Trumpet vs. Trombone?

Well, I'm highly considering quitting the trumpet and learning Trombone. Trumpet is just going to take too long for me to learn in time for concert band. But is saying the Trombone is easier simply a misconception of mine? That's one of the reasons I may consider switching. How are high notes on the trumpet? Is it basically the same and is hitting higher notes as hard on the trombone? I just basically want to know if Trombone is really easier or if this is just a huge misconception of mine.

Why I care about Trombone being easier, is I might be able to learn it quicker than trumpet and therefore be experienced enough with Trombone by the time that Jazz Band and Concert Band come around, which is about a month and a half. Is the whole slide thing really as hard as it looks? That might get in the way of the learning curve. But yeah, is Trombone really harder or easier than trumpet?

I found trumpet very easy to pick up, only took me a few weeks to become fairly competant. I don't have any experience with trombones, but I can tell you that Trumpet really isn't that difficult. Of course it'll help if you can already read music, and playing some wind instrument already will also help.

Will be no problem for a Prodigy like yourself.

Yeah, I mean the only thing I find hard about trumpets is the higher notes above the 2nd C, they're just hard to hit. I've already played Alto Sax, Tenor Sax and Bass for years, so reading music is no problem.

I too am still finding the notes above the C hard, having played for around a month now. A tip, practice slurring between harmonics: C/G/C/E\C\G\C, that'll really help you build up the strength for hitting the higher notes. Also, MORE AIR!

From another perspective: more people play the trumpet than the trombone, so if you play trombone, you'll have more chances to play and be in more demand.

With the exception of the horn, brass instruments pretty much are the same (gross technnique-wise). You practice the overtone series to build up flexibility in your embouchure. Trumpet has a slightly tighter and smaller embouchure, trombone is a little looser (not as much as you'd think, though), and tuba is a bit looser yet. Horn is a little more difficult because you start out higher in the overtone series, so there's more room for error.

No matter which brass instrument you pick, it's all about building flexibility and stamina for your embouchure.

Learned both, and never found either difficult.

Either/or...the easiest one is whichever one you practice. Duh.

Either valves or the slide are a foreign concept for most people, but not too hard to figure out. High notes on tbn vs tpt are similar (depends what HIGH is...). On trombone, anything above an F (bottom space of treble clef) might take you a year or so to get above. I dunno about tpt - but you'll probably break around the same partial.

Pick one...work on it, it'll be fine.

also, it depends if you want to take it pro eventually. and depending on what music you like. if you want to play, for example, fast, coltrane bop, well, then I would suggest the trumpet.

I had the pleasure of writing and hearing a peice of mine performed by Dave McMurdo (tbn), Mike Malone (tpt), Quinsin Nachoff[Q] (t. sax) , Pat Collins(D.B), and two other players(guit and Drums) that I can't remember. these are all pros.

It was a bop tune, goes at about 240 or so... Q and mike had no problem with some of the runs, but I saw Dave having some very akward slide positions, and having to go from about 7 to 1 in the space of an 8th at 240... let's just say that it wasn't his song. he doesn't like that stuff anyhow, he's more of a ballad guy.

but, in terms of range, the Tbn is your best bet. it can do lots of things... in terms of speed? in terms of dexterity? I think the trumpet wins.

How long have you been working on trumpet and how are you doing with it as far as tone production? If not long and not well, than in my opinion, I think your best bet would be to go for trombone. I don't actually play trombone or baritone horn, so I'm not familiar with that size mouthpiece and embourchure, and I've never used a slide, but I know how a slide works and all the positions. I'll bet if you handed me a trombone I could figure it out and get used to it in under a minute. I play trumpet, horn, and tuba now, so I'm close to having the whole brass family covered. In my experience, tuba turned out to be LOADS easier than trumpet, and I found it easier to get a prettier, more consistent tone on the horn than the trumpet. So in other words, I find the embourchure for the trumpet much more demanding than any of the other brass instruments, and if you want to learn one quickly and sound better than crap in under a month, go for trombone if you haven't already started trumpet, it'll probably take less time to develop a better embourchure for it.

In terms of which instrument is better or more agile or whatever, they are not the same instrument so you really can't compare them. It's not like comparing two different trumpet mouthpieces based on tone, agility, and range. The trombone in general is an octave lower, so much different character, while the trumpet is high and in your face. The trombone also has a slide, which makes tons of things possible that you can't do on a trumpet, the only disadvantage is when you want to try to play in tune you need to be more careful. Valves are best for agility and right-on intonation, while the slide can be used more expressively, creating effects that take years to develop on trumpet. So they both have their place, no one is better than the other. You'll also need to consider what part you'd rather be playing - trumpets have the melody more often than the trombones, so you're more pressured to get things right, whereas the trombones are more of a counterpoint, harmonization, or bass line most of the time, and don't get as much attention.

No matter what you do, play around on both, see which is more comfortable, and give them both a chance.

Since you're setting out to learning a brass instrument, one tip I can provide from my experience with trumpet (2 yrs), horn (1 yr), and tuba (5 months) is learn to play loudly. And I mean as loud as all HELL. Completely blast for maybe 2 - 3 minutes a day or per practice session. Maybe blast as part of your warm-up, but just a little bit, a couple notes is enough. The reason I say this, is because students picking up a brass instrument, especially if they don't have a teacher and are self-taught, tend to fall into using a different embourchure setting for different ranges and dynamics. Like when I try and play a low C on trumpet at pianissimo ( pp ), I ended up using a completely different embourchure than when I played fortissimo ( ff ). You shouldn't. Through the entire dynamic range of any brass instrument you need to maintain a consistent embourcure or else your tone will not be consistent. So what you do is play some note as loud as you can, so you can just hit it hard, with that brassy edge, and not sound like crap, then play that same note very quietly without taking the mouthpiece away or moving your lips away from that setting. The embourchure it takes to play that loudly is the embourchure you should use all the time, no matter the dynamic. Since if you play a certain embourchure in a soft passage, then you have a sudden very loud accent, what are you going to do? Shift your embourhure from your 'soft embourchure' to your 'loud embourchure'? I don't think so.

Plus, playing super loud every once in a while during your practice session keeps you thinking about the air that you need to use all the time, which is a lot. You need more air than chops, and beginners tend to forget that. This is something that's been working for me, but not neccessarily for everyone, so any seasoned brass players who might have something to say on this, I encourage them to do so, for I am not a seasoned brass player.

Again, this is all personal experience, you don't have to listen to a single thing I say. :P

Every morning, breathe in deeply and then blow out again. Lots of times. Your playing will increase like hell.

Every morning, breathe in deeply and then blow out again. Lots of times. Your playing will increase like hell.

Also do it from the diaphragm as well (inhale and think about your shoulders, your shoulders should not rise with your chest if you are doing it right), it helps with support. Also, try taking in a lot a air, hold it in your diaphragm, and kneel down (standing on both feet), and bend your torso around squeezing the air in your diaphragm while holding your breath. Then try and take in another sip of air, and squeeze it again. It should begin to hurt or strain fairly quickly, not badly, of course, but you can feel your diaphragm working, and that is crucial to solid tone production.

Thanks for your opinions guys. I'm staying with trumpet, but lol I don't think there's a way I could get good enough for concert band in 2 weeks. I've got the buzzing thing down and I can get a decent sound, but I'm having trouble even getting a tone with lower notes. For instance, I can play middle g, but I can't get a good sound of it, I can play middle c, but I get a horrible sound out of it. And I can't even hit middle E or high G, which I'll both need to be able to hit if I'm going to play in concert band or heck, any band. My range right now is Low C - Middle D, but in order to really be good enough to play any standard piece, I'll need to extend my range from atleast a Low C - High G.

Do the breathing thing. Every morning or evening, or preferably both. Seriously. I did that on tuba and it really does help.

Actually, get yourself just one lesson from some really good trumpet player. Tackle the problem with them. When I did that on tuba my range immediately went up a couple of notes.

Just out of curiousity and maybe some personal benefit ( :P ), Kievins, what are some things you picked up from that session and what was and is now your range? We have two other tubas in my school and they are not the most serious, so I really don't know how I stand. Just for an idea, I can usually get pedal Bb (we're talking a BBb tuba, here) and most of the notes between that and low Bb, and I can go right up to D middle line (bass clef of course), and that's where my tone starting becoming a little pinched, but I can get up to maybe Ab, and if I use a different embourchure altogether I can get from that Ab up to maybe F above the stave, but it's very .... not lovely.

I play Eb tuba. Before my range was from Bb1 to D4 (if you were lucky), now it's from G1 to E4. Apparantly, since I already have a good low and middle register (I don't know if that is how you spell it), my high register will come. I just wish I could get to that bit sooner.

Basically, amend fingering. Do you really need to use a 1 and 2? Can you cut corners with just a three? Or on a really difficult note, I discovered that on D4, it was easier to play with 1 and 2, instead of just 2, which I normally did.

Also, the harder the note is to play, the more air you need. This kinda sounds obvious, but it's amazing how much you really need. You may need an entire lungful of air for one note, so you'd be kinda screwed if that was a really long note...

The tendancy with difficult notes is to either tense unnecessary muscles (such as shoulders), or to press the mouth closer to the mouthpiece, or both (in my case both). Don't. All the energy should be going into blowing, and getting lots of air out of the lungs very quickly. This is why breathing excercises help.

I don't know if that helped.

Lip flexibility exercises....

LIP FLEXIBILITY EXERCISES!

Don't play until your lips hurt, if they do stop and rest.

Practice frequently, not continuously.

Keep your emboshure constant.

LIP FLEXIBILITY EXERCISES!

That goes for any instrument anywhere near brass. Not so much for tuba, but for trumpet this is essential. And I came up with a good exercise for it... somewhat challenging. Start out with quarter notes (or just half notes) and gradually go faster. A pro could manage 16th notes with no problem, I would imagine. So aim for that. But more importantly, concentrate on accuracy, hitting the right notes, so your lips get used to 'lipping' the intervals. So anyways, the first set: Low C, Low C (again), mid C, low C. That's four notes. Now, repeat that over and over again, each time raising the second and fourth notes of each four up a half step. Slur everything, don't take a breath unless you really need to. So anyways, the whole thing would be: (all slurred, for lip flexibiliy, remember?) [ Moving notes of interest bolded. ]

Low C, C, mid C, low C

Low C, C# mid C, low C#

Low C, D, mid C, low D

Low C, D#, mid C, low D#

ect...

Low C, mid B, mid C, mid B

Low C, mid C, mid C, mid C

and up...

Low C, mid C, mid C#, mid C

Low C, mid C, mid D, mid C

Low C, mid C, mid D#, mid C

and the last, if you make it...

Low C, mid C, high C, mid C, and finally Low C (held for a few counts)

GREAT exercise, I find it so hard. First, try to get it just tonguing each note, then introduce the slurring little by little until you can play the whole thing slurred with a consistent embourchure and taking breaths only when absolutely necessary. This is not exactly something that you would play for your girlfriend on a starry evening, but it does what it needs to do: build lip flexibility, stability, and dexterity. This works best for trumpet, (French) horn, and baritone/euphonium treble clef.

Back to me, what do you guys reccomend doing for high notes? Right now I can BARELY hit an E or an F and haven't had any luck reaching the g above the staff yet. So basically right now I can play Low C - Middle C well, I can sometimes hit middle d, I can rarely hit middle e and I've only hit middle f a couple times, by pure chance(It's like I hit the note, but had no idea how I hit it).

MORE AIR!

Good, solid advice there, don't just rely on lips. Use air, and lots of it.

Long, low notes also help, start from the lowest note you can play and for 10 to 15 seconds, and then move up chromatically to your highest note.

Lip flexibilities, start with G to low C, then back To G and up to middle C.

Repeat with all valve combinantions going down chromatically, thus:

0-2-1-1/2 etc.

Don't expect results too quickly and don't tire your lips out too much.:D

the above advice is good. But one thing to remember is if you want to learn high notes practice high notes. Sounds stupid but its true. Do some slurs or Clarke studies in the upper register and graddually increase the range everyday. If you do this you should see some improvement.

...one thing to remember is if you want to learn high notes practice high notes. Sounds stupid but its true. ...

I'd go so far as to say: if you want to play high notes, practice low notes. Build a solid foundation and extend your comfortable range up, not the other way around. What you want is to be comfortable and flexible in all registers. By practicing high stuff, you're developing a different embouchure for that range...which is bad.

Work on having a unified sound and linking your low register with the high one, slurs from low to high will help get over the break without having to reset your embouchure...

Well yeah, but my problem right now is even REACHING those high notes. Once I know I can reach them, I'll practice getting a good tone out of them, then I'll start practicing. But yeah, basically to reach higher notes I have to blow more air? Highest I can go is middle E right now, but lol if I'm going to even play trumpet in a high school band, I'm going to have to be able to reach atleast High C. I can't even imagine how jazz players can go all the way up to high F, that must require REALLY tight lips and a helluva a lot of air.

Also, I'll definitely practice that playing low notes thing you said Robin.

If you've only been playing a month or so, you're doing fine. You can't pick up a brass instrument and expect to have a large range in a little bit of time, it takes training and practice to build endurance.

Well yeah, but my problem right now is even REACHING those high notes.

That's where building/extending the lower register up will help. And as flint mentioned, it does take time and patience to work it up. Can't blow like Maynard in the first month.

...basically to reach higher notes I have to blow more air?

Faster air. And thus, more of it.

Ah, well now I've played for a month and I can get to middle register F and hit a really bad sounding high g once. Thing is, I can only reach F's and E's in scales, so if a song started with a middle F or E I'd have difficulty with it. To play in a high school level band I'd have to atleast be able to hit high C.