Ghost Tones for Rebalancing Hesitation

Ghost Tones for Rebalancing Hesitation

by Dr. Logan Chopyk

I was a guest artist this week at Slide School, and I was asked how to resolve hesitations when starting notes. This is a very common problem trombone players run into, so I thought I would make it my blog topic for the week.

What Is a Hesitation?

A hesitation occurs when a player intends to start a note, but at the exact moment of playing, the body holds back air against the player’s conscious wishes. The sound doesn’t speak cleanly—or sometimes at all—even though the player wants it to.

So why does this happen?

Hesitations are most often the body’s response to overblowing. While playing, our bodies are engaged in a constant balancing act in order to maintain the tones and musical passages we want to produce.

Our playing is “functional” when we can get through the music. However, within that functional playing, there are varying degrees of efficiency and purity of resonance. These factors directly affect tone quality, endurance, pitch stability, accuracy, and range.

The farther our balance strays from efficiency and pure resonance, the more the body must compensate. These compensations can easily snowball during a practice session or performance.

In fact, some players deliberately automatize compensations because of misinformation—or because they believe trombone playing is supposed to feel difficult, and so they make it so.

Over time, these compensations become pillars of a player’s playing identity. They define tendencies in tone, pitch, range, and accuracy, and often create new problems that players attempt to fix with even more compensations.

How Compensations Create Hesitation

A common example might look like this:

Tightly controlled lips are introduced for the sake of accuracy. This alters the shape of the inner mouth, which creates a need for throat manipulation of the air. That, in turn, requires pushing harder to get air through all the roadblocks. Eventually, the body responds by unconsciously holding back air with the throat and tongue in order to protect the lips from the excessive pressure being generated.

The result? Hesitation.

The Solution: Do Less

The answer is to do less.

Most players searching for solutions assume they aren’t strong enough or aren’t working hard enough. In reality, 99% of problems in brass playing come from too much activity.

So how do we do less?

Step 1: Zero Activation (Body Scan)

Start with a body scan from the toes all the way up to the face, including everything in between. Bring non-judgmental awareness to each body part, as if you are the body part you’re focusing on.

Get out of the head and into the body.

Notice how each part feels and simply be present with it. If intense emotions arise, try to remain accepting and present as they run their course. If something needs deeper attention later, mentally bookmark it for future work.

Building a body-awareness practice benefits every aspect of life and is a valuable daily investment.

Step 2: Add the Instrument Without Adding Tension

Once the body is as inactive as possible, pick up the instrument while monitoring the most common tension points in trombone playing:

• Lower back

• Abdominal muscles

• Chest

• Throat

• Tongue

• Lips

Notice whether any of these areas become active in anticipation of playing. If they do, return to Step 1: zero body activity.

Step 3: Air Without Tone

Next, move gentle, conversational air through the instrument without trying to play a tone.

Here we are looking for:

• Freedom of energy

• Energy that only goes out

We don’t want anything holding back air and creating an isometric balance. Instead, we want the air to balance naturally against the resistance of the trombone.

Step 4: The Ghost Tone

Once air is already moving freely through the instrument, find the minimum amount of resonance on a favorite low- to mid-register note.

The priority here is maintaining freedom and direction of air energy. Don’t let “finding a tone” turn into blocking everything up to force sound. Be open to new sensations and new ways of playing.

See where the magic of the standing wave appears when you aren’t forcing tone with the lips, tongue, throat, chest, or anything else.

Practice Structure

Spend plenty of time with these steps—possibly even an entire practice session:

1. Zero activation

2. Air moves freely into the instrument (don’t take a big breath)

3. Ghost tone: minimum-effort resonance

4. Repeat steps 1–3

If Hesitation Appears, Ask These Questions:

• Am I truly at zero activation?

• Did I take a big breath that instigated tension?

• Am I actually repeating Step 1 every time?
  (Most players rush past this most important step.)

This exercise rebalances our playing system so it becomes free-flowing and no longer reliant on isometric tension. It is a reliable and effective way to resolve hesitation at the start of notes.