This thread is for everyone to post their stories about the greatest instrument ever devised by man…the trombone! (non-tromboners are welcom to post if it’s pertinent) I’ll start off with a story and a joke:
Why the trombones should go in front in a marching band
Like me, my dad played the trombone in Highschool in Lebanon, PA (unlike me) and their marching band would do a dip when they went around corners (I know there is a more correct term for it than that, but so help me, I can’t remember what it is). I’ll explain what I mean by dip in case it’s unclear. In a dip, you point your trombone towards the ground as you make your turn. So my dad is behind a row of flutes in a parade and they come upon a turn. He starts his dip with his slide in 6th position (pretty far out, for non-boners who wouldn’t otherwise know). He took out his slide and flute standing in front of him. And that’s the story of my dad’s first trombone.
The joke:
Trombones can do it in 7 positions; 13 if they have an F attachment!
I don’t have a trombone story, but I have a flute story . . .
We flutes were marching along with the rest of the band in some parade or other. At one point we were to hold our instruments cradled in one arm and swing them sharply from side to side as we marched. Well, my friend Jodi’s flute must have gotten a little too much spit in it, because her head joint went flying off her flute and under a parked car.
Fortunately she was able to retrieve it and get it repaired in time for that night’s concert.
The only slightly-humorous thing that popped into my head had to do with rust and skin, so I’ll keep it to myself.
Just a suggestion (especially if you may one day consider making you craft a profession):
Learn to play the valve trombone:
Granted, you don’t get that ‘slide in/slide out’ sound, but - if you learn to play it in a marching band, you won’t be goosing the people in front of you.
Plus, if you learn the valve trombone - everything (with the exception of the mouthpiece) translates very easily over to the other bass cleff brass instruments (baritone & tuba).
A car is traveling down the road, driven by a trombonist. Another car is traveling in the opposite direction, driven by a frog. What is the difference between the two?
Hey, that’s half the fun! You can’t take away my fun like that, how else am I supposed to show girls I like them?
I’ve got a couple of bone stories. We used to do march offs in high school. Once, during one of these we were playing and then we had a snap down. The tuning slide came flying off and flew across the parking lot. Nothing like not being able to play.
Another time we were playing in the cold, we did not wear gloves and my hands froze. I ended up pushing halfway down on my F-trigger, you can imagine the sound that came out, I thought that I had lost part of my bone.
Damn straight, trombones were meant for goosing. That saxophone player who sat in front of me was cute.
Worst time I had in marching band was when I had to wear uniform pants that were about 4 inches too tight around the waist (had to do with a nonexistent school band budget and a limited selection of uniforms available). I had them safety pinned shut. Halfway through a number, right in the middle of a labor day parade, the pin pinged off, leaving my pants in a southward trend. Ever try to play a trombone with one hand?
Looking back on it, I almost wish I’d stuck with it into high school. Being able to play an instrument is cool, and I would have had the right timing to get into the ska craze.
I played a trombone with an F-attachment. As Edward mentions, the big problem is your hand freezes, using the slide is much easier. (See, we always have to wear white gloves, which are in women’s sizes. They’re too tight and cut off the circulation.)
The only midly interesting trombone story I have concerns a girl nicknamed “Stubs”. She was a sax player with a thing about the spit valves. For some reason, she got the biggest “isn’t that gross” kick out of using our spit valves. She got to the point she could do it while we were playing.
Ok, gotta add my story. It’s long and probably not worth it, but hey, it’s all I have.
My high school band was marching in the University of Iowa Homecoming parade. We didn’t want to look or sound like everyone else, right? So instead of putting the trombones in front, as per usual, we lined up on the left side, one per row. The flag girls were on the outside of us, again one per row. Instead of a marching song, or heck a pop song, we went for cool and played a funky jazz tune. Oh, and instead of continuously marching, we would stop, turn 90 degrees and face the crowd, or half of it anyway. Anyhoo, it was at one of these stopping points things went awry. Imagine a big long crowd, curb, then continuous row of flag girls, then continuous row of trombones and everybody else behind them. Well at one point the flag girls are holding the flags vertical, they slant the top of the flag backwards directly behind them, and then thrust the top forward quickly. A flag pole catches a trombone slide directly behind it as she slanted it backwards. With the forward thrust she ripped the slide out of the guys hand and sent it flying, flying I tell you, deep into the crowd. Next thing I see is this guy diving into the crowd to try to find his slide.
I personally took my slide out when I had it out in 6th and I was too close to a flippin’ rifle girl. She twirled, it bent, I stopped.
Slight hijack - I kept vodka in my spray bottle for those marching competitions. Anybody else?
JohnBckWLD, thanks for your suggestion but I played the trumpet from 5th to 7th grade and I fiddled around with the baritone/euphonium in 12th grade, so I’m somewhat familiar w/valved instruments.
slortar, yes, I tried playing one-handed once, though not because of my pants. I, like every other trombone who ever tried to use a liar, discovered that trombone liars are the single most poorly designed P’s O S known to man…at least the ones I’ve had. So anyway, I went through 3 of them before I stopped wasting money on them, so any time we had to play a fight song in the stand I’d hold the music w/one hand and play with the other…
SlowMindThinking, I knew a couple girls like that in HS too…must be something about the length of the slide
Ruok’s story reminds me of one my 12th grade English teacher told us. When he was in 6th grade his band director had all the trombones play something in front of the audience. He goes to move his slide out to 6th position and ends up flinging it into the audience. A man in the audience picked his slide up and gave it back to him, but in his haste be put it on upside down.
Speaking of boning, Already in Use, remember that bass bones do it deeper!
And I forgot to include a credit in my OP…justplaindave helped me out w/the title.
I am a good friend of the thread starter, and we hold the all-time proudest moment for trombones.
Back in 8th grade, in our junior high marching band, our director thought it would be a neat idea to turn the band around and march with the flutes in front. Being the young headstrong trombone players we were, we refused to take this mother of all insults lightly. We were furious. We practiced in a school bus circle, and we just marched around the bus circle again and again. Our solution to the problem: We stayed facing our way, and marched away from the band.
Since we marched in one big oval, we eventually met the band head-on on the other side of the circle. The band kept marching, and being the stubborn men we were, we kept marching. Let me tell you, when the color guard won’t lower their banner, it’s hard to march through that. Our band director got a chuckle out of it, and we emerged victorious. He never did it again, and we had the admiration of the entire band,. When you’re 13, that’s a big deal.
The kicker of the whole story, two weeks later, the drumline thought it would be funny to pull a similar stunt, and our director (a fellow trombone player) ripped every single one of them a new one. Talk about satisfaction…
Hey, I was long enough to start boning when I was nine!
Seriously. The band instructor informed me that he wanted me for trombone, because my arms were long enough. For whatever reason, when I was a kid they were rather long for my height, and I was on the tall side to begin with.
Of course, I stopped boning when I was 13, which shows terribly misplaced priorities on my part…
My 12 year old son is in Intro to Band, learning to play the trombone. Most evenings it sounds like I have a distressed calf stashed in his bedroom. I don’t have any trombone stories yet, but as he’s been informed that for the amount of money I’m paying for that thing he’s darn well playing it at his own funeral, I’m sure I eventually will.
