On Jun 22, 2006, at 4:43 PM, Christopher Smith wrote:
A simplex bass trombone is an instrument in F.
Did you mean to say G? I thought we had established that the F bass
trombone is called a contrabass, for no apparent reason.
Hokay; time to call in the experts. Cecil Forsythe, writing from
England in 1914, says "In this country the Bass-Trombone, both for
orchestral and military purposes, is always built in G... On the
continent the Bass Trombone has always been built in F... and it has
always been the practice from Mozart and Beethoven's time till the
present day to write down to the low C. Passages where this note
occurs have usually to be altered or transposed by our players."
Now, I'm no great expert in the fine details of trombone history, but I
do know that American practice almost always follows
continental-European tradition because it was folks from those
countries who in the 19th c. became most of our instrument builders,
our music teachers, and our conductors (and composers: A. P. Heinrich
[1781-1861] routinely takes the bass trombone down to C). I think,
too, that it is certain beyond question that the F trigger was invented
specifically to allow a tenor trombone to temporarily become a bass--in
F. The joining of the two instruments into one made the distinction
between trombone and bass trombone largely trivial for anyone but a
trombonist.
As far as the contrabass trombone goes, I think I'm going to wander
over to the contrabass list and see what those folks have to say. I'll
report back.
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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