The first bass ‘bone blog on the planet.

A no-valve bass trombone?! That is simply against nature, some would say. “Blasphemy” cry others.

Thanks to my good friends at S.E. Shires Co., I have a valveless bass trombone. I can not quite bring myself to call it a “straight” bass trombone, as somehow, that might imply that a bass trombone with valves is, well, something else altogether. Let’s not go there. The valveless bass trombone, pictured above left, is a pruned version of the bass trombone on the right. (Click on each photo to enlarge). The TruBore double in-line valve section pops out, and the goose neck connecting the hand slide and the main tuning slide pops in. Add a counter-weight and before you can say, “Dude, where’s my tuba on-a-stick?”, I have a no-valve bass trombone.

I like to use this valveless instrument in the late classical and early romanic repertoire. Just last week, it saw the light of day when the NSO performed two works of Robert Schumann on the same program; the Konzertstuck for Four Horns and Orchestra and the Symphony #1 (Spring).

To me, playing this horn is the bass trombonist’s equivalent of driving a stick vs. an automatic. You are actually relying upon a bona-fide slide technique to get the job done, rather than pressing on valves. The precision required to do this reminds me that I am a trombone player first and foremost, not a button pusher. It is honestly a great deal of fun to play. The sound quality is actually richer than its valved counterpart. It resonates like crazy and feels totally alive in your hands, probably due to the weight loss in dropping the valve section. I love that. The sound complimented the alto trombone on top and the .547 tenor in the middle very well.

I do have to cherry pick the repertoire for which I can break out this instrument. For the most part, we are talking about Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann and Schubert. Berlioz, perhaps. Any works with notes lower than Eb below the bass clef are out, unless they are only pedal tones. Still, I had to take just one low Eb up the octave in bar 149 of the Schumann Symphony #1 finale. Doing so actually made the phrase more symmetrical, so I was happy with the result. The conductor did not notice and I have received not one letter from outraged patrons demanding their low Eb back.

What exactly defines a bass trombone? Is it the presence of a valve or multiple valve combinations The bore size? Mouthpiece or bell size? The definitions and boundaries are becoming a bit more blurred as time marches on. Let’s explore just one defining aspect of the bass trombone below.

BORE SIZE
For several decades now, the standard orchestral benchmark bore size for the bass trombone handslde has been set at .562″. Many, if not most of the bass trombonists in today’s modern symphony orchestra opt for a dual-bore slide measuring .562 on the mouthpiece side and .578 on the bell receiver side. I even own, and use on occasion (don’t tell anyone!) a slide which boasts of .578 on both sides. Remember, with great power comes great responsibility.

Sackbuts and early trombones often had little variety in the way of bore size. Instrument pitch and name (alto, tenor, bass, etc.) were typically derived from employing varying lengths of tubing. Bore size variation in trombones became more of a determining factor in trombone types in the later 1800’s. Still, one can find a bass trombone pitched in G with a bore size hovering around .483″. My contrabass trombone pitched in F (Hermann Kuhl: Kassel, Germany circa 1950) has a starting bore size similar to my bass at around .562, which increases exponentially on the other side of the slide and throughout the valve section. I know of many tenor trombonists in symphony orchestras who use a .562 slide on their large bore tenors.

As you see, we have already established a wide variety of nomenclature and usage for bass trombone attributes with regard to bore size. Tough to pigeon hole this sucker and we have not even begun to talk about mouthpieces, lead pipes (or no lead pipes!), valves and bells. Let me know your thoughts on the matter. I say the valveless bass trombone is a bass trombone. That’s my story and I am sticking to it.