The tenor trombone has a fundamental note of B flat and is usually treated as a non-transposing instrument. However, tenor trombones with C as their fundamental note were almost equally popular in the mid-19th century in Britain and France. As the trombone in its simplest form has neither crooks, valves nor keys to lower the pitch by a specific interval, trombonists use 7 chromatic slide positions. Each position progressively increases the length of the air column, thus lowering the pitch by one semitone. 

While the lowest note of the tenor trombone's range (excluding fundamentals or pedal notes) is E2, its upper range is theoretically open-ended. The practical top of the range is sometimes considered to be F5, or more conservatively D5.