A few years ago, a good friend of mine, Erwin Dijkstra assembled a collection of study material for me. I have since then extended the material with some of the new bass trombone methods on the market. As I know it can be very difficulty (and challenging) finding appropriate material, which gets you ahead in bass trombone playing, I decided to help you out a bit and post the material I am currently using. Of course many thanks go to Erwin for the initial material, it helped me a lot!

I have extended the list with some remarks from Douglas Yeo, who also has a List of methods he uses.

Play through all exercises in a slow tempo, upkeeping a good tone quality.

Play once a day

“A fine and sensible method book which covers all aspects of the modern bass trombone, all of its possible tuning combinations, exercises, slide and valve fingering charts, etc.” - Douglas Yeo

One “Position” per day, with according “Prepairing Exercise” and “Study”

A fine book of etudes (Russian) which are all in an A-B-A form, covering the full range of the bass trombone. Most are technical, some are expressive, all are well written. - Douglas Yeo

One study per day

These exercises improve your sliding technique. Do follow Stephanovsky's advice as to where to use the valves and where not.

This method is slightly more difficult than the Grigoriev method.

One study per day

This method is great for practicing Legato in the lower register.

One study per day

These suites help you improve your legato.

One part of a Suite per day

Favourite Solo Pieces and Orchestral Solo Passages for the Trombone.

This method is to train both the performance of solos and the higher register.

One study per day, be very mindful of the frasing.

Volume 4 - Studies in Jazz and mixed meters.

These solos are very good for improving your “prima vista” reading. The difficulty of these solos is quite high.

One solo per week

These solos are good for improving “prima vista” and inotation. The solos are quite well know and great fun to play.

One study per day

These studies can be used to test and improve your articulation. They are very challenging in both the high and the low register. Kauko was the teacher of Douglas Yeo.

One per week