How many months of an hour a day practice would it take a raw beginner to get to playing high school jazz charts?
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A Trombone question
- Thread starter Downunderwonder
- Start date
I don't know that it was any hour a day, but it took me 4 years - of course, that might have been due to the fact that I started playing in 5th grade and high school didn't start until 9th grade. 
(what, no trombone smiley!?)
Is the beginner familiar with music, or is this the first instrument? That would make a large difference, potentially. Learning trombone and music is a different task than learning trombone but already knowing music.
On a realism basis, I would advise aiming for 15 minutes or more, rather than an hour. I'd much rather have a student do 15 minutes daily than blow off practice for not having an hour to spare (or just not feeling up for an hour.) Also, an hour is definitely too much when starting on a brass instrument - stop when your lip gets tired. Work UP towards an hour, but concentrate a heck of a lot more on picking up the horn daily than on picking it up for an hour.
...and then, it will depend on the band (how hard is it to get into?, how challenging is the selection of tunes?); it will also depend on instruction, if any, or lack of it, if none.
In all honesty, when I started playing in Jazz band I played a valve trombone (despite starting on slide) which helped me keep up with the fast changes. After a year or so I went back to slide, as I got better at it.
(what, no trombone smiley!?)Is the beginner familiar with music, or is this the first instrument? That would make a large difference, potentially. Learning trombone and music is a different task than learning trombone but already knowing music.
On a realism basis, I would advise aiming for 15 minutes or more, rather than an hour. I'd much rather have a student do 15 minutes daily than blow off practice for not having an hour to spare (or just not feeling up for an hour.) Also, an hour is definitely too much when starting on a brass instrument - stop when your lip gets tired. Work UP towards an hour, but concentrate a heck of a lot more on picking up the horn daily than on picking it up for an hour.
...and then, it will depend on the band (how hard is it to get into?, how challenging is the selection of tunes?); it will also depend on instruction, if any, or lack of it, if none.
In all honesty, when I started playing in Jazz band I played a valve trombone (despite starting on slide) which helped me keep up with the fast changes. After a year or so I went back to slide, as I got better at it.
Assume reading high school charts ability already achieved but no brass time.
That depends on how old one is, as in, how long before they get to high school.
I thought the answer was always 42.
Too many variables to give a reasonable answer. Some people have a natural lip, some develop one in days or weeks, some never do. How good is their ear? A slide trombone is like a fretless in that respect.
buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
Really depends on the person. In high school, my last year, in order to play in the stage band, you had to play in another band. For the winter concert I played the tube part on EB, for the spring part I learned enough tuba on my own to use that.
Adults playing mostly high school difficulty level charts on the theory it's better to sound tight than flashy.
There's no objective answer to this question.
This is my experience. Natural lip and having some natural rhythm could get a person there real quick, like months. Especially with a good ear. I have a good ear and grew up playing valved brass instruments but could pull off a slide trombone with a week of shaking off the rust because I merely needed to tap into the muscle memory for each position.
However, without a natural lip it still wouldn't be too bad, but lip fatigue can be a huge factor. IIRC a lot of jazz guys back in the day used "pea horn" trombones that we're much easier to reach and sustain the higher notes than traditional and extended range trombones (ones with rotary valves).
I would recommend lessons to learn the proper tongue technique, which can be crucial on trombone vs a valved brass horn. Also learning proper embouchure for lips help for timbral changes.
OK, we've arrived at a music-reading adult, with lessons available, which gives me somewhat better hope that the daily practice might be a reality (but really, overdoing it when starting is a BAD thing and will do more harm than good.) I will further suggest that if you (or the adult in question) can manage twice a day separated by at least an hour, that 30 minutes that way will do more good than 60 minutes in one chunk. That does not apply as much to group practice, and it's also impractical for group practice, but on an individual basis there are diminishing returns as you stretch the practice session out longer (IMnsHO.)
Slide trombone is effectively like fretless, but with different rules - rather than strings you have the tension on the lip, and due to the wonders of physics the series are not always as predictable as you would think - so you want a good position chart (I probably have one someplace if I can find it, or you can get them from the internet, it's just that some on the internet are lacking alternate positions that you should know about, so you can play efficiently when needed. If you (or the adult in question) are "on your own" in this day and age, I would suggest having a microphone-type tuner (I use an android phone for the purpose with "DaTuner Lite" as the app) up and running during practice to try and get on-track with where things really are, lip and hand-wise - but don't make it a crutch - the goal is to get that stuff in your muscle memory and ear. Perhaps put it behind you, or at least so far to the side that you have to deliberately turn to look at it. Getting some regular lessons would be very helpful when starting, since you say those are possible.
Taking a wild stab at providing some answer despite it being "still subject to considerable variation":
If the whole group is in a similar place, I'd do some careful chart selection (and a limited number therof) and aim no earlier than December/January, but also not much later than February or you'll all get bored with noodling by yourselves and/or with each other. Certainly in my memory of HS Jazz band there were easy and harder charts, though I guess the hardest one I recall did involve going to a more-authentic source for the chart, even though we were a HS Jazz band. Point being that the easy ones can still sound good, even without being the most difficult things to play, and actually playing them is the way you get better at it and start tackling harder stuff. Having a goal to work towards and playing in front of other people (even if it's not perfect) can be powerful motivators (if only because you want it to be as close to perfect as you can manage.) Then rinse, lather, repeat and up the number and/or difficultly of charts you tackle.
I would suggest the group aim for at least an hour a week practicing together.
I'll also put in a plug (once you've all gotten familiar with a chart) for flipping it over (or otherwise hiding it) and playing the tune - keep going until it trainwrecks, then play it while looking at the music, then flip it again. This is (IMHO) better done with the group for faster results, and can make a huge difference once you (as a group) get through it.
Slide trombone is effectively like fretless, but with different rules - rather than strings you have the tension on the lip, and due to the wonders of physics the series are not always as predictable as you would think - so you want a good position chart (I probably have one someplace if I can find it, or you can get them from the internet, it's just that some on the internet are lacking alternate positions that you should know about, so you can play efficiently when needed. If you (or the adult in question) are "on your own" in this day and age, I would suggest having a microphone-type tuner (I use an android phone for the purpose with "DaTuner Lite" as the app) up and running during practice to try and get on-track with where things really are, lip and hand-wise - but don't make it a crutch - the goal is to get that stuff in your muscle memory and ear. Perhaps put it behind you, or at least so far to the side that you have to deliberately turn to look at it. Getting some regular lessons would be very helpful when starting, since you say those are possible.
Taking a wild stab at providing some answer despite it being "still subject to considerable variation":
If the whole group is in a similar place, I'd do some careful chart selection (and a limited number therof) and aim no earlier than December/January, but also not much later than February or you'll all get bored with noodling by yourselves and/or with each other. Certainly in my memory of HS Jazz band there were easy and harder charts, though I guess the hardest one I recall did involve going to a more-authentic source for the chart, even though we were a HS Jazz band. Point being that the easy ones can still sound good, even without being the most difficult things to play, and actually playing them is the way you get better at it and start tackling harder stuff. Having a goal to work towards and playing in front of other people (even if it's not perfect) can be powerful motivators (if only because you want it to be as close to perfect as you can manage.) Then rinse, lather, repeat and up the number and/or difficultly of charts you tackle.
I would suggest the group aim for at least an hour a week practicing together.
I'll also put in a plug (once you've all gotten familiar with a chart) for flipping it over (or otherwise hiding it) and playing the tune - keep going until it trainwrecks, then play it while looking at the music, then flip it again. This is (IMHO) better done with the group for faster results, and can make a huge difference once you (as a group) get through it.
Easy answer: 2-4 years.
Hard answer: takes 5 years to get halfway decent on any instrument, 10 to get really good, and 20 to get to expert if you are dedicated. If you aren't dedicated, double those timeframes, and add "never" as a possibility.
Somewhere I read that by the time a horn player got to the professional level he had practiced 2000 hours. It might have been Bird Lives by Ross Russell. The problem will be one of developing chops, not reading, not theory. Just spitballing here but for high school charts, I'd plan on 400 hours of practice. Maybe 2,000 to get to where you can play Fred Wesley solos. For Carl Fontana solos, 10,000 hours. 
It just depends on the person. One thing that takes a lot of time is building the embouchure and those tiny muscles need time to develop. But you could be getting a tone that doesn't suck in about 4-6 months of practicing daily.
I play woodwinds and keys for years before starting to learn bass recently. I like doubling on many instruments. I absolutely love playing trombone and it was surprisingly easy to get started (for me), the slide made intuitive sense to me for some reason (that was a surprise) ... but the lip buzzing thing made my lips numb so I couldn't switch back to flute without waiting an hour or so --- I had to give up the Trombone
maybe I should give up the flute and take up the T-bone again.
I play woodwinds and keys for years before starting to learn bass recently. I like doubling on many instruments. I absolutely love playing trombone and it was surprisingly easy to get started (for me), the slide made intuitive sense to me for some reason (that was a surprise) ... but the lip buzzing thing made my lips numb so I couldn't switch back to flute without waiting an hour or so --- I had to give up the Trombone
maybe I should give up the flute and take up the T-bone again.
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It was 36B in my case, but I wish it had been 42B or better yet 50B3O with Thayers....
