A trombone is a brass instrument sounded by buzzing the lips into a mouthpiece. It is peculiar amongst brass instruments in using a double ‘U’-shaped slide to alter its pitch. The early history of the trombone is confused, mostly due to a lack of clarity in naming instruments. It is generally accepted that the immediate precursor to the trombone was ...
The trombone developed the idea of the Renaissance slide trumpet. While the trumpet abandoned the slide in favour first of crooks and later of valves, the trombone pursued the slide method and perfected it. The trombone is shaped like a giant paper-clip. While the left hand holds the instrument close to the mouth, the right hand grasps a crossbar; ...
player breathes in through their nose and out through the mouth and instrument simultaneously, using the cheeks like bellows – is challenging but allows long fluid lines of improvization. Trombone The noble sound of the trombone has changed remarkably little since its appearance in the fifteenth century, other than the later addition of a flared bell. It is the ...
made and Wilhelm Heckel (1856–1909) modernized the bassoon’s fingering system in the 1880s. The bores of wind instruments were widened, and instruments such as the trumpet, horn and trombone gained a fuller sound as a result. Richard Strauss was the first composer to exploit to the full the virtuoso qualities of the French horn, with two horn concertos ...
The cornett of European Renaissance art music is a longer finger-hole horn made of wood. A precursor to the modern brass horns, it should not be confused with the valved – and much later developed – cornet. Construction and Playing Technique The cornett is a long tube, usually around 60 cm (20 in) in length. It is normally curved ...
filling material, and the front-line instruments playing the tunes. The earliest forms of jazz – New Orleans and Dixieland – have a core grouping of trumpet, clarinet and trombone supplying the tune and piano and drums forming the rhythm section. Sometimes violins or banjos would be found and a double bass soon became standard. As an antidote to the ...
independent Poland in the new Europe drawn up in the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, he was elected its president. Styles & Forms | Early Romantic | Classical Instruments | Trombone | Early Romantic | Classical ...
Originating in the fifteenth century, the sackbut, ancestor of the modern trombone, seems to have evolved from the medieval slide trumpet. Credit is usually given to the workshop of Hans Neuschel the Elder of Nuremberg (d. 1503/4) for significantly improving the emerging instrument. The bore was smaller than that of the modern trombone, producing a quieter, ...
The saxophone occupies an unusual position in that it is a bespoke instrument that has barely changed since its creation. Although it does not occupy the position in the orchestra its creator had envisaged, Adolphe Sax’s invention has played a central part in music ever since it burst on to the scene in the 1840s. Sax’s father, Charles, ...
Berlioz’s characteristic ‘instrument’ was the orchestra. While makers had sought to improve different woodwind instruments, Berlioz set himself the task of advancing the orchestra as his favourite instrument. He was always keen to know about the latest developments in instrument-making and performance technique, and made last-minute changes to his Traite général d’instrumentation (‘General Treatise on Instrumentation’) in response to ...
finding its way back to the orchestral arena with composers such as Mark-Anthony Turnage (b. 1960) finding a new melodic character in the trumpet. Introduction | Brass Instruments Instruments | Trombone | Brass ...
like that of a French horn and in the orchestra it is performed by horn players. Intended to play a role in the texture by lying between the horn and trombone lines, it has never caught on as an orchestral instrument, mainly due to its slightly dull attack and wayward intonation. Nevertheless, it was also used by Strauss ...
A brass instrument with the tubing curled in an elliptical loop ending in a small bell and fingered using four valves, this is a type of tuba probably based on the saxhorn. When writing the Ring, Wagner wanted a brass instrument to bridge the gap between the French horns and the trombones. The 1853 sketch for Das Rheingold specifies ...
this was enough to open out the complete chromatic compass. In larger bored instruments, a fourth valve was necessary. All modern brass instruments make use of valves. Even the trombone, which uses a slide to shift between pitches, makes use of a valve that both extends its range and increases its agility. Mouthpieces Sound in the brass family ...
Composed: 1884–85 Premiered: 1885, London Libretto by W. S. Gilbert Act I The Mikado’s son, Nanki-Poo, has fled from court to avoid marrying Katisha and is now wandering Japan as a second trombone. He has returned to Titipu on hearing that Ko-Ko, his rival for Yum-Yum, has been condemned to death for flirting. Ko-Ko, however ...
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