Trombone Champ Makes a Hit Video Game of an Unlikely Instrument
Trombone Champ Makes a Hit Video Game of an Unlikely Instrument
Trombone Champ Makes a Hit Video Game of an Unlikely Instrument
September 30, 2022
By Alex Marshall
Summary
Thanks to the popular new video game Trombone Champ - a sort of Guitar Hero for brass players - Buckle was having a go at its exhilarating opening as if he were one of the first violins.
Buckle, 29, who gamely agreed to test out Trombone Champ last weekend, gripped a mouse, which he would move up and down to change the pitch of his virtual trombone, and placed his left hand on the laptop's space bar, which he would hit to play notes.
Trombone Champ does not take the trombone, or trombonists, very seriously.
Trombone Champ is the creation of Dan Vecchitto, a web application designer at Penguin Random House, who - in partnership with his wife, Jackie Vecchitto - in his spare time makes video games in the bedroom of his Brooklyn apartment.
Several trombone players said they thought the game was a positive showcase for the instrument.
Xavier Woods, a star wrestler for WWE who plays the trombone in bouts and is also a well-known gamer under the name Austin Creed, said that he had not expected the game to hold his attention, but that he had ended up playing it for hours.
Alex Paxton, a British composer, said in his London apartment that clips of Trombone Champ were so filled with out-of-tune notes and microtones that they "Had all the hallmarks of great experimental music." Paxton then sat down to try the game for himself.
Reference
Marshall, A. (2022, September 30). Trombone Champ makes a hit video game of an unlikely instrument. Retrieved October 7, 2022, from https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/30/arts/music/trombone-champ.html