Page:EB1911 - Volume 27.djvu/320

Rh giving a theoretical fundamental tone and its upper partials a semitone lower than the last, and corresponding to the seven shifts on the violin and to the seven positions on valve instruments. These seven positions are found by drawing out the slide a little more for each one, the first position being that in which the slide remains closed. The performer on the trombone is just as dependent on an accurate ear for finding the correct positions as a violinist.



2.

The history of the evolution of the trombone from the buccina is given in the article on the Sackbut (q.v.), the name by which the earliest draw or slide trumpets were known in England. The Germans call the trombone Posaune, formerly buzaun, busine, pusin or pusun in the poems and romances of the 12th and 13th century, words all clearly derived from the Latin buccina. The modern designation &ldquo;large trumpet&rdquo; comes from the Italian, in which tromba means not only trumpet, but also pump and elephant's trunk. It is difficult to say where or at what epoch the instrument was invented. In a psalter (No. 20) of the 11th century, preserved at Boulogne, there is a drawing of an instrument which bears a great resemblance to a trombone deprived of its bell. Sebastian Virdung, Ottmar Luscinius, and Martin Agricola say little about the trombone, but they give illustrations of it under the name of busaun which show that early in the 16th century it was almost the same as that employed in our day. It would not be correct to assume from this that the trombone was not well known at that date in Germany, and for the following reasons. First, the art of trombone playing was in the 15th century in Germany mostly in the hands of the members of the town bands, whose duties included playing on the watch towers, in churches, at pageants, banquets and festivals, and they, being jealous of their privileges, kept the secrets of their art closely, so that writers, such as the above, although acquainted with the appearance, tone and action of the instrument would have but little opportunity of learning much about the method of producing the sound. Secondly, German and Dutch trombone players are known to have been in request during the 15th century at the courts of Italian princes. Thirdly, Hans Neuschel of Nuremberg, the most celebrated performer and maker of his day, had already won a name at the end of the 15th century for the excellence of his &ldquo;Posaunen,&rdquo; and it is recorded that he made great improvements in the construction of the instrument in 1498, a date which probably marks the transition from sackbut to trombone, by enlarging the bore and turning the bell-joint round at right angles to the slide. Finally in early German translations of Vegetius's De re militari (1470) the buccina is described (bk. III., 5) as the trumpet or posaun which is drawn in and out, showing that the instrument was not only well known, but that it had been identified as the descendant of the buccina.