At 3:17 PM -0400 6/7/07, Christopher Smith wrote:
And may I point out the ridiculous juxtaposition of the names "bass trombone" which was applied to an instrument with a G fundamental, whereas an instrument with an F fundamental suddenly becomes a "contrabass trombone".
Never heard an F bass called a contrabass, not when there are actual BBb contrabasses. That wold make an instrument in G, F, or Eb a bass, not a contrabass. I've seen two BBb contrabass trombones, and played one of them. The one in the Conn Museum had doubled slides (4 slides moving together instead of 2), so the positions were the same as a Bb tenor. The one I've played was at Indiana University, a Bach BBb contrabass VALVE trombone, which was an awful instrument, very stuffy, basically a big mistake!!
The instrument names inherited from the renaissance and baroque are tenor sackbutt or trombone in Bb or C, alto sackbutt or trombone in Eb or F, above the tenor, and bass sackbutt in Eb or F, below the tenor. Those are the instruments Mozart wrote for, mostly doubling his choral alto, tenor and bass parts, but that was standard usage going back at least to early Schütz. And those became the 19th century orchestral trombones, alto, tenor and bass. I believe (but can't cite a source) that the G bass was used mainly in England, but I may be wrong. Ray probably knows that part of the history a lot better than I do.
John -- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
