What Concone Op. 11 Actually Is and Why Trombonists Keep Revisiting It
Concone's Op. 11 is a collection of 32 vocal études written in the mid-1800s for voice training. They were never written for trombone. Someone figured out the patterns translate well to brass and started adapting them, and now they sit in essentially every trombone pedagogical library alongside Schlossberg, Bordogni, and the standard repertoire you're expected to know. The exercises focus on smooth legato, breath control, and clean articulation across a wide range. That's it. No pyrotechnics. No altissimo acrobatics. Just clean, sung phrases. I found this document a few years back after going through three or four different Concone arrangements that were either poorly transposed or filled with editorial marks that made zero sense. The PDF organizes all 32 études with some practical performance notes layered in, including slide positions, suggested articulations, and breath marks. It's not the most polished layout I've seen, but the content itself is workable and doesn't mislead you on the harder passages. The exercises progress from simple quarter-note and eighth-note motion into more elaborate sixteenth-note figures, which means your earlier ones will feel easy and your later ones will expose every weakness in your embouchure consistency. That's the design. It's not a flaw, it's the point.
How to Actually Use These Études Without Wasting Your Practice Time
Most people treat Concone like sight-reading material and plow through all 32 in one session. That's pointless. Each exercise should take you at least a week, sometimes two if you're wrestling with something like No. 24 where the range jumps around and the sixteenth notes demand control rather than speed. The goal isn't to collect exercises you've played. The goal is to produce clean, even phrases at a comfortable tempo and then slowly push that tempo up only after the passage is reliable. I start by playing each exercise at half tempo with long tones on the first note of every beat, making sure the slide moves cleanly and the pitch centers. Once that feels solid, I reintroduce the rhythm but keep the same slow pace. Only after both of those steps hold up do I begin increasing the metronome. This approach usually takes about 45 minutes per exercise for an intermediate player, maybe an hour if the étude is sitting in a difficult register like the low pedal tone area.
The Problem I Hit With No. 19 and How I Worked Around It
No. 19 in this collection has a run of sixteenth notes that cross a large interval break right around second position to fourth position. I kept getting a subtle blip on the slide transition, even though my embouchure felt fine. The issue wasn't my embouchure. It was that I was moving the slide while the air stream was still settling from the previous note. What actually fixed it for me was practicing the transition in isolation as a slow sliding motion without blowing until the slide was fully in position, then adding air only after the slide locked. It felt awkward at first because it goes against the habit of moving and blowing simultaneously, but once I rebuilt that coordination, the blip disappeared entirely. I stuck with that isolated drill for about ten minutes at the start of each practice session for a week before reintegrating it into the full exercise. The first one is treating these like technical speed drills. Concone was designed for singing quality, not horsepower. If you're trying to play these at a fast tempo with aggressive tonguing, you're using the wrong tool. These exercises reward restraint. The second one is ignoring the breath marks. Many players just play through without lifting or renewing the air, which turns a lyrical line into a mushy string of notes. You need to hear a subtle air renewal between phrases, almost like a singer preparing for the next phrase without making it audible. Another thing people skip is working these in different dynamics. Play the opening exercises at mf, then try them at mp and p while keeping the tone centered. If your tone breaks apart at soft volumes, that's the real problem Concone is exposing, not your finger or slide speed. And one last thing that matters: these work best when you treat the trombone like a singing instrument, not a mechanical one. Focus on the shape of the phrase, not just hitting the right notes.
Get the Full Details
What the PDF Gets Right and Where It Falls Short
The guidance on slide positions is generally accurate and the editorial suggestions for articulation are reasonable. The PDF also includes tempo recommendations that are realistic for most intermediate players. Where it stumbles is in the later études where the vocal original uses wider leaps that don't map perfectly onto the trombone slide system without some adjustment. In those cases, you'll want to consult the original vocal score or a well-edited brass version to see how the intervals actually behave on the instrument. The document also doesn't address register-specific challenges in depth. The bottom register of the trombone interacts with Concone's slower, sustained phrases in a way that can make intonation waver if your embouchure support isn't engaged consistently. I found myself cross-referencing with Bordogni studies when the low register in Concone started sounding unfocused. The combination of the two actually covers gaps that neither does alone.
Practical Notes on Getting the Most Out of This Material
Record yourself playing each exercise once a week. You'll notice issues in playback that you don't catch while playing. It's annoying but useful. Work through the early numbers daily while keeping the harder ones rotating on a slower schedule. Don't abandon the easy ones just because you can play them now, because the ones that feel simple are often the ones that maintain your baseline technique. And if you ever feel like you've plateaued on a particular étude, slow down by another ten beats per minute and rebuild from there instead of pushing through with bad habits. That's usually where the real progress hides.
