Instrument
Trombone
The only common orchestral instrument that changes pitch with a sliding tube instead of valves.
The trombone is the brass family's outlier: instead of valves rerouting air through extra tubing, a trombonist changes pitch by physically sliding a U-shaped section of tube in and out, lengthening or shortening the air column directly. That mechanism gives the trombone a genuinely continuous glide between pitches (a glissando) that valved brass instruments like the trumpet can't reproduce cleanly. The name is Italian for "large trumpet."
How the slide works
Players think of the slide in seven positions, from fully closed (first position) to almost fully extended (seventh), each lowering the pitch a little further; combined with the notes available through lip tension, those positions cover the instrument's whole range. Because the slide can stop at any point along its length rather than jumping between fixed valve positions, a skilled player can also produce smooth pitch bends unavailable to valved brass - a technique composers have exploited for both comic sliding effects and eerie, unsettling ones. Tuning is entirely in the player's arm and ear.
A sacred and ceremonial history
Historically, the trombone kept a strong association with sacred and ceremonial music (it was a mainstay of church and civic brass ensembles well before becoming a regular orchestral fixture), and composers have long used its combination of power and dignity for solemn or triumphant passages alike. Its design changed remarkably little over that long history: Renaissance-era trombones (then called sackbuts) already used the same telescoping slide principle as the modern instrument, and composers like Giovanni Gabrieli were writing multi-choir brass music featuring them in Venice well before the trombone had any regular place in an opera or symphony orchestra.
That church association lingered. Mozart used trombones for the supernatural and the sacred - in his Requiem and for the statue that drags Don Giovanni to hell - and when Beethoven brought three trombones into the finale of his Fifth Symphony, it was one of the first times they had appeared in a symphony. From then on, they became a regular part of the Romantic orchestra.
In the orchestra and beyond
The standard orchestral section uses two tenor trombones and one bass trombone, the latter built with a wider bore and extra tubing to reach comfortably down into the lowest register alongside the tuba. Together, the trombones often play solemn chorales - Brahms gives them a famous one in the finale of his First Symphony.
Outside the orchestra, the trombone became a star of jazz, from New Orleans "tailgate" playing to the big bands of Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey, and of brass bands and military bands everywhere.
Famous trombone moments
- Mozart - Requiem, the "Tuba mirum" solo.
- Beethoven - Symphony No. 5, finale.
- Brahms - Symphony No. 1, the chorale in the finale.
- Mahler - Symphony No. 3, the long, declamatory trombone solos of the first movement.
- Ravel - Boléro, with its high, sliding solo.
- Stravinsky - Pulcinella, a comic duet for trombone and double bass.
Where to start listening: the trombone-led "Tuba mirum" of Mozart's Requiem, and the trombone-heavy "Dies irae" of Verdi's, show the instrument's weightier, more solemn character. The famous trombone solos in the first movement of Mahler's Symphony No. 3 show its declamatory, almost vocal side instead.