i wondering how to play brass??
because i want to play trombone..
i hav no idea about all of brass instruments

it seems so hard to play brass because it have only three valves (is it right?)

thanks

You vibrate your lips instead you would with a reed for woodwind intruments.
it's like blowing a raspberry.

The trombone doesn't have any valves - you move the slide instead. Like on all brass instruments you also obtain different notes by tightening and relaxing your embouchure.

My nine-year-old daughter started the trombone in September. She has been playing the cello for about three years so can already read the bass clef.

She had no particular difficulty getting a note out of it (although she did practise just with the mouthpiece for a couple of weeks first while waiting for an instrument). She has had about eight lessons and can play an octave. She says it's easier than when she started the cello, although I think this is largely (if not entirely) due to the fact that she's three years older and so is physically more co-ordinated, able to concentrate for longer and can also read music now.

She does find her lips tire after about ten minutes of continuous playing (but this is apparently normal, her teacher said five minutes of practice a day would do for the first six months or so), she also finds it hard to co-ordinate tonguing with the slide movement (but she has only been trying to do it for about two weeks so that's normal as well).

Three valves give a much simpler fingering system than woodwind or strings. You pay for this in having to use your lip to select the right note from several with the same fingering or slide position. The other significant challenge that the brass instruments offer is their physicality: stamina comes only from doing enough work. Philip Farkas, principal of the Chicago Orchestar under Reiner, in "The art of French Horn Playing", suggests that to acquire stamina, tone and technique to professional standards, the serious student must practise for three hours per day for some years, and claims that even when he was an established professional, an hour per day of practice (in addition to all his rehearsals and performances) sufficed only to stop his playing from deteriorating!

not so sure about this - my daughter started trombone about 15 months ago when she was 8 and practised for about 10 -15 a day from about the end of the first month. She couldn't read music so she took things steady for the first month but she was co-ordinating the tongue and slide from about week 2. She does "buzz" for at least 5 minutes (with and without her mouthpiece) every time she plays and this helps massively. She took her Grade 2 in March and was practising about 20 minutes a day for it (during the school week, weekends off generally) and took (and passed) her Grade 5 in November, practising about 30 minutes 4 or 5 times a week.

If your daughter can already read music and is used to the discipline of regular practice then PLEASE don't think that she should only do 5 minutes or so for the first 6 months as this is simply not the case - the more you do, the stronger the muscles in the lip become. Just remember that the most important part of the daily routine is the buzzing and then the golden rule of "if it hurts, stop - pain is the body's way of telling you something isn't right!"

Actually she does do between ten and fifteen minutes practice a day - we don't watch the clock rigidly. She stops when she can no longer get the higher notes out satisfactorily.

As you have probably gathered from my other post, her problem is in fact with tonguing itself rather than co-ordination.

Thats what i always found the hardest learning brass instruments. It took me ages to crack. I suppose brass is no harder than any other instrument when you get used to it and pratice regulary.

Stamina is important. It varys from person to person, if your lip goes there's not much point carrying on (no matter how distressing it is when you have a deadline to perfect something!) It will increase.

Oh and when practicing don't try to spend al your time trying to get high stuff, you'll just hurt your lip, if you want to increse your range then try appegios (as boring as they can be) just try to add and extra note to it when you feel comfortable.

Lisa

I learnt the Trumpet in a week after having bought one in my local music shop on a whim (i was walking out after having discovered the cafe didn't do cream scones). I was quite cheap and so I bought it and the book team brass for trumpet, I do find that the best way to learn a new instrument is to download a fingering chart then learn exactly what it was I wanted to play. At the time it so happened to be easter so I offered to play the trumpet - that was my goal - so 5 Hymns, 1 week - very intensive, I was home on a weeks leave from the Army. So i sat in my kitchen - i find the acoustics of kitchens wonderful - and I played through some simple tunes just to get the hang of the thing and then moved on to Thine be the Glory, Christ the Lord is Risen today, Up from the grave he arose... I played along with a CD to get my pitch right with my embouchure and for a week I deafened the decorator (who to his delight found he was going to be stuck in the house with me learning the trumpet!) and hey presto, I played alomost perfectly all the hymns! I managed to relate most of the fingerings to flute and clarinet in a funny way - eg. on a trumpet F# is the middle finger alone, and on the clarinet, the third register F#, the right hand is the middle finger only and it goes on....I did try to learn the trombone, but after the trumpet the mouthpiece was to much like a bucket and found it hard to relax my mouth enough to get a sound, so I sold it and bought a french horn instead!

yeah, so do i. i found clarinet fingering chart and then learned to it.
by the way, can we learn brass and woodwind both?
people said that we can't learning both brass and woodwind because of the difference of embouchure technique.
or, maybe we can learn both but not good at both... is it right??

because trombone and horn is quite attracting for me..
i want to try a brass but keep learning clarinet.

I've seen "buzzing" mentioned on other threads and as I don't play brass myself, I'd be interested to know what it means. I'd be grateful if somebody could explain ...

thats right...i was told as a flautist the only brass instrument i could take up was the french horn because of the embouchure being similar in a funny sort of way. I would never say I was good at the trumpet and I don't spend hours practicing every day, i concentrate on flute, and if i ever thought it was changing the way i play my flute, i'd probably stop...but i do play the french horn - but a single Bb horn so the fingering is the same pretty much.

Don't get started on that topic. It's been discussed for hundreds of years and for the last few years on both this and other music forums. The fact is that YES, you can learn both with no problems whatsoever.

Like Malone, I also learned simple hymns on the trumpet very quickly. It started when my son wanted to learn, so when he started lessons, I tried myself. We have a friend who plays the cornet and he gave me some advice about the embouchure - along with photocopies of an old Salvation Army hymn book. I admit that I can't quite get 2 octaves out of it, but then I don't take it seriously like the clarinet.

Funnily enough, I tend to play the music first on the clarinet. With brass instruments it's so much easier when you know how it should sound!

Steve

This is exactly what i do, If i start off and I think i'm playing it wrong, then I do play it through on my flute, similarly, if I play along with a CD, i check to see if my music is in the right key by running through on my flute.

The trouble with me learning hymns thoug was that I played them straight out of the hymn book, so I was sight transposing from the start on my trumpet and its something i've never quite got out of, now when offered a Bb part or a c part, i will always go for the c part because I find it easier to read in a funny sort of way! Its odd, its almost as though my trumpet has become a C instrument in my head and I have related all the fingerings to the note when they are transposed or something...

I heard about a strange variation on this relating to Eb trumpet specialists. Apparently they are so used to being given parts in Bb and transposing them that when they get an Eb part they mentally transpose it into Bb and then back into Eb rather than just reading it straight.

However, since I am not a brass player, and think that playing any brass instrument is impossible (in the same way that helicopters can't possibly fly), I would welcome correction on this.

I'm confused. If playing solo or with other Bb instruments, there's no need to transpose at all. Just play what's written! The trumpet is hundreds of years old and other instruments often have to accommodate. I play in a wind orchestra where it's the poor old flutes who have to fit in with the Bb brass, clarinets etc. In ensemble music the trumpet part will be written in the key already transposed.

The take-home message is Keep it simple!

Steve

I know, I know, I have on several occasions been given a peice of music, already transposed and automatically sight transposed it. I think its something to do with me learning the trumpet sight transposing from the beginning to so my brain has got confused and is matching the wrong fingering with the wrong notes. Eg, if I see a C, in C major, I automatically play a D, as though the fingering for a C is that of a D. Its a really bad habit and I really should try and get out of it, but seen as I only really play the hymns for church and to save me going away and transopsing all the music, its just easier to leave it be. I dont do the strange transposing thing while playing my clarinet, and have to think a bit more when I'm sight transposing on that.

I must say that I envy you for being able to do it! I've never tried to transpose on sight and don't have the time or inclination now to start learning.

So how about learning the Alto sax in Eb ? Should be fun transposing that !

Steve

[quote name='stevensfo' date='Jan 18 2007, 07:09 AM' post='450213'
I must say that I envy you for being able to do it! I've never tried to transpose on sight and don't have the time or inclination now to start learning.

So how about learning the Alto sax in Eb ? Should be fun transposing that !

Steve
[/quote]

I do actually play the alto sax! And the easiest way to so sight transposition is to transpose it into bass clef and then just play it - if you know what I mean? Eg. An E in the treble cleff woould look like a c in the bass clef, so on the sax, you just play a C. But then there is the trouble of having to add three #s to what ever the key sig is and it can become rediculous, so I only tend to play when the music untransposed has flats - then it makes it easier for me!

Hmmm, I think I see what you mean. I guess I'll stick to my notation programs for now. Funny, how we're rather similar. I also have a sax, an old second-hand Yamaha YA23, that I occasionally get out and annoy the family with, but like the trumpet, never took it too seriously.

My youngest son is learning the piano and last year I thought I'd try arranging some Christmas carols for us all to play, my other son on the trumpet and me on the sax. (Clarinet gets drowned out!).
Because the pianist was the 'weakest link' I had to let him stick to his easy carol book and re-arrange the music from my Salv. Army book of carols (1st/2nd trumpet parts).

Never again! Having spent the best part of an evening typing in the notes, transposing a trumpet part, then the sax part (with all the problems of some notes not being in range etc), I started to go mad!

Of course, it was all a waste anyway since, being young kids, they were not interested in the slightest!

Steve

Just before Christmas my daughters decided they wanted to play Jingle Bells together - the only piece they had in common. Their versions were not in the same key (but it was a third apart so I decided it would sound all right) more problematic was the fact that they didn't play at the same speed. My elder daughter, who has been playing the cello for three years, was adament that the pianist should accompany her, despite the fact that her younger sister has only been learning the piano for three months! They enjoyed themselves but the end result bore little resemblance to the original tune!

You are thinking that there are transposing instruments. A better way to think of it is that on any instrument you could have transposing players or concert pitch players.

This is well illustrated by the euphonium. In the brass band, the player reads from a Bb treble clef part and the note comes out a major ninth lower. In the orchestra (on the same instrument, but now called tenor tuba), the player reads from bass clef, concert pitch.

Bass tubas come in several different lengths, but orchestral tuba parts are always concert pitch.*
Players relate the written notes to the fingering on the instrument they choose, built in F, Eb, C or Bb. In the brass band, Bb bass players have a treble clef transposing part; Eb bass players usually have a bass clef concert pitch part (often named "Bombardon"), and if they were brought up on treble clef can use the trick of adding three sharps and pretending that it is treble.

*without even the octave transposition that the double bass gets from having played from the same part as the 'cellos for 300 years, so orchestral tuba players become expert at reading leger lines a long way below the stave.

Isn't that just the same as saying it's transposed down a second, but sounds an octave lower?? Er..or not?

Steve - with Friday afternoon frozen brain syndrome!

I suppose you could put it that way too.

I'm sure an E on the treble clef is in the same place as a G on bass clef, but a concert E will play as a C on an E flat instrument.

You are right there - but I obviously didn't explain myself properly - Like Kenm said for Eb bass players, its the same as Eb sax, if you read the bass clef and pretend its a treble clef, then there is not need to transpose, except adding the accidentals! So what I meant was, when I see an E in the treble clef, I transpose it into the bass clef and imagine that it is a treble clef - and so I play a C...well, C#. Does that make sense?

errrr.... okay..

by the way, have u heard claudius muller. he is a horn player..
last week i saw him in a concert with magdalena kostrzewka (violin) and piotr zuk (piano)
well........


THE HORN IS VERY GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the chamber music concert is very very very very very seldom in indonesia
i'm so happy can see the concert

and, after the concert i met the horn player!
and asked the same question in here...



and he answered that brass and winds have a different technique...

okay, maybe i just concentrate to learn clarinet only

Playing a brass instrument can tire the lip muscles, so that it is difficult to form a good woodwind embouchure immediately afterwards. However, many years ago (c. 1956) I heard Alan Lumsden perform on flute (respectably) immediately after having played trombone (brilliantly). I would expect the order of susceptibilty to be flute, oboe, bassoon, clarinet, saxophone, with clarinet and saxophone least likely to be adversely affected. The trick is minimising the pressure on the brass mouthpiece, which is desirable for stamina on the brass instrument also.

How good you are depends on how much practice you do, so you should be equally good in twice the practice time, if you can find it.