Advanced Method Trombone Or Baritone Vol 1 Rubank Educational Library

Getting Through the Rubank Advanced Method

The Rubank Advanced Method for Trombone or Baritone Vol 1 is one of those books that shows up in every high school band room and private studio because it actually works, even though it looks like it was designed in 1954. It covers first position fundamentals through middle-register technique, double tonguing, range building, and orchestral excerpts. The original edition has been around since the early 1900s and has been revised several times. The core structure hasn't changed much because it was solid to begin with. What the book contains is essentially a progression from long tones and basic slur exercises into more demanding technical work. You start with simple scale patterns in first position, move into seven-position scale work, then tackle double tonguing studies. The arpeggio sections cover major, minor, and diminished patterns across the range. By the end of Volume 1 you should be handling mid-range passages cleanly, reading reasonably complex rhythms, and have a foundation forVolume 2 which goes into extreme altissimo territory and advanced orchestral literature.

Advanced Method Trombone Or Baritone Vol 1 Rubank Educational Library

Here is how I actually use it with students and why some parts frustrate people. The long tone exercises in the beginning look simple but most players rush through them without getting anything out of it. Each long tone exercise asks for a specific dynamic contour and articulation style. The key is to play each note at the marked dynamic for the full indicated duration and then check your intonation against a tuner or reference tone. A lot of people treat these as warmup filler and skip the actual work. The double tonguing section is where students typically hit a wall. The exercises assume you already have a basic double tongue pattern established, which many beginners do not. I usually go back to single tonguing at slower tempos until the student can articulate at quarter note 100 before returning to the double tonguing studies. The Rubank exercises themselves are fine, they are just not designed to teach double tonguing from scratch. One practical issue I run into regularly is the orchestral excerpts near the end of the book. Some of them are taken from pieces that most student players have never heard, so they have no context for the style or phrasing. The Berlioz excerpt for example, students play the right notes but it sounds nothing like what it should because they have no reference for the orchestral texture behind it. My workaround is to put the excerpt on YouTube, have them listen to at least three different professional recordings, and then transpose the phrasing marks onto their part. This takes maybe twenty minutes extra but it makes the exercise actually useful instead of just another page to get through.

Another thing worth noting about Volume 1 is the range expectations. The book pushes into the upper register more aggressively than some modern methods, which is good but also means students with underdeveloped embouchure strength can injure themselves if they push too hard too fast. I cap the high F territory exercises until the student can consistently play clear top line C's with a relaxed embouchure. The Rubank does not warn about this, it just presents the exercises and expects you to figure it out. The baritone C version and the bass clef E-flat version have slightly different etude selections but the technical content is essentially the same. If you are playing baritone horn in brass band style repertoire, the baritone C edition makes more sense. For concert band and trombone repertoire the E-flat bass clef version is the standard choice. As for obtaining the book, the original Rubank publications are public domain in many editions, which means you can find free scans online through sites like IMSLP and the Internet Archive. The newer revisions with updated engraving may still be under copyright through Hal Leonard, so those require purchase. The public domain scans are perfectly readable and contain the same musical content, though the page layout is different from the modern printed editions.

If you find the Rubank too dry or lacking in musical variety, pairing it with the John Hassing Contemporary Studies or the Blazhevich etudes for specific technical gaps will fill in what the Rubank leaves out. The Rubank is a method book, not an etude collection, and it was never designed to be comprehensive on its own.