request: trombone position( "fingering")

• Jul 15, 2012 - 17:18

There is a plugin for Trumpet fingering, has anyone tried to do similar for Trombone?

Comments

• Jul 15, 2012 - 19:20

You could open the plugin with a text editor and simply replace the standard brass fingering (3 valves) with trombone slide positions - they're all contained in one list (or array) in ascending order starting with F# and going up in semitone increments. You'd need to take account of the different range of a trombone and its lower pitches. Also change the line regarding the plugin name to something suitable e.g. Fingering - Tenor Trombone.

In its simplest form this would be OK for a tenor trombone but it would be more complicated when considering a trombone equipped with additional valve(s). I'm not a trombonist so I can't remember offhand the intricacies of different positions for this instrument and I don't even want to "go there" when it comes to concert pitch, brass band music and bass versus treble clef. All I know is that it's not always just a case of totalling up the valves and adding 1 to get the position number. You might need more than one plugin depending upon the trombone and the setting of its use (orchestral, brass band etc.).

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• Jul 15, 2012 - 20:57

I did what you said, opened the js file, replaced all the finger positions with slide positions based on finger and position charts.
I have kept it simple: Tenor trombone, no valve. The "magic" part was to change the pitch from 54 to 40. I actually do not know what it really means in context, but trial and error...,
It is not perfect but I think it has something to do with the glypfh.offset, did not understand that part, need to to do some more trial and error

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• Jul 15, 2012 - 21:25

If you based your plugin on the one that I made then the glyph.yOffset was deliberate to position the fingerings just below the stave for easy reading but to avoid clashing with the lower notes. You could experiment with changing this to suit your trombone (this is one area where the bass clef/treble clef bit becomes important as this will obviously affect where on the stave a note of the same pitch will be represented). You could, of course, just delete the three lines relating to adjusting the offset for notes of a certain pitch.

Some notes on the plugin:

var index = pitch - 54; //CHANGE THIS DEPENDING UPON YOUR TROMBONE, ORCHESTRA/BRASS BAND, WHETHER TRANSPOSING OR CONCERT PITCH - A TROMBONE IS A "BIG TROMBA" AND IS AN OCTAVE (12 SEMITONES) LOWER THAN A TRUMPET. YOU GET 40, I THINK BY SUBTRACTING 12 FOR THE OCTAVE AND 2 FOR THE CONCERT PITCH ADJUSTMENT (BUT I'M ONLY GUESSING HERE).
if (index >= 0 && index < notes.length){
var glyph = new Text(curScore);
glyph.text = notes[index];
glyph.defaultFont = font;
glyph.yOffset = 6 //ALTER THIS TO SUIT YOUR NEEDS
if (pitch < 59){ //DELETE/ALTER THIS TO STOP/CHANGE THE OFFSETTING
glyph.yOffset = glyph.yOffset + 2; //DELETE THIS LINE TOO
} //DELETE THIS LINE TOO
glyph.xOffset = 0
cursor.putStaffText(glyph);
}
}
cursor.next();
}
}

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• Mar 3, 2013 - 20:45

Hi Jouni

You wrote that you changed the trumpet fingering plugin to serve the major trombone slide positions.
Did your changed plugin work well ?
I would be happy not to do the same work too.
May you please provide me or the plugin-repository with your change ?

Thanx for your help.
Regards
J

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• Apr 19, 2013 - 21:00

Thanks for the helpful plugin.

Does anyone know how the plugin can be upgraded that it shows the values for the two valves (quart- and quint-valve) for deeper tones?

I tried to add the valves with the following additions:

Position 6 -> 6 or V1 (means quart-valve plus position 1)
Position 7 -> 7 or V2 (quart-valve plus position 2)

-> it works.

The valves would have the following values (post Werner Iseli)
http://musescore.org/de/node/10093

Symbole:
Quartventil "V" (aber etwas auseinandergezogen, wie ein Trichter
Terzventil O (Kreissymbol wirklich kreisrund dargestellt)
Beide Ventil VV aber einer auf den andern gelegt und nur leicht vertikal versetzt.

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