Hey guys. I'm a high school trombonist, and I've got two main problems that I hope you can help me out with:

1) Today I forgot to lock my trombone slide and the outer section fell out. This created a dent (barely noticable, except upon examination) on the end closer to the mouthpiece; this means that whenever my slide goes out to about 7th position, it stops dead in its tracks, and it takes a good second or so to return it to its rightful position. What should I do to fix it? I don't play that low B natural too much, but I feel a little too limited for complete musical comfort. Any way I can undent it myself, or should I get a professional to do that?

2) Furthering my worries, my band teacher assigned us a test on Monday. The test is solely on ascending and descending thirds in the major scales. (Bb major would be Bb-D, C-Eb, D-F, etc.) This sounds simple enough, but I'm having an enormous amount of difficulty memorizing them; much more than I did when I practiced just the good ol' major scales. Is there any sheet music with ascending and descending thirds, or any method I can use to practice?

Thanks for your help. I'm really stressin' out here...

1) Yes, a professional slide technician should work on your slide. you should definitely get it fixed, because while you may not go out to seventh that often, that dent could be wearing at the chrome plating on your inner slides. not a good thing.

2) you're really overthinking the thirds... do you know your key signatures? order of sharps and flats? or is your problem not figuring out the thirds, but getting the scales right to begin with? i guess i'll wait for you to answer that part before i try to help you any further

^^^Ditto

Thanks Steve.

I know all my scales, but for some reason even on the easy majors (Bb, for example) where I definitely know the notes, nothing seems to click with me. As for some of the harder major scales, (D, E, A, B, etc.) I just a couple weeks ago finalized my complete memorization of them.

I'm beginning to think that my problem is I'm not thinking as much about the scales as I should be; kind of memorizing the thirds as though they're something entirely new.

ok... what method did you use to memorize your scales? are you doing them by key signature? half step/ whole step patterns? rote memorization? just curious.
because it sounds to me like it's not a matter of knowing how to find thirds. i mean heck, if you want a third above C, go up three notes (counting the first).. C-D-E... easy right?
so your problem is you don't know your scales well enough to know where the sharps and flats fall, am i right? How did i know it wasn't Eb?
if you haven't been exposed to the circle of fifths, it really is something that will make a lot more sense out of all this scale mayhem. if you understand how key signatures work, you can construct any scale you want just by knowing the key signature. the circle of fifths will help you with that. here's something to get you started
http://www.carolinaclassical.com/scales/circle.html
i'll help more if i can, but keep in mind, this is best taught by a teacher in person!

Thanks. I'll admit, my problem is probably that I know my scales by positions more than key signatures. My teacher has started implementing the circle of fifths in class, so I'll get a chance to perfectly understand them pretty soon.