{"id":282,"date":"2008-06-30T15:13:14","date_gmt":"2008-06-30T22:13:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/blog\/?p=282"},"modified":"2008-07-09T16:41:58","modified_gmt":"2008-07-09T23:41:58","slug":"bassically-different","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/blog\/2008\/bassically-different\/","title":{"rendered":"Bassically Different"},"content":{"rendered":"

While rehearsing with Deception<\/a><\/em>\u00a0yesterday afternoon, Gary<\/a> asked a question about who plays on the snare drum punches in The Nazz Are Blue<\/em> with him. Both Steve<\/a> 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\u00a0that’s why I got fired from that last job…\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

…And who said I don’t learn from my mistakes?\u00a0(You know I’m just kidding about that getting fired from my <\/a>last job thing, right?)<\/a><\/p>\n

Seriously though,\u00a0what allows me to put the notes on exactly the correct beat, or part of the beat\u00a0no 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\u00a0unique instrument.<\/p>\n

Nothing gives away a player, who is uncomfortable with a particular\u00a0voice of saxophone, quicker than their approach to said instrument. For example, when\u00a0Kenny G\u00a0plays 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.<\/p>\n

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”.\u00a0All through junior and senior high I still played alto, and added a soprano after playing about\u00a05 years, but tenor became my primary instrument. I just felt most comfortable playing tenor. The sound that emanated from the tenor saxophone allowed me\u00a0to express my musical feelings most comfortably and authentically.\u00a0Throughout my years in school,\u00a0I 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. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Fast forward 20 years, and\u00a0I was\u00a0still 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.\u00a0 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\u00a0a 1967 low Bb Mark VI <\/a>with an ugly relac job in Chicago, that\u00a0is a killer of a horn. I was hooked.\u00a0No doubt about it. I knew it: I was a low-horn player. Then in\u00a02000 I bought my 1922 silver plated Buescher Tru Tone bass<\/a> from Paul Coats in New Orleans. Now Eppelsheim<\/a> 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????\u00a0\u00a0\"\"<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now, the lower the horn and thus bigger the horn, the longer the\u00a0body tube has to be. Makes sense, right? (Eppelsheim’s<\/a> Tubax & J\u2019\u00c9lle Stainer’s <\/a>compact designs not withstanding, since the sax playing world is still divided on whether or not these horns are indeed even saxophones.)\u00a0In order to\u00a0produce\u00a0a sound, you\u00a0have to move\u00a0the column of air\u00a0through the tube.\u00a0The longer the body tube, and the lower the note, the longer it takes to produce the sound.\u00a0You 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\u00a0that split\u00a0second\u00a0means the\u00a0difference between\u00a0whether you start your note on time or if you come in just a\u00a0“hair” late.<\/p>\n

When you’re working with a band, that “hair” is not OK, since one\u00a0of the ways a band is\u00a0defined as “good” is whether or not they are tight.\u00a0Being\u00a0100% tight 100% of the time\u00a0is paramount to a good performance, whether it be in a\u00a0coffee shop with a crowd of\u00a050, or\u00a0at a festival with a\u00a0crowd of 5000.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When I play\u00a0bari, I\u00a0need\u00a0to start my notes\u00a0just a hair earlier than I do when I play tenor. When I play bass, I have to start them\u00a0even earlier than when I play bari.\u00a0(BTW, I am not aware that I am doing this. I do this totally subconsciously.) This is where\u00a0my viewing each saxophone voice as a unique instrument\u00a0is a clear advantage.<\/p>\n

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\u00a0system. 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.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Same holds true for a late bloomer, or someone who\u00a0is starting out again on sax after taking a number of years off after school.\u00a0Once 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.<\/p>\n

We’ve all heard these types of\u00a0players 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\u00a0“off” with that bari player. It turns out that it was an alto player playing bari. Or perhaps\u00a0there\u00a0was\u00a0a soprano player we heard at a club\u00a0who 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.<\/p>\n

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!)<\/p>\n

As you develop as a player on this new horn, you will develop licks &\u00a0riffs 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.<\/p>\n

For me,\u00a0when I play\u00a0bass,\u00a0I seem to be in another portion of my brain than when I play tenor. (Maybe I’m\u00a0mistaken, 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\u00a0playing different styles of music would be very cool, to see if this were indeed the case.)\u00a0 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\u00a0is looking a bit too much like my thesis already in length! Not enough pictures I think today \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Anyway, all of this today to\u00a0say, that while all saxophones are similar in\u00a0design, namely they share a conical bore,\u00a0a single reed mouthpiece, and so on, as performers,\u00a0we also need to recognize that they are also different. If we\u00a0think of approaching them as different\u00a0instruments, much like we would approach any other “double” we might have, then we\u00a0might be more successful in finding out what makes\u00a0one voice of horn distinctive from another, beyond the obvious higher or lower pitch.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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…this is just my blog<\/em>. <\/span> My \u201creal\u201d <\/b> website is<\/span> www.bassic-sax.info.<\/a> If you\u2019re looking for <\/span> sax info<\/strong>,<\/span> you should check it out too.<\/span>There\u2019s lots<\/em> there! <\/span>\n<\/div>\n
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