Bill Watrous - Trombonisms (book/Audio download)

Publisher: Carl Fischer
Text by Bill Watrous & Alan Raph

Oriented towards the jazz and commercial tenor or bass trombone player, this book is a set of 47 one-page "units," each with a few short exercises on each concept. Unlike many technique books, this book does not just present a series of large etudes with many technical problems.
Instead, each unit focuses on a specific trombonistic technical issue (lip-break articulations, glissando, chord progressions, etc). It also contains a nice section on "doodle" tonguing.
The included demo CD contains recorded examples by Watrous (tenor) and Raph (bass) of most of the exercises.

1. Controlling the air stream
2. Overtone series
3. Playing fast, clean and in tune
4. Alternate positions
5. Lip-break articulations
6. Overtone chart
7. Arpeggio Patterns
8. Double and triple tonguing
9. Development of da-dl-a-dl
10. Development choices
11. Playing very high notes
12. Playing very low notes
13. Playing very long notes/circular breathing
14. Playing more than one note
15. The buzz portamento/glissando
16. Vibrato
17. F-attachment(ism)
18. Unusual sounds
19. General considerations/hints for practising
20. Appendix

Sample Pages

• Bill Watrous - Trombonisms
• The Music of Bill Watrous