Getzen Company - Ian Bousfield & his 4147IB trombone 

What a shame is 'low-brass-self-esteem'. Your playing a 'brass' instrument! Do you think for a moment that a woodwind player is ashamed of their 'woodiness'? The 'patina' of brassiness, come at lower volumes, is what allowed orchestras in the early 20th century to shimmer and shine without employ of an 'excess' of volume such as too much perturb the expectant composer's orchestration. That being the case, in days gone by you could actually hear the other voices during orchestral tuttis in Strauss, Mahler, Bruckner and Wagner, and the effect seemed no less loud but was...far more exciting and radiant! Now the sound just engages with the halls acoustic to cause...textural opaqueness. Now, inner voices are obscured, and so then too is the intended sound and music. Oboes and clarinets haven't gotten any louder. Why then do trombone players aspire to nothing but volume? They would do better to evolve and sooner come to defeat, by technique and craft, the mechanical challenges that , despite acquiring range and technique, they long ago unnecessarily and unmusically accepted and entrenched as being obligated to their instrument. That's why trombonists are typically only titled and paid as 'principles' rather that 'solo' trombone: they haven't yet 'earned the musical right, and what is worse, they never will because nobody, not other musicians nor conductors, even expects them to. A few have, but few are following them.