I am starting to worry that I am filling this site with boring exercises, but there´s no way around the fact that there´s a lot of hard work involved if you want to be a top performer on a brass instrument. Football players don´t kick a ball around all the time at practice…

With that in place: Let´s do something about fun and adventurous world of lip trills. Regardless of the genre you play, they will be needed at some point.

Start the exercise on 1st position and work your way out to 7th. And tomorrow you start at 7th and go up to 1st position. Deal?

There is not much more to be said about this exercise. Just go for it!

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The world famous architect Norman Foster was hired to design the new elephant house at the Copenhagen Zoo a few years ago. Living close to the Zoo I could see the project evolve, and it struck me that they couldn´t possibly have a grand opening without an Elephanfare!

I contacted the Zoo and tried to sell them my idea. To make sure I had something to bargain with, I sad that I needed 6 trombones and two tubas, knowing that they would negotiate it down to half the number.

To my great surprise read more »

Having good flexibility on your brass instrument is fundamental. In basically all music you will play, you will find use for the flexibility skills you worked on in the practise room. Not always the most fancy and exciting work, but someone has to do it – and I´m afraid that someone is you. And me. And all the other brass players out there.

The exercise
Working on control and precision is important, but you should work on speed as well. This exercise really help you speed up your flexibility chops. The pattern I have chosen as example is by no mean my own, but at the other hand it is well known and I doubt that someone will come after me and claim ownership to it! Of course, you can use any pattern you want, but this one is well suited to play in a high tempo. read more »

I don´t really like to practise. It´s lonely and can be quite boring from time to time. That is one of the main reasons I wrote this book – to make practising more fun!

The concept of the book is simple: Every etude is composed as an improvised jazz solo, written over the chords from a famous jazz standard. And every etude consists of two parts; easy/medium and advanced, each divided into numbered choruses. Two of the etudes are written as a duet for two trombones.

You can play the etudes alone, with a piano player, a full rhythm section or find the relevant songs on a play-along cd (not included). The idea is to let you expand your jazz vocabulary, and play music that really fits the instrument. read more »

After hours of tweaking and fine tuning, the digitaltrombone web shop is now launched! Opening hours are Monday-Sunday 9.00am-9.00am CET. All year. Always!

The shop will offer books and sheet music in PDF format, covering a wide variety of subjects such as:

FAQ:
?: Do I have to buy something when I visit the store?
!: No, but I strongly recommend it.
?: Can I return purchased items?
!: No, you cannot return a digital product, but feel free to send me a nasty email with your complaints.
?: Is there any other web shop in the world that can compete with the digitaltrombone shop?
!: No. I don´t think so.
?: Are your products safe?
!: Yes, very. All our downloadable products are animal tested and guaranteed allergy free.
?: What if my friends are interested in the product I just bought?
!: Tease them with it and send them to the shop. Giving them the product would be stupid. And illegal. And bad for business.
?: Can I become an affiliate marketer of your products?
!: Yes you can. More info here
?: Will that make me rich?
!: Probably not. Maybe a little.
?: My recently purchased PDF file has a peculiar smell to it. What can I do?
!: Switch to mac.

It was supposed to be a simple little exercise, didn´t expect it to end up covering nine pages of sheet music!

This is an exercise about the different types of triads and their inversions. Triads are a fundamental part of western music, both classical, jazz and pop/rock etc. You don´t need a bachelor in triadism to spot the difference between major and minor, but when you include the different inversion, mix minor, major, augmented and diminished it can be a bit more tricky to tell them apart. read more »

Maybe you read my previous article with scale exercises? Then let´s move on with the same concept using the altered scale!

I find the altered scale to be very useful when I improvise. It has more edge and tension than any mode of the major scale. And it´s very useful over a large variety of chords.

first, here´s the scale in the key of C:

It consists of the root, b9, #9, major third, #11, b6, and the b7. These are all notes you use in an altered dominant chord. As a matter of fact, you can play all the notes in the scale at once, creating a C7 b9 #11 b13. read more »

It doesn´t matter if you play jazz or classical music. Being really familiar with the major scales in all twelve keys is very useful, both for improvising and reading music. You should get to the point where you don´t have to think about the notes in the scale any longer and can play it up and down while planning the dinner! read more »

Doesn´t that sound nice, improving your playing in five minutes! Well, this exercise will not actually make you play trombone better, but it will help you get the most out of what you already know.

As I have written before, getting the airflow up and running in a relaxed manner really helps you get a good response on the horn. This small warmup and breathing exercise is all about that. read more »

Do you know your minor pentatonic scales? And I mean really know them, up and down and inside out? I recommend that you spend some time with those five tones in all keys. It is a great way to build up your technical skills on the instrument and learn to find your way around the instrument.

Pentatonic scale or blues scale? There´s a important difference. The blues scale is identical to the pentatonic scale, but it also consists of the b5 (or #11). So pentatonic scale has five notes and the blues scale has six. This post is about the pentatonic scale, and how to use it. I´ll get back to the blues scale later on.
read more »