The player holds a cross bar between the two lengths of
the instrument, which enables him to lengthen or shorten the slide at
pleasure, and in the bass trombone, as the stretch would be too great
for the length of a man's arm, a jointed handle is attached to the
cross bar. The player has seven positions, each a semitone apart for
elongation, and each note has its own system of harmonics, but in
practice he only occasionally goes beyond the fifth. The present
trombones are the alto in E flat descending to A in the seventh
position; the tenor in B flat descending to E; the bass in F
descending to B, and a higher bass in G descending to C sharp. Wagner,
who has made several important innovations in writing for bass brass
instruments, requires an octave bass trombone in B flat; an octave
lower than the tenor one, in the "Nibelungen." The fundamental tones
of the trombone are called "pedal" notes. They are difficult to get
and less valuable than harmonics because, in all wind instruments,
notes produced by overblowing are richer than the fundamental notes in
tone quality. Valve trombones do not, however, find favor, the defects
of intonation being more prominent than in shorter instruments.
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