As the leader of a company that has delivered severall hundred arrangments over the course of the last 3 years, I have had the opportunity to look at tons and tons of arrangements from perspective, current and former arrangers.
There's one thing I have noticed a lot from arrangers from the South (South of NC) but not necessarliy including Florida.
Trombone players in the south end up playing the most terrible parts.
I find that a large portions of arrangers almost never utilize the full capabilities of the instrument.
Trombones seem to always play whole notes, half notes, and quarter notes. I have even seen arrangers give the entire wind ensemble an 8th note or 16th run but leave the trombones out of that completely.
Don't get me wrong, as a trombone player myself, I have played my fair share or half notes and whole notes, but there were very few songs that I played where my instrument didn't have the melody at some point.
Some arrangers only use the trombone to play introductory melodies for male singers and then put the trombone on the chords for the rest of the arrangement no matter what happens with the song.
On the otherhand, as a trombone player I had the opportunity to play tenor-ranged melodies, alto-ranged melodies, baritone-ranged melodies, counter-melodies and even bass lines. When I played chords, the chords wouldn't always be in the same range of the instrument. The arranger would utilize the full range of the horn.
This is not an arranging topic though. This topic is towards other trombones players.
Why do you accept this? If I played in some bands, I probably would switched instruments long ago. Why would I come to practice day after day to play quarter notes and whole notes when I can play baritone and play cool melody and power parts all the time? Why would I work hard to be a first trombone player when even the beginner baritone player has better parts?
Don't you guys in the south know that you don't have to be relegated to the wind instrument version of the piano or the brass instrument version of the bagpipes drone?
I'm just saying...Do you like playing chords ALL the time?
The Prunester...C'mon let's start the revolution!
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