A Trombonists Guide to the Articulation System - Slide Technique

I like to think about articulation as a system: in its simplest form it is the precise timing of air, tongue and slide which produces that ‘pop’, that perfect moment where clarity is effortlessly present in every dynamic. Each of the three elements requires dedicated practice - air attacks shape the note; the tongue cleans the front of the note (contact must be light); the slide moves positively and precisely and must be static at the exact time the tongue and air engage - it is like a well tuned engine cylinder ...
More often than not it is the third of these, slide technique, which is at the root of many articulation problems. If the slide is sluggish and even marginally out of position, there is no way you are going to find the centre of the note. It doesn’t matter how committed your air is, or how perfectly your tongue strikes through the air, 1/8 inch flat of any position is going to sound dull and clumsy. Hardly adjectives we use to describe the playing of those we look up to!
I quite often ask students to practice a phrase or exercise without any sound. Get the trombone off your face and just focus on your slide. I am a firm believer that we can only focus on one thing at a time and this should lay the groundwork for our practice: strip it back to its basic building blocks and practice these in turn.
Believe it or not, one of the biggest problem with articulation doesn’t lie with the tongue or the release of air, but with the slide.