Trombone lesson:
Let your chops do the work (not your body)
The goal of this lesson is simple: avoid unnecessary muscle force and focus on using correct air support instead. This approach will:
- make your lips buzz more freely 👄
- build up endurance 💪
- improve flexibility 🤸♂️
- make your trombone sing all day 🎶
Try this trick: hold your trombone slide up in front of you and pretend to bend it. (I said pretend—don’t actually bend it!) This will activate all the muscles in your upper body that you shouldn’t be using while playing.
So, how do you make sure not to engage these muscles or play with brute force? Let your chops do the work!
Take a deep breath, allowing your belly (not your chest) to expand. Turn on your airflow, and start playing. From here, focus solely on changing notes with your embouchure. Adjustments in airflow will naturally occur as you move up and down the trombone range.
Trust your air support to handle these adjustments automatically. It usually does a better job on its own than if you try to take control manually.
I’ve put together a selection of free exercises to support this approach, but letting your chops do the hard work is general advice applicable to all your trombonial activities.
You may experience chop fatigue a bit sooner than usual—this is an indicator that your chops are doing the work, and it’s a good thing.
Make sure to take short rests when needed; otherwise, you’ll risk relying on force to give your chops a break.
This approach is useful for players of all levels:
INT Intermediate level
ADV Advanced level
PRO Professional level
Trombone sheet music content
The 9 pages of trombone exercises for this lesson are excerpts from the extensive catalog of Digitaltrombone sheet music.
- Flexibility: skipping notes – page 1-2
- Articulation endurance race – page 3
- Large intervals flexibility – page 4
- Major triads – expanding range – page 6
- Working on large intervals – page 7-9
Slide on,
Anders Larson,
founder of digitaltrombone.com
Want access the largest online collection of high-quality trombone sheet music and exercises for free?
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