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I was watching a lot of college football on TV today (and last evening) and noticed that many trombone players (especially the Wisconsin band) are holding their instrument by the bell instead of the fixed crossbar. Is this some new trend in bone posture or just a bit of show?

David Richoux wrote:I was watching a lot of college football on TV today (and last evening) and noticed that many trombone players (especially the Wisconsin band) are holding their instrument by the bell instead of the fixed crossbar. Is this some new trend in bone posture or just a bit of show?

Just a guess (I'm a trombone player) that it's for stability while marching.

They also hold it that way when they are in their seats, and it looked to me that all of the Wisconsin players were doing it.

I have not seen this before. None of the bone players here at NDSU do it, nor would we let them if they started to do it.

My sister was asking me about that too (I guess she thought that since I'm a band director I would know...). I also have no idea what it is or why they would do it. All I can say is that I didn't watch that game for very long....

I don't know exactly how they are doing it, but I hold my bell every now and then when playing to stretch out my am.

Here is a recent picture of the Wisconsin bone section - looks like they are all doing it.

When using a flip folder, holding the folder against the bell with the left hand (with the music flipped over onto the visible side of the bell) works a lot better than using a lyre (it's what we would do in marching band until the music was memorized). Maybe this is a hold over from that?

David Richoux wrote:Here is a recent picture of the Wisconsin bone section - looks like they are all doing it.

Maybe it is something about symmetry, at least in the pic they are all also playing in 3rd position in which left and right hands are at equal distance from the body