What is a Slide Trumpet / Soprano Trombone? 

Thanks!

Thanks!

It doesn't really matter, but a few points for clarity: 1. Steven also calls my instrument a slide trumpet. 2. The reason the bell extends farther forward on some slide trumpets (including Steven's custom horns) is generally because on those horns the width of the slide is half of the width of a standard trombone slide, and for that reason if the bells were built with the same shape of a conventional tenor trombone bell, the back of the bell would hit you in the face and make it impossible to play. Kanstul accounted for this problem by making their slides the same width as a tenor trombone slide so the bell doesn't hit you in the face and the slide positions are the same in relation to the bell. The disadvantage to this is that the slide is slightly more cumbersome compared to a slide with a smaller width. Old Getzen slide trumpets have a slide that is so narrow as to require a handle, and for that reason the bell extends farther forward, but it wouldn't change the nature of the instrument if they could have made them with a more conventional bell shape. 3. A point you didn't make is that Kanstul made a distinction between their slide trumpets and soprano trombones based on the diameter of the bell, but otherwise they were identical instruments. You could make an argument for a definitional distinction between a slide trumpet and a soprano trombone, but the better argument would address the nature of the slide, not the spacial relationship between the slide and the bell. Plus we make the rules.

Trumpet and soprano trombone are rather similar, but the rest of what you said makes little sense. You wouldn't use bass trombone, tenor trombone, or euphonium interchangeably just because they're pitched the exact same

@@harleyzeth By "I'd be satisfied with just specifying the pitch of the instrument I want, and whether it should have a slide or valves" I meant specifically with respect to trumpets and trombones. You're right that I wouldn't use euphonium interchangeably with trombone. I see bass trombone versus tenor trombone (two instruments that, if you're talking about the most common kind of modern trombone, do indeed have the same fundamentals, but are specifically designed to have different tessituras) as something of a special case, which you are also right about. So to word what I originally meant more explicitly, between a slide trumpet and a soprano trombone, I wouldn't have a preference, and likewise between a valved tenor trombone and a bass trumpet in Bb. If it ever came up, the same would apply to the other imaginable combinations like, say, a bass trumpet in Eb and a valved alto trombone.

@@sashakindel3600 I get what you mean

I think trombones get pretty powerful in their upper register, too. I'm not sure the physics behind it, but the slide trumpet seems to have the same quality.

Sure am! I might do a video on the conch for this series, too.

Ha! If it makes you feel better maybe trombonists should start calling trumpets "soprano valve trombones."

@@RidgewoodSchoolofMusicHA Now I'm imagining an actual soprano valve trombone. Now I'm thinking of the contrabass trumpet, otherwise known as the cimbasso.