A trombone with valves?

Despite popular imagery, trombones have employed valves since the mid-1800s.

The trombone is a brass instrument that works by vibrating (“buzzing”) one’s lips into a cup-shaped mouthpiece and changing notes in one (or both) of two ways: vibrating faster (higher notes) or slower (lower notes), and moving a telescoping slide inward (higher notes, generally speaking) or outward (lower notes, generally speaking). The instrument has been around since the mid-1400s and for hundreds of years the slide gave the trombone an advantage over other brass instruments like the trumpet and horn. Those instruments, with a fixed size, could only play one set of lip-vibrated notes. The trombone, which could change its size, offered more sets of notes.

Valves for brass instruments were invented in the mid-1800s, and trumpets and horns (and the newly invented tuba) could enjoy a similar, greater selection of notes. But trombones weren’t to be left out of this new invention.

The standard (“straight”) tenor trombone, bent into its shape, is about 9 feet of brass tubing from mouthpiece to bell, and is in the key of B-flat. The 19th-century German instrument maker Christian Sattler found that he could add an extra 3 feet of tubing, with a thumb valve to access that tubing, and make the instrument sound lower, in F. He called this the “tenor-bass trombone,” and it is the instrument now used most commonly in bands and orchestras around the world. It allows for lower notes that are impossible on a straight trombone, as well as allowing for simpler slide maneuvers for the player.

PS: yes, there is a trombone with three valves like a trumpet! In fact, this instrument was popular in German and Austrian orchestras in the mid 19th century, and is likely what would have been played on the premieres of works like Brahms’ 2nd Symphony and Dvořák’s 8th Symphony. While they are no longer used in modern symphony orchestras or bands, they are still popular for jazz and are common in Eastern Europe.