Bel Canto - my credo

I have mentioned many times that we have the possibility of the equivalent of multiple head, chest and mixed voice sets on the trombone, but as I posited in my short article Carmine Caruso, Mandelbrot Sets and Me, the Sufi “As above, so below” idea applies here as well. We can think more broadly and consider a simpler lower, middle and upper range approach to the instrument.

Joe Jackson (A fine trombonist and current director of the Air Force’s great band, the Airmen Of Note) recently wrote in explanation of his own choice to use “shifts”:

“I consider the shift to be akin to moving between chest and head voice for singers. I don’t like the sound of those players muscling their low setup into the high register just as I don’t like the sound of high-set guys playing low. In most situations I consider both to be musically inappropriate.”

And as I wrote in the same thread:
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“As I have stated so many times here…shifts are not the problem. We all use them. If they are too large and/or badly timed in, that’s a whole ‘nother can of embouchure problems. I would go so far as to say that in my experience even the finest “unshifted” embouchures…a relative term since something is changing in order for there to be a change in any given note…even the finest “unshifted” embouchures tend to be slightly less colorful, less dynamic in their timbral qualities than do those where the player has mastered a shift or two or three in order to access higher or lower registers. When you hear a really dominant bass trombonist or lead trumpet player sizzle out inhumanly strong notes, in my experience what you are hearing is either a “shift” or that player has made a conscious decision to specialize in one register at the inevitable expense of others. Now Phil Teele, whose playing and teaching I respect enormously, has devised a system the aim of which is to largely eliminate low range shifts through the current money ranges and volumes of the commercial bass trombone as practiced in the Hollywood studios. I have never worked with him nor heard him up close and personal, so I really have no idea of what he does to get up into the upper regusters on the horn or even if he can do so with any subtlety, strength or endurance as could George Roberts and Paul Faulise, for instance. It is not a knock on his playing if he cannot do that, it just means that he is a specialist and a very successful one. More power to him. But when you watch and hear many players who have power and control throughout truly extraordinary ranges up and down on a brass instrument, you will see ‘shifts’.”