My daughter has been given a new trombone piece to work on over the two-week holidays. She looked at about the first four lines in her lesson and one bar has a D above middle C which her teacher pencilled in to play in 4th position (rather than 1st position which was how she was playing them until now). There are quite a lot of other Ds in the piece with no position marked and I asked my daughter where she is supposed to be playing them and she said she couldn't remember what her teacher said.

What is the logic behind deciding which position you use?

I thought the alternative slide positions were a bit like e.g alternative flute fingerings; you use them depending on what makes the note before and the note after easier to play. So on the trombone, if you had an F followed by the D that you mention, then you'd play them both in first position. But if the next note was a G flat, perhaps it would be easier to play the D in fourth- position, to make the transition to 5th easier?

It is a bit odd that her teacher hasn't been through the piece with her and pencilled the others in - unless the one that is pencilled in is the only one that needs to be played in 1st pos'n (i.e. differently) and the others are supposed to be played in 4th- as she usually does?

Only guessing here based on my very limited experience of my son's trombone playing; he is on a mission to learn to play all the notes from the chart at the back of the book, but has no desire to learn about note values or rhythm - hopefully an expert will be along soon to give us a better answer

The one he pencilled in is B,C,D,C so that would make sense. I'll go and look at the rest in more detail tomorrow.


He ran out of time in her lesson. (She had already had 40 minutes instead of 30) and she told me he had explained to her and even asked her if she was sure she would remember when she got home. (She remembers that much just not the vital bit ). I think, actually, that she is just used to me being able to explain things at home (cello is, for the time being, similar enough to violin for me to be able to work out most fingerings and bowings) and trombone until now has been rhythm problems (which again I can explain), so she didn't pay too much attention.


Which book is he using? My daughter has drawn a circle round each note at the back of her tutor book as she has learnt them. This is her second piece of "real" music and she got the tutor book back out to draw a circle round the D in 4th position

Hmmm! I'd play the D in 4th position if there are any fast bits around the bit you said BCDC. It means that she doesn't have to go 4313 but can instead just play 4343 which is alot easier and also it means the tuning would be better as you are playing a harmonic in the same position whereas if you were originally flat or sharp...the as soon as you got to position 1 then you'll be out of tune....

He has Bruce Pearson's "Standard of Excellence" Comprehensive Band Method, I think it's called, and spends most of his time studying the back page which has the position chart on it. He has Tourettes and ASD so we often tend to let him do his "own thing" as long as it it is not disruptive, the mission to learn the slide position for every note is typical of the things he does - obsessive focus on one element of something, almost to the exclusion of every other aspect. He plays lots of tunes by ear and is keeping up with the rest of the group in his lessons OK by doing this. I don't think his teacher knows how many notes he can play beyond the ones he is supposed to know!

He will come unstuck when he moves to individual lessons though, and I imagine sight-reading will not be easy for him unless he develops an obsession for theory at some point in the future

Hope your daughter has fun with her new piece over the holiday!

The only reason that I can think off at the moment for the alternate slide position is that it is easier to play D in that position rather than at first (If her slide is at 3rd of 6th position it would make sense) or that her Ds come out very flat/sharp

so called alternate positions are an important part of every trombone players knowledge. We use them all the time.

Therefore every teacher should inform of there use on an as you need to know when basis!