On Jun 23, 2006, at 1:50 PM, Andrew Stiller wrote:
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.
The F bass trombone that Forsythe mentions (and he IS the only one who
mentions it that I can find, besides you in your book, Andrew! Buncha
wimps!) is no doubt the ancestor to the one that my pals are calling an
F contrabass. Perhaps the modern F instrument has a wider bore than the
one in 1914 had, plus a valve or two, but this is no different than the
Bb trombone getting wider over time and acquiring a valve.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trombone#Contrabass_trombone
http://www.contrabass.com/pages/cbtbn.html
http://www.basstrombone.nl/default.asp?subj=contrabasstrombone
http://www.yeodoug.com/articles/trombone_gallery/trombone_gallery.html
This last link shows Douglas Yeo's instrument collection, which
includes an F straight bass trombone and an F contrabass trombone (with
two valves), both in exactly the same pitch!
As I said, I don't know why the nomenclature changed from bass trombone
to contrabass trombone when denoting the modern instrument. Possibly to
avoid confusion over the instrument in Bb that we all call a bass
trombone now. A similar thing happened with the tenor horn, called
baritone horn in North America.
Christopher
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