that subatomic particles (an electron, for example) can't be said to be located in a particular place at a particular time; they don't exist in the way that, say, a baseball does in the macro world. On our conscious level of perception we're either here or there, moving this speed or that. If we want to get from Atlanta to Chicago, we know which direction to go. And the faster we go, the sooner we'll get there (barring speeding accidents).

Not so with the electron. Instead, physicists talk about mathematical probabilities—a wave state of where a particle is located or it's velocity, but not both simultaneously. There is an uncertainty that only observation makes concrete, or “real.”  At the time, the philosophical connotations for this were staggering—passive observation affects reality. Einstein rejected it; but he was wrong (still a pretty smart guy, nonetheless).

What's spookier (to use Einstein's words) is when particles are "entangled" at the quantum level (in pairs). Let's say one particle in the pair has a clockwise spin; it's entangled "partner" will spin counterclockwise . If we change the spin of one, the other will change as well. But here's what's spooky—it's simultaneous, even across vast distances. Speed of light ought to be fast enough for an electron (or a trombone slide), but this is not just fast—it’s instantaneous. (Theoretically, that would be even better for legato playing.) But Einstein didn't buy it. He's the one that coined it "spooky action at a distance".

I'm not qualified to demonstrate why Einstein was wrong. (Don't feel bad for him; he gave us two theories of relativity and a theory about how gravity operates as waves in space-time that has just been proven after 100 years.)

But trying to move a trombone slide faster than the speed of light (impossible according to Einstein) doesn't work so well, because trying to move the slide faster from point A to point B only results in jerkiness, rushing, and bad air flow. However—there is another solution!

Sometimes, if I get fed up enough with a student who can't begin to approach these challenges, I'll tell them in all earnestness, “Stop moving your slide between 4th position and 1st position”  (in order to play, say, a G in 4th, to a B-flat in 1st).

After questioning me about alternate positions (of course there are none) and then  looking at me dumbfounded and asking the obvious, "then-how-do-I-play-the-right-notes?" I'll tell them that “motion is inherently impossible.”  Huh?

Well, for the car to travel from Atlanta to Chicago, it of course, must travel halfway first. That's great, we're halfway there—or are we? There's still that remaining distance to cover and we obviously must move half of that first. We're closer, but at this rate we'll only ever get closer and closer, but never the full distance.

Obviously it doesn't work like this because the car (or slide) is continually moving. But that's the point:  IF IT'S MOVING, THEN IT'S NOT THERE YET. So you're late; or you're sloppy; or you're smearing; or you're stopping your air to cover all the preceding bad adjectives.

The answer is:  Remember your quantum physics. Don't move it between the notes. Don't move it to the note. Move it  for the note—when it's time to play the note. Not fast, not slow. One place or the other. No in-between. And if there's a note to play between two other notes, guess what the slide has to do? Stop there, too—be one place, then the next, then the next. Never moved, never in-between.

All matters of infinite regress and naïve descriptions of physic aside, there is a practical example we could look to, and that is the old-fashioned movie camera. What appears to be continuous, connected motion is actually discreet, still frames. But they're so brief that the brain does not detect the stops.

So maybe there is an optimal speed for the slide to move that is slow enough to be executable, but fast enough to enable our sound to be continuous enough for our brains to interpret it as "connected." But again it's not a speed we "measure" because the speed is not the goal; connecting the notes is the goal.

Spooky action at a distance. Quantum Trombone.

(Einstein was a violinist, by the way. What do they know?)

SEE also:  https://www.technologyreview.com/s/427174/einsteins-spooky-action-at-a-distance-paradox-older-than-thought/

Following up on my last blog, I thought I would emphasize an important practice aid for getting attacks really crisp and clear.  I'd mentioned the difficulty of getting the breathing relaxed enough on the inhalation to take the best  possible breath when there is very little time between the notes (as in:  NO RESTS).  I mentioned Berlioz's "Hungarian March" from his opera, "Damnation of Faust", as an example.  This excerpt is especially difficult (it's on every audition list) because it is very articulated and there is no place to breath!  (and for other reasons, as well)

I have had the best results working on this one by actually playing it with "breath attacks" after each breath.  A breath attack is simply a matter of starting the note with air alone, without the aid of the tongue--kind of like a "Haaa", but without the vocalization.  I have to pause here to state what I like to tell all my students when dealing with issues of articulation as far as discrete attacks are concerned, and that is:  "The tongue does not make any sound--" (at least not any that you want to hear as part of a musical presentation) "--only the air does."

So in the Hungarian March I breathe thus...

...and practice it using a breath attack after each breath.  It may seem counterintuitive, but I frequently find that the passage is better articulated that way than when I tongue every note.  This is because I am forced to get the air (and therefore the sound) at the beginning of the note.  And on this lick, if it ain't there at the beginning--it ain't there!  (because the notes go by so fast)   Again, "THE TONGUE DOES NOT MAKE ANY SOUND".

This puts me in mind of a saying [last place I read it was in one of Brad Edwards' etude books]: "Put the vowel at the beginning of the note."  What does that mean?  The air has got to be there at the beginning and the oral cavity set and steady from the start.  Otherwise the tone, pitch, volume, or any combination thereof will change after the attack.

Jay Friedman is on this same wavelength in his advice to me about getting more sound at the beginning of the note.  For example, on Ride of the Walkyries:  "Play it (in rhythm) with each note as short and loud and accented as possible."  This sounds really gross--but is really effective at getting the sound out at the beginning of the note."  (Of course, it's not the way you perform it, just practice it for the type of attacks and accents you want.)

May I just say that there is nothing more frustrating to listen to (or execute) than a sound that doesn't speak immediately!  Anything you can do to combat this problem (that we all have from time to time) is worthwhile.

Interestingly enough, after starting this post, I had a serendipitous conversation with Richard Brady (who plays bass trombone in Atlanta Opera)  at a recent rehearsal; he just happened to bring up the issue of articulation in the low register.  He told me that Ed Kleinhammer, former bass trombonist with the Chicago Symphony--"Clamslammer" as he was affectionately (if irreverently) known to some of us--told him to use a "Lah" attack in the low range.

Now this also might seem counterintuitive at first.  But if you do some experimentation with it, you will notice that this consonant uses just the tip of the tongue (even more so than my previously preferred "Tha") and allows the tongue to remain really soft and relaxed.  I am getting better airflow when I do this, but haven't yet figured out to what extent it works in the upper register.  It can be tricky trying to figure out exactly what you're "saying" when you articulate, because it likely changes with variables such as range, volume, type of articulation, etc.  And different people may pronounce or execute a consonant differently.  But try it--you can multiple tongue like this into the extreme low range. 

The other troublesome thing I alluded to regarding the difficulty of the Hungarian March is the rhythm itself.  I'll save that for another blog.

This past summer I had an interesting experience that totally surprised me with its implications for playing my instrument better.  In July, my oldest son and I took a long-bow archery class in North Georgia from a world champion long-bow archer.  I'll attempt to explain the connection with trombone playing.

In archery, drawing the bow is both more simple, and more difficult, than one might expect at first blush. It requires an incredible amount of focus and relaxation to draw the bow and hold that tension until the arrow is released --that is, if you want to hit anything in particular.  Any extra tension beyond what is absolutely necessary will affect (poorly) the release, and therefore the ideal flight of the arrow.

Remarkably, if this relaxation can be achieved in the drawing wrist, that joint will actually elongate while drawing the string (weird but true)!   No one does this naturally; the instinct is to protect the wrist (with tension). But as our guide explained, we would not injure our wrists--the joint will stretch naturally and without harm.  The extra tension would only be detrimental to our aim.  And if one truly lets the wrist stay relaxed through the process,  the hand should simply fall limp--like a rag doll--when the arrow is released.

In fact, the bow-arm needs this same, studied relaxation as well.  Now obviously, the arm is not completely relaxed--it has to be held vertically, and it has to push the bow in the opposite direction of the string, causing the bow to flex.  The trick is, this opposition should be the only tension.  The arm should not be fully extended with a "locked" elbow (tense).  Instead, when the string is released, the bow-arm should extend forward in response to the release of tension against it,  and the bow hand should be relaxed enough that the bow dangles freely in that hand.  In fact, our guide told us that most pros use a strap to connect the bow to their wrist in case the bow falls out of their hand on the release.  [Mark Warren]

And what on Earth could this have to do with playing a trombone? 

Prior to that archery lesson I would have had no clue.  But I've thought about it a lot since then.  For after standing in a field in the blazing sun for most of a hot day in July, I came home (exhausted) to practice trombone and found myself breathing more deeply, more effortlessly, and more efficiently than I can ever recall.  I was astounded and perplexed!

Here are my observations.

Before drawing the bow to make a successful shot, I had to get really focussed and really relaxed.  That's an easy enough analogy.  I had to use only the muscles that are absolutely necessary to draw the bow.  Notice I didn't say "shoot the arrow" because the Archer does not do that--the bow does.  Now this last bit is a fundamental difference between archery and brass playing.

When we play a brass instrument, we are constantly blowing--pushing air out of our bodies with our muscles. If we have any residual tension left over in the muscles that we use to inhale, that tension will be detrimental to the ability to blow effortlessly--unimpeded by isometric tension.  But more critical in my opinion, is the opposite problem:  Any residual tension from blowing (the two processes--inhalation and expiration--utilize completely different sets of muscles) will be detrimental to our ability to take a good, deep, relaxed breath.  That's why I think of "drawing the breath", like an archer "drawing" the bow.  No tension beyond what the muscles used in the inhalation need.

At this point it might be helpful to keep in mind that a single muscle can do only one of two things--it can either contract or it can relax ("release" might be a more germaine term).  To inhale, we contract one set of muscles (mainly our diaphagm).  To exhale, the diaphagm is (should be) totally relaxed and we contract a different set of muscles.  I don't pretend to know what those are--or care.  The focus should be on the end result--the SOUND that we produce.  [Arnold Jacobs]

And here is where the analogy with archery breaks down.  We do not "release" the air wholesale, like the archer's arrow.  To do so would result in a big attack with a corresponding decreascendo.  So we obviously have to keep our inhalation muscles engaged to some degree.  And there's the rub.  It is an incredibly complex undertaking to keep opposing sets of muscles in balance to maintain, for example, a steady dynamic (with an ever-decreasing supply of air) or a very soft dynamic with no resistance in the throat.  (In other words, not using the throat as a valve.)

This informs our understanding of the importance of long-tones (beyond the obvious endurance benefits thereof), and of super-soft practice.  The latter takes real control and balance between opposing muscle groups.

But a day of archery in July did not teach me that balance.  Nothing but years of practice might (I still have hope).  So why did I breath/play so much better after the archery lesson?

I believe the key is the importance of letting go of all tension in the muscles involved in the exhalation before taking a breath.  This is crucial to allowing the muscles involved in the inhalation to operate unimpeded, and that's where the archery lesson paid off.  This brings to mind an observation (about myself) that I made a long time ago:  "As the breath goes [the inhalation], so goes the execution."  In other words, the better I breath (i.e., inhale) the better I play.  That's probably not a profound observation, but worth remembering.

The most important lesson from this, at least for me, is the awareness that the muscles used to exhale must be totally relaxed after the sound stops and before we take our next breath--even when that time-frame is milliseconds, as it often demanded by the music.  (Berlioz's Hungarian March comes to mind, along with a million others.)

To this end, I have an exercise I do to practice getting relaxed before each breath.  For my students, I call this the "STOP AND DROP" exercise.  It goes like this:

Play a scale in long tones (pick a prescribed duration of beats for each note), and add an extra 3 beats between notes.  On these 3 beats, do the following:

1. BEAT 1:  Stop the sound, not subglottally (with the throat) but with the breathing muscles so it has a nice, open release-- ("STOP")
   
2. BEAT 2:  Relax the abdomen-- ("DROP")
3. BEAT 3:  Take a breath (with a totally relaxed breathing apparatus).

Now learn to do this same relaxation instantaneously upon taking a breath--without the measured steps.

Rochut etudes can be a very effective vehicle to work on this.  At each  breath, take the time to be totally relaxed before you inhale to play the next phrase.  I particularly like to do this when I sometimes warm-up with a Rochut etude.  (Don't always warm-up with exercises--you'll get stale.)

Another effective way to get a deep, relaxed breath is to--after the "DROP"--take a slow, unmeasured breath through the nose before finishing with a 0ne-beat breath through the mouth to complete the inhalation.  (BTW, this is the way you should always start pieces when you have the liberty of doing so.)  [Joe Alessi]  In fact, I find it impossible to take a poor breath when breathing slowly through my nose.

There is no end to the different ways to approach and understand the execution of the physical activity involved in playing an instrument.  I think my next archery lesson should be tax-deductible!  [IRS]

Now if I can just discover a fly-fishing analogy.

EN