valve trombone

[MaryAnn]

Tell me about valve trombones. Ok, they have valves and not a slide, so intonation is restricted; and I "assume" they have the pretty much cylindrical bore that trombones have. Detriments, advantages? Not much to say about them? Are there four valve ones? Who would use one?

[Dan Schultz]

A Holton 'superbone' gives one the ability to use valves AND a slide at the same time.

[tofu]

I've seen them a lot in Banda groups, jazz bands, funk groups, marching bands and even in a polka band occasionally. When I saw Maynard Ferguson live once years ago he used one for a couple of songs. I ended up with one years ago when I bought a tuba at a violin auction. It was 400 violins, a tuba and a valve trombone. (insert joke here)

So they bundled the tuba & trombone and sold them together. Nobody was there to buy either so I ended up with both for next to nothing. Made a huge profit selling the tuba and I kept the valve trombone. It is actually fun to play and it plays really well in tune. I don't know if that is true for most of them. It plays like a baritone with the sound of a trombone. I'd imagine a lot of brass doublers who don't want to master a slide trombone would find them useful. I'm pretty sure I've seen 4 valve versions.

[Donn]

Trombonists always want one with a bigger bore, and then they kind of hate it. Ordinary valve trombone should have been called trumperoni or something, in my opinion, because the nominal connection with trombone is confusing.

[Yane]

I bought one cheap, a Getzen Elkhorn; probably not an example of the best of the breed. It played OK but I found it very uncomfortable to hold due the angle of my right wrist. I'd suggest you try one and play it for more than just a few minutes to see if you like the ergonomics.

[Radar]

I've tried a couple of valve trombones, and they have a couple issues you have to overcome. The ones I played were very small bore, and it was hard to get a big sound out of them, they just seemed to sound stuffy. The other issue I had with the ones I played is they didn't have a 3rd valve kicker like you would find on a trumpet to help with intonation so you had to adjust with you chops. I've mostly seen them used by Euphonium or Baritone players who want to play in a stage band, or other Jazz ensemble. There are probably some valve trombones out there that don't have the limitations I've encountered, my experience with them is limited. I have been intrigued by the superbone and would like to give one a whirl, I think I could really do some interesting stuff with it in a small jazz ensemble.

[Donn]

Just wondering if anyone knew what Juan Tizol played, and whether it was the stuffy kind, I surfed with little success. Best anyone seems to know, it was pitched in C, so while I'm going to assume it was stuffy as all get out, there's no real evidence. The interesting thing I didn't know about, though, was the trombone valide, a superbone-like thing that Conn made for a while. Tizol also played that. The slide was reportedly somehow in a different place relative to the valves, but I could not scare up a picture.

[MaryAnn]

I can't play anything right now, but will comment that "stuffy" doesn't matter to someone who is a competent (french) horn player. Stuffy is where we live.