On Trombones

(1. characteristics of the trombone)

The trombone's belching, muddy tones and rotten timbre are odious in the hands of the proficient, fully toxic in those of the novice. Musically diarrheic, the huffing and puffing lips of those who indulge themselves in the artless pursuit of tromboning quiver hungrily at the thought of assaulting the ears of their relatives with muffled tonal farts and indistinct arpeggios. (I say relatives, for a trombonist has no friends, nor audience for that matter, save those obligated by bloodline to endure his pernicious practice.) The awkward gangle of tubing and braces is only amplified by the desperate thrusting of bony elbows as the user pumps out note after attempted note, just as the terrible musty rush of air from within the lungs is amplified by the comparatively fine brass bell, but only after suffering much abuse and debasement within two or three miles of sliding passageways, exiting the instrument to return the favor to all those unfortunate enough to be within earshot.

(2. history of the trombone) 

The littlest amount of perceptivity will tell us that, though modified over time, the basic elements of the shape of the trombone betray its original use as a crude sort of urinal. Unwilling to move the royal body from the throne room to empty the royal bladder, surely the various and sundry kings of France used golden plumbing leading from a golden receptacle (now the bell of the trombone) through the golden walls to the golden moat. The slide, of course, allowed the royal urinee to adjust the bell so that he might stand or sit as he pleased. It will not require great amounts of imagination to picture the day that an overeager and shortsighted court jester used a spare urinal to play some royal fanfare, and the rest, as it is said, is history.

(3. advice on trombones) 

Any piece of sheet music that has been so much as looked over by the queasy eyes of one of those players of Satan's Whistle must be cremated at the earliest chance before it can putrefy. Any trombone found deserted must, lest it be returned to service, be melted down and recast into rings for pigs' noses, where it will continue in much the same manner as before––adorning the face of the repugnant––only silently. Any person found to be composing music specifically for the trombone must be bludgeoned to death with a trombone kept for this purpose (and which has been rendered unplayable by permanently blocking the tubes), just as that composer would have acoustically bludgeoned the world.