How Playing the Trombone Taught Me the Importance of Harmony

The trombone is quite a versatile instrument. It is a Western instrument that is a member of the brass family. I used to play the tenor trombone, which has no true valves and only a single slide to produce a variety of notes. The versatility of the slide allows me to play a variety of music genres — from classical music to jazz to modern and even devotional hymns.

However, with versatility comes difficulty. Any trombonist knows that producing the correct musical notes can be quite tricky.

The trombone requires three specific factors in order for a note (the pitch and duration produced by the instrument) to be correct:

If any of these three factors are even slightly off, the instrument would produce a different sound compared to the sound intended.

A trombonist quickly needs to understand what factor is off and adjust accordingly to produce a soothing note.

Having played the trombone for eight years, there were many times in which I had to adjust these factors not only to make me sound better, but to make the entire orchestra sound better.

I vividly remember a time in high school when the entire band was playing a four-page arrangement.

During one part of the piece, the trombone had a unique glissando (or moving the slide without interrupting the airflow). The four of us would play the glissandos with such pride. But no matter how loud the four trombones played, the other 70 musicians would overpower us!

The conductor would frequently stop to tell the other musicians to quieten down in order for our part to be heard.

In contrast, there was another music piece in which the four of us played some of the more difficult notes too loudly, overpowering the other instruments. I could see the looks on the clarinet players, who sat in front of us, constantly squirming in their seats when they heard the notes.

Nevertheless, the conductor would continuously turn on us to quieten down in order to hear the flute’s vibrato or a trumpet solo.

She would explain, “In order for a music piece to sound accurate and beautiful, a musician must know what to adjust, when to adjust and how to adjust.”

The conductor would always teach us the concept of musical harmony. In order for a music piece to sound how the composer intended it to be, all of the players must know how loud to play their instrument at the right times.

A flute player plays a note, a trumpet player plays another note, a percussionist strikes another best, and I (the trombone player) play a different note. But when all the instruments play their individual contribution together with understanding the importance of the others’ contributions, musical harmony is created.

The same goes for harmony amongst people and in society. Harmony is simply an agreement of ideas, feelings, or actions. We use harmony everyday and in many aspects of life:

In sports, teams need to use their individual abilities to work together and score points.

At the workplace, co-workers use their individual knowledge and skills to come together to complete a project or create a product.

At school, students collaborate on group projects or presentations in order to receive a high score.

At home, family members use their individual strengths to help one another out to learn and grow.

Each individual has unique ideas, feelings and backgrounds and when those aspects are brought together with other individuals through discussion and collaboration, harmony can be achieved.