Trombones and Voice

This past Monday, the community band played in town for the Memorial Day event where the names were read out of all those from Orange county who gave their lives on foreign battlefields. We played a couple of Sousa marches, the national anthem, a medley of "America the Beautiful" and "God Bless America" and then another Sousa march. 

Afterwards I had the Kenwood Players, the band director and his wife and the two trombones from C'ville who come down to play with us all out here for lunch and music making. We had a great time and the music making session was terrific, as both trombone players are very good.

I had a musical epiphany singing unamplified with the two tubas, soprano sax, trumpet and the two trombones and my guitar. I was half facing the trombones, and when I had the intonation right at full voice I could feel the sound waves from the trombones and my voice blending in such a way it was almost as if the trombone sound connected with my diaphragm. There was almost the sense of body surfing on/in the sound waves. It's the most tactile I've ever felt music.

This all reminded me that the trombone was used nearly exclusively to double voices during its early history, and after this experience it's very clear why that was.