TN All-State High School Jazz Bass Trombone Videos and Tips Fall 2019

Swing – Ooh-Bop-Ba-Dah

This excerpt is marked to be played Medium Swing.  Since there is no specific tempo listed, I experimented with a few and found that I like it around quarter note = 120.  That makes the breathing and feel seem to work well for me.  As with all of the jazz etudes, style is more important than tempo.  If you need to play a little bit faster to make the phrases or a bit slower to give yourself chances to breathe, you should be fine as long as the feel is good.

One of the challenges of this study is how the rhythm shifts off by two beats in the 5th bar.  Try counting this while conducting it or use the drum track (see below) and sing the figure while you are conducting it.  It takes a few tries to make the rhythm flow, but it works well once you get used to it.

The pedal Gs can also be an issue.  I practiced the octave jump several times, turning it into a technical study by playing measures 12 and 13 starting up an octave and taking it down a 1/2 step each time until I got to the point that I was playing octave Ds below the written Gs.  The pedal Ds never sounded as comfortable, but by stretching myself to play lower than I actually needed to, the Gs became much easier and came out with a good crisp style.

Since I am playing a double valve bass trombone, the low B natural fits well on the horn.  If you are playing a single trigger horn, I would suggest trying that note in flat 3rd position as a false tone on the F valve or, perhaps better yet, pull your F attachment out to a low E and then you can play a real B natural in flat 7th position with the valve.  The only problem with that is that all of your other valve notes are now off by a half step and you need to relearn those positions.  It may seem strange to think about that, but before we had double valve horns, that is what players needed to do when they wanted a really solid low B!


Latin – Getting to the Bottom of Things

This tune is a fast Mambo feel.  In latin styles, eighth notes are even rather than swung.  I chose to record this one at half note=100.  As with the Swing etude, breathing can also be an issue here, especially at a quicker tempo. Make sure to plan ahead!  Your adrenaline will be going in an audition and you need to know where you are going to breathe if you are going to keep the feel going.

The challenges for this one mostly involve breathing at a quick tempo as mentioned above, but there also are the issues of position choice and intonation in bars 9 and 10.

Ordinarily I avoid playing the F below the bass clef staff on my F valve.  Part of this comes from playing tenor trombone.  The slide just isn’t long enough to get a good low C (below the bass clef) on a tenor trombone with only an F valve unless you tune the valve such that your F in first position is slightly flat.  Since I double a lot, I like to tune my F valve the same on both horns and play the F in 6th position most of the time.  In this particular case, however, I play the F in first position so that I can avoid either playing V4 (D) V2 (E) 6 (F) or using the 2nd valve to play it V4 (D) V2 (E) T2 (F) or V4 (D) T3 (E) T2 (F).  The last option is to play the D in 1st with both triggers VT1 (D) and then some combination of the other valves BUT, if I play it all on the F valve as I did in the video V4 (D) V2 (E) V1 (F), it is fast enough that the intonation on the low F is not bad enough to notice AND it means I can focus on music rather than ‘playing tuba’ to make this work. [V=F valve, T=2nd trigger, VT=both valves together]

The other issue for intonation is making sure to play G naturals in bar 10 rather than a Gb as in bar 9.  At a quick tempo, trombone players can fall into the mistake of playing that figure 6-4 minus-3 instead of 6-4-3.  Practice these slowly enough to make sure that you are playing the correct notes and not just moving the slide quickly to get the first and last notes of each figure!

For breathing, I try to use more quick breaths more often rather than putting in big gaps to get in more air at once.  At this tempo, there just isn’t much time for a big breath once you get started.

Watch the dynamics and have fun!


Drum Tracks

As you heard above, I made a drum track to accompany myself in place of using a metronome for both of these examples.  For these styles of jazz etudes, it is important to play as if you are playing with a rhythm section.  Rubato really doesn’t work for these unless you are playing a ballad, and even then, the rhythm section will still be chugging along as you play.

The links below are downloadable mp3 files that you can use to practice with.

Ooh-Bop-Ba-Dah quarter=120 – Drum Track Only

Getting to the Bottom of Things quarter=200 – Drum Track Only