Review

Various
Student’s Essential Studies for Trombone: A Sequential Collection of 42 Standard Etudes for the Advancing Student

Arranged by Tom Brantley


New York, NY, United States
Publisher: Carl Fischer
Date of Publication: 2014
URL: http://www.carlfischer.com

63 pages

Primary Genre: Study Material - etude

The venerable publisher, Carl Fischer, owns rights to some classic method books. This latest release, compiled and edited by Tom Brantley, is intended to be an intermediate ‘highlight reel’ of studies from those other books, including Fink’s Legato Studies, the Arban Method, Shuebruk’s Lip Trainers, Herbert L. Clarke’s Technical Studies, the Rochut Melodious Etudes, Hering’s 40 Progressive Studies, the Blume 36 Studies with F-Attachment and the Slama Etudes.
 
I like the concept of compiling a single 63-page book but there are some flaws in the execution. These Essential Studies, which range from F to b-flat2, are broken into three main sections: Warm-ups/Fundamentals, Lyrical Etudes and Technical Etudes. The first section, drawing heavily from Arban with some Clarke, Schuebruk and Fink thrown in, proceeds in a fairly standard way, starting with slower material, moving on to some of those well-known melodies from Arban’s early pages. The section moves on to lip slurs, multiple tonguing, scales and intervals. Some oddities appear, such as referring to lip slurs as ‘air slurs,’ some odd alternate position indications and the brief appearance of the key of F-flat major. These are not major concerns. I have bigger concerns about the difficulty slope of the lip slur and scale exercises. The lip slurs (‘air slurs’) quickly become much harder than the surrounding material and the tempo markings on Clarke scale patterns are better suited to the valve instruments for which they were originally intended. Commentary differs from the original books and presents no serious concerns.
 
The second section, Lyrical Etudes, draws mostly from Bordogni with some Concone/Fink at the beginning. Bordogni, the actual composer of these pieces is finally given top billing with Rochut listed as the editor. Brantley wisely includes initial measures of rest for the piano accompaniment. However, the actual piano parts are not included with this book. Comments are minimal but good.
 
The final section, Technical Etudes, includes only eight etudes and starts out too hard relative to the rest of the book. This is a shame particularly because many of the Hering etudes nicely fill a void in the technique-building literature. One big mystery is the appearance of Blume Etude No.21 at the end of the ‘Lyrical’ section when, clearly, it should be a part of the ‘Technical’ section. Furthermore, this etude includes a “T” indication over some valve notes with no explanation. Considering that the preceding page is left blank for page turns, the omission of introductory material showing trigger slide positions is inexcusable! Brantley includes one page of “Tips for Practice,” which is excellent. Viewed as a whole, the Essential Studies can be a useful one-stop solution for a high school student but I can’t help seeing it as a near-miss that could have been so much more.

-Brad Edwards
University of South Carolina