By Leonard Duarte
After retiring in 1998 from teaching and conducting bands, orchestras and choirs for thirty-nine years, Mr. Duarte now dedicates most of his time to composition and his studio where he teaches trombone. Mr. Duarte has played trombone ever since he was in grade school. His trombone teachers were Dr. Forrest Baird, California State University at San Jose, and Robert Marstellar, the first trombonist of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He has played on a Bach Stradivarius model 42 tenor trombone with F attachment since 1964.
Mr. Duarte’s latest venture is a method book for trombone using the F attachment. “As I’ve watched and heard the various California honor bands in the past twenty years or so, I’ve noticed the tremendous popularity of the trombone with the F attachment among the Honor Bands. I also noticed a lack of a full understanding of its use.”
The trombone with the F attachment has become the instrument of choice not only among professionals, but also with college, high school and even junior high trombonists. When Mr. Duarte’s students prepare to purchase a new instrument, his advice is always “get the bone with the trigger.” But there is a lack of materials, method books etc., to teach students how and when to use the F trigger. There is some material for bass trombone but these books are limited especially in the higher range. The book’s inception began in the mid 70’s by writing a position chart to explain the trigger’s use so that the student would understand that when the F trigger is depressed there are only six positions rather than the seven as on the tenor trombone. Easy exercises followed, then intermediate, and gradually more difficult studies, etude and duets. The materials eventually formed the basis for this book.
Studies Using the F Attachment for tenor trombone is the result of nearly forty years of teaching trombone to junior high, high school and college students. The book has eighty studies that will give the trombonist a thorough understanding of how and when to use the F trigger. The studies are simple enough in the beginning and gradually progress in difficulty so students may gain the dexterity needed to advance satisfactorily to higher levels of achievement and be able to handle the difficult and awkward passages in the low range. When the trigger is depressed, the instrument is in the key of F rather than in B-flat. The additional tubing extends the low register by four notes, but most importantly, it allows the performer greater versatility.
But it is more than just a book for the F trigger. The studies encompass the whole range of the tenor trombone including legato studies, and double and triple tonguing. It includes studies that use multi-meter, studies in tenor and alto clef, and duets. The book ends with two of Mr. Duarte’s trombone concertos and the “Concertino” for Trombone and Symphonic Band that was premiered last year, March 2004, by soloist Dr. Lloyd Roby with Mr. Bill Hill conducting the Festival Band at the CMEA conference in Sacramento, California.
