Sunday, January 25, 2009

Doubling on Bass and Tenor trombone

My current challenge is the necessity of playing bass and tenor trombone at an equally high level. I have heard that this is a difficult undertaking. I seem to be doing it OK right now. The main thing is to just treat the bass and the tenor trombone as separate instruments and practice equally on both. My strategy is to do my daily routine on bass and on tenor alternating days. I have to play bass on Tuesday and Thursday; I have to play tenor on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. My current schedule is to practice bass Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. I practice both on Sunday. Monday, Wednesday and Friday are my tenor trombone days. I am not really having any problems going from tenor to bass. Bass to tenor causes issues for me. It is physically painful for me to play tenor after playing bass. I have listened to recordings of myself switching. My sound doesn't seem to be suffering when I switch. It is just painful. I think that my tendency to manipulate my embouchure to produce notes on tenor is the cause of the pain. On bass I can play all my music without manipulating or using a lot of pressure. I have to use more pressure on tenor to get a good sound (especially in the low range). I think that is why it is painful for me to play tenor after playing bass. Pain is my only real problem with doubling right now. I will keep reporting on different strategies i am using to double.

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