Philip Brink has spent his entire career building the knowledge to assemble this major book on the pedagogy of the Trombone. Below are his words to describe what the book entails.

“Trombonist’s Toolkit” was conceived as exactly that: a resource for troubleshooting one’s playing, for working out problems, for advancing one’s playing skills. It is NOT a method in the traditional sense – no weekly lessons, no planned schedule for arriving at a certain point after a year, two years, etc. The player [you, the reader] can search the topic list for specific problems in need of solution. Most of the topics are organized by general subject areas: air, embouchure, range building, etc. The source for most of what I write is my own personal experience as student, teacher, freelancer and orchestral performer.

I owe a great debt of gratitude to teachers, mentors, colleagues and students past and present, for listening to my playing, trying out my concepts, putting up with my questions and so forth. Some of those people are present, some are far away, and sadly, some are no longer living. To all of them I say “Thank you, and I hope those of you who read this can recognize what you told me!”

            A word about the organization of the book: most of the concepts requiring practice and/or a physical approach are written out in a special manner; explanatory text is interspersed with exercises detailing a gradual approach to the topic at hand. The appendix contains a number of exercises all together, most of which were developed for my class at Mahidol University College of Music in Thailand.

Philip Brink - 2019