Trombone guides

As a trombone beginner, you spend week one putting the trombone together safely, finding your first slide positions and playing songs with just three notes.

Yes, you can learn the trombone as an adult, at 40, at 60 and with no musical background.

No, the trombone is easier to start than most people think: your first notes usually come on day one, and with tonestro you play one or two notes along with a real song and a band within ten minutes.

Yes, you can teach yourself trombone, as long as you get honest feedback on your notes.

As a rough guide, adults who practice on most days play simple songs in all seven slide positions after several months and easy band parts after one to two years.

Wind instruments are the instruments you blow into or across, usually grouped into woodwinds and brass by how their sound starts, not by what they're made of.

You can learn to read music in five steps: understand the staff and clef, find the natural notes, count note values, read sharps and flats, and play each note on your instrument right away.

In bass clef, the five lines from the bottom up are G, B, D, F and A, and the four spaces are A, C, E and G.