Today we’d like to introduce you to David Butler.
Hi David, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I have a lot of history! I am just starting my 7th decade. I started in music like many in high school band although I did have a unique high school. My father was an aeronautical engineer in the space program, truly a rocket scientist! I went to high school at Cocoa Beach High just a few miles from Cape Canaveral. When I joined the high school band I wanted to play the drums but my dad had his old trombone in the closet and said why don’t you try that first. I was smitten.
I was a surfer. Sometimes opportunity comes from setbacks. I saved all my money for two summers to buy a surfboard only to have it stolen within a couple of weeks of buying it. I didn’t have enough money for another one so I decided to build one. I bought the foam blank and started shaping my new surfboard. I thought about the one that I had bought and realized I could build one better that perfectly fit the waves on the east coast of Florida. That surfboard was an early lesson to me that I had design skills! It was a great board, much better than the one I paid a lot of money for!
I decided that music was for me and went to Florida State and studied trombone, after graduating from FSU I went to UNT for my master’s in music and was fortunate to play in the 1:00 lab band for two years and met many great musicians in the area. So I decided to stay in Dallas to hone my craft. The first years were great! I got a gig playing in a hotel orchestra for shows coming to town. I performed with Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Natalie Cole, Lou Rawls, The Temptations, The Four Tops, and many more that I don’t remember, but it was great learning experience. I also managed to work in the recording industry in Dallas a couple of sessions a week! Then in 1983 I was asked by a trumpet playing friend to play in a horn band on Sunday nights at a club called Memphis in Addison. This opportunity turned into a 40 year career! The band was the Emerald City Band. We ended up being one of the best party bands in the country and even played the White House twice!
So this brings me to the start of my current career. Getting older and feeling the pain of holding an instrument up all night long sometimes 6 nights a week, and then taking a look at my beloved trombone realizing that I could build one better. The weight and ergonomics of the trombone could seriously be improved! I realized that carbon fiber had very good acoustic qualities. Because of the stiffness of the material it resonates really well. Also a couple of companies were already starting to make stringed instruments out of it. It is also very very light! I started replacing parts of my trombone with carbon fiber starting with the slide. I was amazed! It was much faster, lighter, and stronger and best of all it still sounded like a trombone! I continued to develop this horn by replacing parts until I have the best combination of traditional trombone metal parts and carbon fiber replacement parts. I was able to reduce the weight of my horn from 3 pounds to 1.5 pounds. And not only that but improve the ergonomics so that it was comfortable to play long gigs!
I enlisted a few friends, trombone players, and showed them how to build carbon fiber parts and started Butler Trombones. We now sell eight models of trombone all over the world to some of the industries greatest musicians. We are developing carbon fiber Sousaphone bells right now for the Marine band in Washington D.C. Learning something new everyday keeps me young and happy!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.butlertrombones.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/butlertrombones/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/carbon.fiber.trombones
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@butlertrombones9807
Image Credits
Bob Hadsell
