The bass trombone is the bass instrument in the trombone family of brass instruments. Modern instruments are pitched in the same B♭ as the tenor trombone but with a larger bore, bell and mouthpiece to facilitate low register playing, and usually two valves to fill in the missing range immediately above the pedal tones.

History

thumb|Trombones in [[Syntagma Musicum (1614–20), by Michael Praetorius]]

The earliest bass trombones were pitched a minor third, fourth, or fifth below the tenor, which was then pitched in A. They had a smaller bore and less flared bell than modern instruments, and a longer slide with an attached handle to allow slide positions otherwise beyond the reach of a fully outstretched arm. These bass sackbuts were sometimes called , , and (Old German, , referring to intervals below the tenor), though sometimes quartposaune was used generically to refer to any size of bass trombone.

The earliest known surviving specimen is an instrument built in France in 1593 pitched in G (modern A=440 Hz). Other late 16th and early 17th-century specimens of basses survive by Nuremberg makers Anton Schnitzer, Isaac Ehe, and Hans and Sebastian Heinlein. These instruments match descriptions and illustrations by Praetorius from his 1614–20 Syntagma Musicum, by which time he only described basses in E or D (modern F or E), a fourth or a fifth below the tenor, and an which referred to a very large, rare, and unwieldy predecessor of the contrabass trombone.

Based on Praetorius' descriptions, Canadian trombonist and early music specialist Maximilien Brisson proposes that a with an extra whole-tone crook resulted in an instrument in C, capable of playing down to the lowest G open string of the G Violone. By the late 17th century, the bass sackbut was mainly in D; German scholar and composer Daniel Speer only saw fit to mention the in his 1687 Grundrichtiger Unterricht treatise.

thumb|center|upright=2|The earliest known bass trombone, built in G by Pierre Colbert, Reims, 1593. Rijksmuseum, Netherlands In British military and brass bands, the G bass trombone became standard, built largely by makers [[Besson (music company)|Besson, Boosey & Co., and Hawkes & Son (and later, Boosey & Hawkes) with no valves and a slide handle for reaching the longer sixth and seventh positions. The sight of the G bass trombone in the front rank of marching bands, with the player extending the long-handled slide, led to its "kidshifter" nickname, as if clearing a path for the band through the crowds.

Instruments were made as early as 1869 in France with a Quartventil valve attachment in D, which extends the low register below D♭, the lowest (non-pedal) note in seventh position. British orchestras began to employ them from the early twentieth century. In 1932, Boosey & Hawkes introduced a "Betty" model, named after Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra bass trombonist William Betty, with a D valve and a second longer tuning slide for C (to obtain the low A♭ above the first pedal G). While British composers, writing for a G bass trombone without a valve, avoided writing below D♭ between 1850 and 1950, the D (or C) valve allowed British orchestral players to play European repertoire written with bass trombones in F or E♭ in mind.

In the 1950s, some American orchestral players had double-valve instruments custom-built, and these designs were eventually adopted by manufacturers. In 1961, American maker Vincent Bach released their double-valve "50B2" model with a second dependent E valve (later E♭ and D), based on an instrument modified in 1956 for the bass trombonist with Minneapolis Symphony.

George Roberts (affectionately known as "Mr. Bass Trombone") was one of the first players to champion the solo possibilities of the instrument. One of the first major classical solo works for the instrument was the Concerto for Bass Trombone by Thom Ritter George.

Images

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File:F bass.jpg|Bass trombone in F

File:BassTrombone.jpg|Bass trombone in E♭

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References

Bibliography

  • - Douglas Yeo's Trombone Web Site (registered 1996) is a comprehensive resource for trombone, and bass trombone in particular