While rehearsing with Deception yesterday afternoon, Gary asked a question about who plays on the snare drum punches in The Nazz Are Blue with him. Both Steve and I said we both did. That got me thinking of something…Don’t ask me why…My mind segues at the strangest times and in the oddest directions somedays…I started to think why is it that when I play my tenor, my notes are always bang on with the rest of the band, and yet when I play my bari or bass, the notes are always bang on then too? The obvious answer is that I’m paid to make sure that they’re on time…Geez…I guess that’s why I got fired from that last job… 
…And who said I don’t learn from my mistakes? (You know I’m just kidding about that getting fired from my last job thing, right?)
Seriously though, what allows me to put the notes on exactly the correct beat, or part of the beat no matter what size of horn I’m playing? Because I am a saxophone player who plays all sizes of saxophones from soprano through bass, and that’s all I play nowadays (having hung up my clarinet many years ago), I don’t consider myself a “doubler”. I do however see each voice of saxophone as a unique instrument.
Nothing gives away a player, who is uncomfortable with a particular voice of saxophone, quicker than their approach to said instrument. For example, when Kenny G plays soprano, he plays soprano . When he plays tenor, he just sounds different. He approaches the horn differently; he plays the horn differently; and while some of his signature licks may be recognizable: he plays tenor like a tenor player, not like a soprano player playing a tenor.
Like most saxophone players when they start out, I first started out on alto. In my second year, I switched to tenor, and that horn quickly became “my voice”. All through junior and senior high I still played alto, and added a soprano after playing about 5 years, but tenor became my primary instrument. I just felt most comfortable playing tenor. The sound that emanated from the tenor saxophone allowed me to express my musical feelings most comfortably and authentically. Throughout my years in school, I picked up clarinet (switching to bass clarinet once I had the basics of the fingering system figured out) and bassoon. (This was done in part because I was entering university as a performance major.) However as time went by, those non-sax doubles went by the wayside, and I’ve concentrated on becoming the best sax player that I can.
Fast forward 20 years, and I was still a S,A,T player only. I’d played bari back in school and university, but hadn’t touched one since. Tenor was still my voice. Alto and soprano were horns that I played when I did classical. (Hell, I didn’t have anything but classical setups for them until 2000.) In 1998 I decided to get a bari. I found a 1967 low Bb Mark VI with an ugly relac job in Chicago, that is a killer of a horn. I was hooked. No doubt about it. I knew it: I was a low-horn player. Then in 2000 I bought my 1922 silver plated Buescher Tru Tone bass from Paul Coats in New Orleans. Now Eppelsheim is making all these wonderful horns that are so very tempting for those of us for predilections toward the low end of the sound spectrum. Oh when will the temptation end???? 
Now, the lower the horn and thus bigger the horn, the longer the body tube has to be. Makes sense, right? (Eppelsheim’s Tubax & J’Élle Stainer’s compact designs not withstanding, since the sax playing world is still divided on whether or not these horns are indeed even saxophones.) In order to produce a sound, you have to move the column of air through the tube. The longer the body tube, and the lower the note, the longer it takes to produce the sound. You non-musical types still with me? BTW, we’re not talking about a great deal of time here, we’re talking about fractions of seconds, but nonetheless that split second means the difference between whether you start your note on time or if you come in just a “hair” late.
When you’re working with a band, that “hair” is not OK, since one of the ways a band is defined as “good” is whether or not they are tight. Being 100% tight 100% of the time is paramount to a good performance, whether it be in a coffee shop with a crowd of 50, or at a festival with a crowd of 5000.
When I play bari, I need to start my notes just a hair earlier than I do when I play tenor. When I play bass, I have to start them even earlier than when I play bari. (BTW, I am not aware that I am doing this. I do this totally subconsciously.) This is where my viewing each saxophone voice as a unique instrument is a clear advantage.
When a sax player first starts playing another voice of saxophone, say for example a tenor player starts playing baritone, they naturally play the baritone the way they would their tenor. Why wouldn’t they? All saxophones share the same fingering system. Since this often happens in school, if the band teacher isn’t a sax player, the student’s embouchure, amount of mouthpiece to take in, breathing, posture, etc. aren’t fine tuned for the baritone. If that student is an intermediate player (which are often the ones chosen for baritone), they will most likely blend into the backdrop, and their baritone skills will never develop properly.
Same holds true for a late bloomer, or someone who is starting out again on sax after taking a number of years off after school. Once they start adding different voices of saxes to their stable, without proper instruction, they will just transfer their old habits (both good and bad) to the new voice of horn.
We’ve all heard these types of players before. We might not know what was wrong with their playing, but perhaps we left a performance of the community band thinking, wow, there was something “off” with that bari player. It turns out that it was an alto player playing bari. Or perhaps there was a soprano player we heard at a club who sounded strange on the sop, but was fine on their tenor. Perhaps that player never developed a good tonal concept for soprano, and really never found their voice on the horn.
What I try to instill in my students who want to add another saxophone voice to their arsenal is to first and foremost, develop a solid foundation on what they’re currently playing. That is paramount, because without a good foundation, you’re not going to have anything solid to build on. Then, once you’ve got that foundation built, add to that, but customize for the new voice. Listen to as many recordings of the new voice as you can and develop a tonal concept to strive for. This takes time. (Hell, I’m not sure I’ve got a tonal concept for soprano and alto half the time!)
As you develop as a player on this new horn, you will develop licks & riffs that are unique to that voice. Approach the horn differently than you do the one you’ve been playing for years. Don’t just do the same old, same old. Let the new voice be the guide to a new tonal concept and use it to develop a new appreciation and understanding of whatever saxophone you are taking on. In other words…Try to think outside the box. Don’t just play it like “a saxophone”. Play it like a “soprano sax” or “tenor sax” or “bass sax” or xxx sax…. you get the idea…That’s what I mean about viewing each voice as a unique instrument.
For me, when I play bass, I seem to be in another portion of my brain than when I play tenor. (Maybe I’m mistaken, but testing this theory using functional MRIs of the same musicians playing different instruments and instruments of the same type but in different styles, and playing different styles of music would be very cool, to see if this were indeed the case.) The same is true when I play bari. When I play baritone, my head is in a totally different place than when I play tenor. I approach the music differently, I think differently, my playing style is different, and of course my licks, riffs, etc. are different as well. Not to mention there’s that whole Eb versus Bb thing, which I won’t even get into today, since this post is looking a bit too much like my thesis already in length! Not enough pictures I think today 🙂
Anyway, all of this today to say, that while all saxophones are similar in design, namely they share a conical bore, a single reed mouthpiece, and so on, as performers, we also need to recognize that they are also different. If we think of approaching them as different instruments, much like we would approach any other “double” we might have, then we might be more successful in finding out what makes one voice of horn distinctive from another, beyond the obvious higher or lower pitch.
