I am looking into buying a trombone and have almost totally decided on a bass trombone. the one thing that keeps me back is that i am currently a trombone player in a skaband and i don't know how playing bass trombone will change this. Can a bass trombone perform decently in a ska band or should i stick to tenor? Note that i also play in a jazz band and a concert band, and switching to bass trombone for these will actually be beneficial and complete the trombone section. this has made my choice even harder. Any thoughts?

If you can sound like Bill Reichenbach you can do anything with the bass trombone.

If your going to play in all those genres, just pick the shiniest horn.

If you use a bass bone and plan on playing the same parts you normally play, use a smaller mouthpiece. I use a 5G or 6 1/2A with my bass bone when i have to use it for ska. Works pretty well, dont get up into the higher registers as easy and it takes quite a bit more air, but it works fine for me.

Personally, I would not go smaller than a 2G for any sort of bass trombone work, even if you had to play an alto trombone piece on the bass trombone. The 2G is pretty much the smallest mouthpiece out there that is designed for the bass trombone - anything smaller does not do the instrument justice. Rather than cheat by using a tenor trombone mouthpiece (by the way, 6 1/2 AL's are too small for many large bore TENOR players!), working on high register facility with a sensible mouthpiece will certainly give better results.

I was assuming that he wants the bass trombone to come as close to sounding like a tenor as possible.

I agree with you though, and when i want a true bass bone sound i use either a 1 or 1 1/2G.

i play a bass trombone in a skaband, but i just play the tenor music, its the exact same, except that you get a much fuller sound...just cuz you got a bass trombone doesnt mean all you gotta play is bass trombone music, im in grade 9 and i play at about a gr11/12 level, so my concert, jazz, and ska band rely on me to play as well as i can, so i dont play the bass tbone parts