Hi people
I'm now playing "invocation and toccata" 3rd (bass) trombone for my band competition.
I'm supposed play long bottom Bb (the one on the space 2 ledger lines below the clef) f anf ff with strong accents, the responce from the judges during an exchange is that the notes are too cracked. So do you guys have any idea on how to solve the problem?

I'm thinking about switching to a tuba mouthpiece to increase the bore size to solve the cracking, do you guys think it's possible?

Definitely do not use a tuba mouthpiece on the trombone.

1) It will mess up your embouchure
2) It won't work anyway, as it will make the pitch on all notes very flat
3) You don't want the bass trombone to sound like a "tuba on a stick"
4) The cracking on the pedal tones can easily be solved with a few minutes of long tones every day

What's your regular bass trombone mouthpiece? Ideally you want to use something in the 1.5G or 1.25G range.

I'm now using Denis Wick 1AL
The tuba mouthpiece is quite comfortable and the sounds are ok too, at least they are not very flat, I still can manage. It just sound more like a heavytop mouthpiece with a much larger bore. The scracking is solved too, but is it really that dangerous?

Yes. Absolutely. Don't ever use a mouthpiece that is not designed for that horn. Use the correct mouthpiece, and continue working on your fundamentals. Long tones, lip slurs, pedals, articulations. You might want to look into getting a private teacher to make sure your embochoure is correct and you don't have any unknown bad habits. Having a trained ear listenning and watching will definately give you some good input and ideas.

Realistically, pedals take a while sometimes to really develop into something large and fat, as well as something you can play accurately loud and short. Be patient, and keep working!

And, seriously, don't try to play bass bone with a tuba mouthpiece. It simply doesn't work.

Yup. There's a reason why no professional bass trombone players uses tuba mouthpieces. Because they don't work. How's your upper range with the tuba mouthpiece? Bass trombone players have to play high too sometimes. That's where the notes really get flat, and your endurance will greatly suffer.

You should be able to do everything necessary on the bass trombone with the Wick 1AL. It's a well-balanced mouthpiece that's good in all ranges of the horn.

Yup, I think I'm switching back now.
I've just played the mouthpiece once more today and it feels terribly flat. Although pedal notes sound ok at first, they go pretty flat when you play loud...

I'm changing back into 1AL. But I still don't know how to get my low Bb without the crack... It seemed natural for all my sectionmates to crack at that note... Do you guys have any specific warm-up excercises that will do some help on my playing?

By the way, how do you guys get people in your setion to get in tune with each other fast? My section is having problems with intonation and the basic tuning excercises just doesn't seemed to help.

Just curious...
How can you be so sure that no pro ever used a tuba mpc? I seem to recall Ed Klienhammer saying in his book "The Art of Trombone Playing" that from time to time when he needed a certain sound, that he would do just that. And I'm sure everyone here would agree that he's an amazing professional player.
Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't do it myself either, and in the case here I think the orignal poster is looking for a shortcut to bypass some fundamental issues, but you guys are making some very bold blanket statements and I'm curious what data you're basing your opinions on?

Ed Kleinhammer? Well, that's a completely different situation. He was an all-time master of the bass trombone, and he could have sounded good if he used a peanut butter jar as a mouthpiece. But 99.9% of us wouldn't be able to make a huge tuba mouthpiece work properly on the bass trombone.

Agreed... but my point is, both you and Erik said that it "never" happens. I'm just saying you should qualify your statements. Because for all we know, maybe reading Klienhammer's book is where the original poster got the idea, and just maybe misunderstood the application. Stating that it is never ever done would then just confuse him or her.

Re: the question about tuning in a section
What needs to happen is for everyone to let go of their ego. Not an easy thing to ask a musician to do, I realize. But if you have four bones all playing different pitches and all believing they are right... you've got a problem. You have to tune with your lead player. Sink or swim as a section.
Now... some other issues
either some players don't know or don't care that they are out of tune
or they know they're out of tune, but don't know how to fix it
Things the individuals can do ...
Practice along with a drone pitch
Check with a tuner from time to time
Work with playalong intonation trainers like Stephen Colley's "TuneUp System"
Learn about tuning temperments so that you'll understand why you sound "not right" when playing a major third of a chord and other similar situations (gee, my tuner says that note is in tune, but it just sounds wrong... there's a reason for it!!). Know your chord member!
Learn the tendencies of YOUR particular horn.
Ear training... if you can't take a class, for about a hundred bucks you can get some really good ear training software called Auralia 3.0. If you hear your intervals better, you'll play them better.
Occasional mouthpiece buzzing to check that you're actually buzzing the pitch you're after.

Honestly, if everyone does their part individually, a lot of good things will happen. Not only will intonation improve because notes are being hit in tune to begin with, but because they are quite difficult at times, those exercises may give a bit of humble pie. Just be open to the fact that the person out of tune could very well be YOU! Check your ego at the door for the good of the section.

As a section, get together from time to time, play some quartets, chorales, anything. But when a bad chord comes up, STOP and figure out why!
Play some unison stuff. Work with each other, be constructive, not accusing. Like I said, if you do your individual homework, pretty much everything will fall into place.

1. A tuba mouthpiece does not even fit properly in a bass trombone without minor, if not major, adjustments. Same as a trumpet mouthpiece not fitting properly into a tenor trombone. Or a french horn piece not fitting properly in a trumpet.

2. If you do get it in and get it to stay, good luck tunng. It's not in the right position, and the bore change is so significant and the embouchure change so great that it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to hold a pitch, let alone hold that pitch in tune.

3. You would not get the desired sound out of that horn, (if the above 2 were worked out) because the tuba piece would offer way to much of a mellow smooth tone. For that, you might as well just play tuba.

4. Sure, Edward Kleinhammer might have experimented with that setup years ago, (remember he started with CSO in the early 40's and retired in 85, meaning he had his setup long, long, long before any of us were born. (possibly)) I would absolutely put money on the fact that he experimented with that simply because the bass trombone mouthpieces at that time did not fulfill his specific needs at that time. Remember what horns looked like in the 40's and prior? Not like they do today. Much smaller. Just imagine what the mouthpieces looked like.

5. No one said "that no pro ever used a tuba mpc". We said no one uses one today. No professional bass trombonist would use a tuba mouthpiece unless they were going for some strange sound effect type thing. Which, I would imagine, would be very true. They use mouthpieces made for their instrument. For the same reason we tenor players would never imagine using a trumpet mouthpiece in order to get up to the higher register. Equipment changes. Evolves. Bass trombone mouthpieces are now a highly evolved, specific, effective thing.

Now Steve, OF COURSE there are exceptions. There are always exceptions, ESPECIALLY in our world of music. And I don't think my statements were bold and blanket. Just like you said, (but did not add to) his problem is his fundamental issues, which I did address, and his desire to experiment with something new, to which I gave my opinion. That's all we are here for, right? Answer questions and support folks in the journey through the life of music?

Again... I never said that it "never" happens. Please, in the future, don't put words in my mouth that I did not use originally.

Ah, It appears I was reading a bit too fast and did, in fact misquote you. You have my apologies on that count sir!
As for whether your statements were blanket and bold... I guess that's in the mind of the reader. The statements were meant one way. I read them another. It's one of the drawbacks of this medium of communication.
So in the interest of good will (feeling a bit of tension here), I'm going to bow out of this part of the conversation, though the section intonation question I'm anxious to hear more answers to.
Cheers

No worries Steve. Sorry if I blew up a bit.

Anyway, as for intonation, I think you hit the nail on the head. Perfectly. You really do have to stop thinking of yourself as a trombone player, and start thinking of yourself as a section member. Spend more time listenning to those around you and less time just playing notes. Like Steve said, just because you are playing the right note does not mean you are in tune. Especially on trombone. The "easiest" and "hardest" wind instrument to tune. Easiest because you are essentially playing a tuning slide and can constantly adjust to stay in tune. And hardest because you are essentially playing a tuning slide and can constantly adjust to stay in tune.

1. One thing you can do to improve your section in-tune-ness would be to play together often. Warm up together. Do long tones and lip slurs together. During long tones, have one person using a tuner and everyone else adjusting to that person. Rotate the tuner. Then take it away! This will also help with balance, since you need to all be playing the same dynamic level to hear everyone.

2. Play Bach chorales together. Use that as part of your warm up. These are fairly hard to tune, but VERY rewarding once you get them. And they are free! (These at least) You can't beat free music!
http://www.tenorposaune.com/bach.php

3. Sing it! Play it on the horn or on a piano, and then both sing it (yes, with your voice) and play it with the mouthpiece alone. Playing on the horn, the notes will fit into certain grooves, as if the horn was partially finding the note for you. Take away that horn and sing or buzz on the piece, and you don't have that safety blanket. If you can sing and buzz the note in tune, you will have a better chance of hitting it in tune with the horn, simply because your body (the source of the music and notes in the first place) is putting out the correct pitch.

4. MOST IMPORTANT. And most simple. LISTEN. Listen to the people around you and CONSTANTLY adjust. The moment you stop adjusting is the moment you stop playing in tune. It's that easy.

If you look at the great trombone "sections", the Kenton sections, London Symphony, New York, old school Chicago SO, and the like, you have to remember that these guys have been playing together for a loooooong time. Long enough to really figure out each others tendancies.

Just look at (keeping with the same famous folks) Ed Kleinhammer and Arnold Jacobs. They sat next to each other and played together from 1945(46?) to 1985 when Kleinhammer retired. They knew each other sooooo well that they never really had to work out parts together, they just knew. They were always in tune with each other, their breathing was the same, etc etc etc....

Arnold Jacobs once said, "They say that gradually a husband and wife learn how each other thinks and you practically become one. It's the same thing in the orchestral group. Without ever saying anything, we breathe together, and play the same length of phrase. We've played together so much, the communication does not need words. We hear each other all the time." And "I had an ideal mate with Ed Kleinhammer. We never had a crossed word in all those years we played together. We didn't even have to talk about a part. It was as if each one of us knew what the other would do without saying a word. I could not ask for a nicer partner for all those years, believe me......"


Another note, listenning to good brass ensemble (and other) recordings helps a lot as well. The one recording that ALWAYS sticks out in my mind is "The Antiphonal Music of Gabrieli" by the Chicago, Cleveland, and Philadelpia brass sections in the 60's. It's not often you get to hear the best of the best playing all together, so this album is a must in any brass players library. (And just think, these guys were so good, and knew each other so well, that their entire recording took only 9 hours. That INCLUDED rehearsal time. Amazing)

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Added: link to the 60's brass sections recording:
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/B0000029PE/ref=s9_asin_image_1/002-2123143-2648862

My god, my posts get longer every time.....

just a thought, I was skimming through the other posts, skimming, not actually focusing on every statement, but what about the embouchure your using? I played bass trombone on Alfred Reed's "A Jublient Overture" Even though most of it wasn't diffcult for the bass, nor did it go down very low for a long time. But When I was goofing off with the range of it, I noticed that the more I went down the more space I had to open up with and I had to drop my jaw a lot more. For accents, I learned to do accents better by starting out quiet and accenting little by little as I got louder and louder. I don't know if that would help out too much, but its a suggesting. But other than that, If I would say anything else its probably just not helping out any. But If I was you, I'd deffenently listen to Steve and Erik, I'm only a freshman in high school, they have a lot more experience than I do, plus they both know exactly what their talking about.

good luck