Posted by Tom Mason on April 25, 2001 at 07:49:57:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Brass Instrument Doubling posted by Erik on April 24, 2001 at 17:07:16:
I have always held the bass trombone with my left arm up enough that my elbow almost points straight out. This keeps the horn off of my shoulder. I admit to getting tired quicker if I haven't played in a while, but the horn doesn't carve my shoulder up if I do this.
I began to do this with rotor valve assemblies because I wanted to get the bell up more and play over the stand/above the normal slant of a trombone player.
I also admit to other types of axial flow valves being more shoulder friendly, but I got the horn for $1650, and you don't have to take the horn apart to service the valves. IMHO, both of these points caused me to get this over thayers.
They play as well as thayers, as far as I could tell in my experimentation.