Although it has been built in sizes from alto to contrabass, it is the tenor valve trombone pitched in B♭ an octave lower than the trumpet which has seen the most widespread use.

They are found in jazz and popular music, as well as marching bands in Europe, where they are often built with rotary valves and were widely used in orchestras in the 19th century.

They became popular in European orchestras particularly in Italy and Austria, where composers wrote with a section of three valve trombones in mind.

[3] They were included in the curriculum at the Conservatoire de Paris in the last half of the 19th century, and used in French orchestras for a time despite the large amounts of tubing which made the instruments heavy and unwieldy to play.

Despite this, valve trombones still remain popular in parts of eastern Europe and Italy, in Banda music, military and brass bands in South America and India, and in jazz, often as a doubling instrument for trumpet players.

The valve trombone is also useful for situations when the movement of a slide can be impractical, such as when marching, mounted, or playing in a cramped orchestra pit.

[21] Subsequent models developed in the early 21st century by British instrument maker Wessex and Australian jazz musician James Morrison use a larger 0.525-inch (13.3 mm) bore.