Trombone History

The Trombone

Sitting in a dark room there is dead silence... all of a sudden the spotlight shoots on and there in so sorrowful ...such emotion. Such beautiful music, the audience almost mistakes the sound as a human voice. The trombone is a musical instrument that while there were many changes throughout time can be linked back through the thresholds of the universe. However there will only be time to talk about The chemical elements and their origins, the creation of music, and the evolution of brass wind instruments. First and foremost The Trombone is made of an alloy of 70% copper and 30% zinc known as yellow brass. Copper’s origin while still under debate this is one way it could have formed.
Copper may have originally formed
in a supernova and was ejected into space and eventually found itself on earth. People since have been using it in bronze, pipes pennies, and even decoration copper is also resistant to bacteria making it a good metal in instruments.
Zinc ,the other metal in brass has a similar story it was formed in a supernova but when it arrived on earth it was not found until the 1400’s in India. It took so long to find because when it is heated the metal does not go to a liquid , it goes straight to gas! Today it is used in brass, galvanizing(putting it in other metals to help it resist corrosion) and other alloys.

Next is the creation of music. Music is something humans normally think of it as a thing only people do but that’s where they are wrong, music has been around for millions of years Birds monkeys and wolves/dogs all sing together weather to attract mates warn of groups that this is their territory or just to bond. Whatever it is music is part of being an animal. But for humans some scientists say that song may have developed with the human voice. Mothers as not being able to carry their children had to set them down to do daily tasks, in turn the babies could not hold to their mothers as (45,000 year old neanderthal bone flute) chimps do, so baby talk or lullabies may have been created. time grew humans began to crave music and even non human species appeared to have enjoyed as music scientists have founds bone 45,000 years old but odds are that instruments have been made long before that. Didgeridoo makers use wood from trees that ants have hollowed out meaning that the oldest instruments have crumbled away into nothing.
As instruments evolved a horn was created using old animal horns it worked
By buzzing your lips and it vibrates the horn and creates a sound this was used in hunting in early greece to tell other hunters things from a distance.
As brass became more common instruments started to use it for it is easy to mold and shape and the medieval trumpet was created it has a more versatile sound that the animal horn design that were used in army marches but the where in only one key at a time it was hard to play melodies. The medieval trumpet slowly morphed into the sackbut, a trumpet like instrument with a slide tube to extend the length of the instrument . The sackbut was the predecessor to the trombone and had thicker tubing with a smaller bell (shown above). The sackbut had a softer sound, had no tuning slide (which is located at the top of the trombone) and yes, no spit valve it was first introduced to orchestras in the early 1800s. As time past more forms of the trombone were created like the piccolo trombone, tenor trombone, valve trombone, superbone, bass trombone, and the contrabass trombone.
Today trombones are used in Jazz, pop, classical, and other forms of music with it being able to mimic the human voice it is able to be in all types of music. The Trombone will hopefully be continue to be use for centuries to come and future generations will enjoy the instrument all all others for
eternity.