Customer Reviews

The Art of Trombone Playing

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It is not by accident that Mr. Edwin Kleinhammer's name appears on many, many symphony musicians' bios. There are plenty of outstanding players, but "teaching" world class artists is another thing. CSO artists Mr. Kleinhammer and the late Mr. Arnold Jacobs and the late Mr. Frank Crisafulli have trained innumerable (global) lower brass artists for well over thirty years each. I have had the pleasure of receiving a group lesson from Mr. Kleinhammer with two others and individual instruction from the late gentleman's gentleman Mr. Frank Crisafulli. What about the book? Mr. Kleinhammer states in his book that he strongly encourages lessons, but at the "worst" the book can self-teach the reader...this is NOT an exaggeration. His highly detailed diagrammed/photo-filled pages on embouchure alone can not be replicated in any other text, they are worth the price of the book by themselves. The (paperback) text includes HIGHLY practical sections on breathing, tone, range, slide technique/legatto (when to use "loo" vs. "doo", etc), intonation control, daily exercises and the cruicial tongue-ing and concurrent air flow (emphasize the "air" get the flappy thing out of the way) mistakes of even advanced amateur players. If you "see" the pros calmy whip through a passage of a rapid Rimsky-Korsakov, for example, without jerking the slide or doing face contortions, etc. you're seeing all of Mr. Kleinhammer's book suggestions put into motion..this level of 1st flight pro does "make it" look easy. Go see a Joe Alessi, an outstanding jazz trombonist as well as the NY Phily first chair, and you'll see what I mean.
The book contains also contains a concise section on trombone prep. literature including Clarke, Arban, Blazhevich, Carl Fischer, Rochut (Melodious Etudes Book III--a masterpiece of symph. prep.in my opinion), and all the significant classic solos and ensemble pieces.
Again, Mr. Kleinhammer correctly mentions throughout the book that the student needs models to listen to, pattern after..simply put he's talking about "recordings" (not necessarily concert halls as you will not be able to sufficiently pick out the passage)Get the Ralph Sauer (Audition excerpt)or Christian Lindberg CDs and listen, and listen some more.. The student who gets on this early in the game combined with this book and a decent brass teacher will be far ahead of the game.
Another suggestion is to tune into the current Boston Symphony bass trombonist's website, Doug Yeo, he provides some fabulous suggestions and advice. (Mr. George Krem, Mr. Yeo's first college played with me in Wheaton, IL. He has served as the Chicago Civic Orchestra, Winnepeg & Victoria Canada and now Cedar Rapids, IA principal. He also has a CD out, taught at the U of Iowa for 12 years after being taught himself by Mr. Keith Brown a legendary Phily Orch. trombonist. Mr. Krem is a very fine teacher and artist). This book, with some good CDs to model after and a decent brass teacher (doesn't have to be "lower" brass teacher frankly) will provide some distinct advantages in accelerating your progress. ...

It may be too in depth for a young preteen or below, but this book gives you insight to things you may have thought about, but now you actually know for sure. you get a model of all the muscles in your face, and there are explanations on each part of trombone playing like producing sound, slide movement, breathing. It's really old text, but i've been looking for a book like this for a long time.

Very thorough text. This is not another exercise book. Instead it is more of a reference source including all of the technical data one might need to solve problems or answer questions. There are a few basic exercises here, but mostly it is very dry reading. Very much to the point. I found it very helpful as all the books in this series tend to be.

the book is a little too intence,academical and advance for the beginner.demonstrations and simplification for the beginner is much needed,as a result it boring for the beginner.