Trombone-toting bards?

[Olgar Shiverstone]

New campaign idea: the Fantastic Five, an all-bard party that performs on accordion, kazoo, slide whistle, steel drums, and yodeling. They favor compositions by P.D.Q. Bach

 

[Thunderfoot]

I've wanted to do a bard with similar concept, though using a violin instead of a trombone.

Improved Unarmed Strike and Superior Unarmed Strike. Mmhm.

Actually that isn't too far from historically acurate - fiddles (not the more snooty violin) were often used in Medieval music and by traveling musicians.
In addition to the typical lute and lyre there were:
Tambourines
Bohdran
Hand drums
Flutes
Whistles
Small horns

Not a far stretch to incorporate:
Bagpipes (Both Scottish and Irish)
Accordians
Mandolins (not around during the middle ages)
Zither
Dulcimer
Glockenspiel or tuned bells (again came later in history)
A harpsichord (though portable - not very loud - might not work for bard song)

 

[Thunderfoot]

New campaign idea: the Fantastic Five, an all-bard party that performs on accordion, kazoo, slide whistle, steel drums, and yodeling. They favor compositions by P.D.Q. Bach

Wow, there is an esoteric reference.

I like "Song for a Whole Lot of Winds and Percussion"

 

[babomb]

I must say this idea of a trombone bard intrigues me. However, I must agree with previous posters that the brass is simply to soft to stand up to the rigors of adventuring, combat or no. It's pretty easy to dent, and a good dent in the slide makes it pretty worthless. Clearly, a combat trombone would have to be made of a heartier stuff like steel or--dare I dream?--mithril or adamantine, and probably a bit thicker for good measure. But then you can hit and trip people with it in combat, perhaps. (Just don't try to fire something out of it; it won't work.) The only problems are the bulk, anachronism, and inability to sing at the same time.

Since the pitch of the sound the trombone makes is decided by the length of the tube, and since a gnome sized trombone would have a LOT smaller tube, meaning higher pitch. That would be one wierd sounding intrument.

Is there anything like that in reality?

DS

Alto trombones (The most common type of trombone is a tenor.) were at one time fairly common, but not so anymore.

Soprano trombones (or slide cornets) are more of a novelty than anything else. They are about the size of a cornet and have a similar range. The sound is a little brighter than a tenor trombone. They aren't used much because a cornet will do just as well.

I have heard of but never seen the even smaller sopranino and piccolo trombones,

 

[Old Gumphrey]

I fully support all gnome bards. Human bards that act silly are just stupid, but it's bread and butter for gnomes. I once had a gnome bard that rocked a sousaphone. Nothing funnier than a gnome oompah-ing around the battlefield wearing a tuba and stabbing bitches with a rapier!

Check out this thread to learn about bards that rap.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=197488

 

[rgard]

What about kazoo and harmonica?

They make kazoos that look like trombones. Issue resolved!

 

[Driddle]

The references to historical accuracy amuse and/or confound me to no end -- if we start down that road, we might as well start taking a closer look at the evolution of various spells through the ages. ... "I hate to be a buzzkill, but magic missiles weren't actually cast in their current form until the Renaissance. Before that, they were referred to as 'cursed phlegm balls' and involved a nasal somatic component."

Anyway...

I'm sure it's not too much of a stretch to treat a musical instrument as being nearly as hardy as various potion bottles and dangly jewelry. There are many fragile items adventurers carry that seem to survive massive combat jostling just fine; it's a rare occurance that a DM bothers to impose such realism. And at the very least, some sort of handy magical storage device (gauntlet, charm bracelet, et al) could keep the instrument out of harm's way in all but a few situations.

Still haven't gotten a lot of feedback about the bard himself, though. What sort of character do you imagine would prefer such a horn in his performances?

 

[rgard]

Still haven't gotten a lot of feedback about the bard himself, though. What sort of character do you imagine would prefer such a horn in his performances?

I knew Randy Purcell (Trombonist who played with The Maynard Ferguson band among others) back in the late 70s early 80s. He played a wicked 'The Way We Were' trombone solo. I was into this as I played the trombone in school and later at the university. Randy was a very self-assured individual and gracious with my friends and me (we were busboys where he and his house band played) letting us play with the house band on occasion. He wasn't arrogant at all even though he was one fantastic trombone player.

Kind of a bizarre look, but he had a beard and reverse Hitler mustache. I guess that was to keep upper lip hair from interferring with this playing.

So if I was playing a trombonist bard, I would do the same facial hair look. For the playing style, I would have him play somber ballads and move the audience that way. Make the character self-assured, kind, but not over-the-top flashy.

Thanks,
Rich

 

[Jedi_Solo]

Still haven't gotten a lot of feedback about the bard himself, though. What sort of character do you imagine would prefer such a horn in his performances?

Flashy and dramatic. I know that doesn't narrow down a bard much, but look at large marching bands and their trombone sections. Since Trombones are brass instruments they reflect light very, very well. All brass instruments are (usually) moving back and forth in an effort to catch the light and reflect it back to the spectators.

Trombones are different in that they are a larger instrument that can be easily held and balanced in one hand. Trumpets/coronets can be held in one hand but are fairly compact and saxaphones, while being able to be held in one hand, often have a cord around the player's kneck limiting their overall movement.

Trombones can easily be flipped/rotated in the hand giving it a wide range of movement when it isn't actively being played. Larger marching bands will have trombones swooping and dancing around the players - almost anything you can think of short of actually throwing the trombone into the air. If the slide was more durable I'm sure we would see more of that as well.

Following that line of thought I would think of a lot of light and movement based spells.

Trombones tend to have a reputation in a band of being loud and obnoxious. So the bard might be loud and obnoxious... and... well... bard like. Anything to help increase the bard's volume will be very trombone-esque (is that even a real word?).

Many marching bands (that I am aware of at least) have the trombones at the front of the marching line up; for very practical reasons. When the band is actually playing those slides can have quite a bit of reach on them. If the front line is made up of trombones that is one less line that has to worry about stabbing those in front of them. It can hurt having a trombone slide nail you between the shoulder blades.

So the bard may like being up front and the center of attention... like your typical bard.

Sorry...

 

[Jedi_Solo]

On the complete other end of my look at this from the marching band stand point; trombones also have a reputation of having a very mellow sound. I have played multiple piees of music where the trombone part had harp cues - the music had built in a replacement part if the band/orchestra didn't have harps available and that part was given to the trombones; on multiple pieces of music.

Trombones are everywhere and hit almost the entire gambit. You have the flashy over-the-top marching band style to the smoke filled jazz club style where they want to be just laid back and blend in to the mellow harp replacement orchestra style where they may not want to hog the spotlight.

It's all available and it'll all fit the instument.