Trumpet and trombone endurance: can the horn help, or is it all practice?

The short answer

Endurance comes mostly from practice and from playing efficiently, with enough rest. The instrument plays a smaller part. Every note you play is a vibration inside the instrument, and a brass bell vibrates along with it. You cannot hear that part: it is energy you put in that never becomes sound. A carbon bell barely vibrates. In a lab test it needed about 10 percent less energy for the same result. What that means for your lips over a long night, no study has measured.

You know the moment

The first set goes fine. Then, somewhere in the second, the corners start to go. The high notes get thin, and soft entries stop speaking when you ask them to.

It happens to the weekend player in a wedding band at midnight, to the church musician in a service that runs long, and to the trombonist in a piece with no rests. It happens to people who practise every day. "Endurance is still the challenge," one player wrote, twelve years after coming back to the trumpet.

Where endurance really comes from

Ask any teacher and you'll hear the same thing, and they're right. Endurance isn't stored strength you spend. It's how little each note costs you. One lead player put it like this: "Play efficiently. You can't muscle through it."

What works, according to the players who do this every weekend:

• Pace the night. The notes you play between tunes cost the same as the ones you're paid for. Rest when the part rests.
• Play a little softer. Many players back off 5 to 10 percent and nobody in the room notices. Your lips do.
• Rest before a big day. "Rest days before gigs always feel great to me. I thank myself after the 4th set."
• Put the horn down while your chops still feel good when you practise. Stopping before you're shot builds more than pushing through.
• Be careful with the quick fix. A shallow lead mouthpiece makes the high notes easier, but many players pay with a thinner sound.

None of that has anything to do with which horn you play. It comes first.

What the horn has to do with it

Now the part most players have never been told.

Next time you play a long note, rest two fingers on your bell. Feel the buzz? That buzz is your bell vibrating along with the note. You cannot hear that part: it is energy you put in that never becomes sound.

Acoustics researchers have measured this for years. The physicist Thomas Moore wrote in 2016 that the old player belief that vibrations matter "has been shown to be true in the case of bell vibrations." Players have tried to calm the metal for a long time, with heavier bells, heavy valve caps and heavy mouthpieces.

daCarbo does it with the material. Its founder, Andi Keller, is a materials scientist who used to make loud machines quiet by stopping their parts from vibrating. With carbon he can set the stiffness and the mass of the bell spot by spot, so it barely moves where a brass bell would.

About 10 percent less energy for the same result. Measured in the lab. The test used the same trumpet, once with a brass bell and once with a carbon bell. What that means for your playing, no lab can tell you. TrumpetScout, an independent tester, felt nothing special on the first day. After a few days, his soft entries and high notes were more reliable.

And the sound? In a blind test, listeners could not tell carbon from brass.

You may notice one thing yourself: because the bell barely vibrates, you feel less vibration in your hands. Some players need a few days to get used to that.

Three players, the same bell

The bell is the same for everyone. What else matters depends on where you play.

• If you play paid gigs in a wedding band or a party band, it's the same book and the same setup, with less going into the bell on every note. And on a crowded stage, the carbon bell does not dent when someone knocks your horn.
• If you play in a church, a Musikverein or a community band, you'll like that the bell is warm in seconds, even in a cold church.
• If you play trombone, there's more. The carbon outer slide is lighter than a brass slide. It moves more smoothly, and quick slide changes take less effort. The balance stays the same in every slide position, so your left hand can stay much more relaxed than on a standard trombone.

What a horn can't do

It won't practise for you, and it won't turn a tired embouchure into a fresh one. If your endurance problem is technique, a teacher will help you more than any instrument. A daCarbo changes one thing: how much of each note goes into the bell instead of into the music.

If you want to try it

The two-finger check is free: try it at your next rehearsal. If you want to know more, there are four daCarbo trumpets (from €2,990), a flugelhorn and three trombones. The price includes tax, customs duty and shipping. You have 30 days to send it back from the day it arrives.

All instruments and prices: dacarbo.ch

Sources

1. Vereecke, H. and Kausel, W.: "Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer, an Alternative to Brass?", International Trumpet Guild Journal, October 2012, pages 41 to 43
2. Moore, T. R.: "The Acoustics of Brass Musical Instruments", Acoustics Today 12(4), 2016
3. TrumpetScout, independent review of the daCarbo Toni Maier and Unica (2017)
4. daCarbo, carbon fiber trombones