The Pink Panther Tenor Saxophone Instrumental

[Michael Bishop]

Hey guys,
How can someone not recognize this song? It’s got to be one of the most popular Saxophone songs in the whole world. It was loads of fun to play too 🙂 I also wanted to pay personal tribute/respect to Inspector Clouseau (I think that’s how you spell his name anyway LOL) So I dressed accordingly. My son has some fake mustaches and I was going to put 1 on, but he couldn’t find them today, so I went for the Sunglasses instead LOL I made some minor changes to the Improvisation on the sheet music that I was given for this song, not only because I wanted to make it my own v.s. sounding exactly like someone else’s version, but also there are key notes to scoop/emphasize in this style of playing that give the song the feel that it has….the sheet music that I had didn’t really emphasize some of those key notes; so here we go with the Improvisation thing again LOL My son is still getting to know the recording software and there are a couple of places that got accidentally muted, please forgive him LOL He’s working hard to get to know it and it’s coming along.
The local music shop is a dealer for Claude Lakey MPs and I tried one the other day out of curiousity and it was really good. It was the same Claude Lakey MP that Johnny did in his demo with Trevor James Alto Saxophone. My custom Guardala MP that I used for the Green Onions is getting some minor adjustments per my request right now, so I am having a go with a Claude Lakey MP for this video here. It’s a very nice/respectable MP and I think it’s perfect for this kind of music. If you’re someone who loves playing Jazz/Big Band type of music then I would say this MP on Tenor Sax is for you. I don’t have the greatest ligature in the world for this MP. I would recommend you invest in a good ligature if you want to play with this Mouthpiece. In any case, I will be planning on getting a Theo Wanne later for my new Tenor. Based on using a Theo Wanne with my new Alto…..I can’t even BEGIN to imagine using a Theo Wanne with this Trevor James SR Tenor…..all I can say is “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy!” 🙂 One more upload coming from me as an Alto/Tenor duet using Claude Lakey MPs–I took a personal request from my wife and the next upload will be that song she requested–and then after that lots of stuff coming from Johnny’s song selection like “What Does It Take” and “Pick Up the Pieces”. It was challenging to throw in the Altissimo notes in Pick Up the Pieces…and I can’t believe that I’m actually playing that solo with the Altissimo notes in it!!! Super, super excited and all I can say is “Thank You Johnny” 🙂 Been using Altissimo fingerings No.1 lately and having good success with them too, Fingering positions No.2 are pretty much a part of me/my playing now.

[jake]

Nice Michael, very noticeable improvement in tone there!! I think that MP is a good fit for you and that tenor. Your notes are smoothing up and this sound on the new tenor I think was a major improvement. Way to go!! Def a classic for the sax.

[Michael Bishop]

Hey Jake,
cool profile pic you got there 🙂 Thanks for the encouragement….on my last video, the reed split into 2 places pretty badly and I just “winged” it–I did post a picture of the reed, so yeah it was “rough” as you bring out. Those things always seem to happen at the wrong time LOL I had checked it before playing and it was fine, but it was probably in the process of getting ready to split. On a practice after that, someone told me they thought the reed was still good if I trimmed it down, so I tried that and it was terrible, so in the trash it went. In any case, the Claude Lakey MPs are very good and on the next upload I’ll be using it for both Alto/Tenor because it’s a duet–the tone would be better with a good ligature. I actually think it sounded better on the Alto than the Tenor, but that’s just my ears talking LOL

[jake]

Thanks, actually had the pic taken by someone last week as I was asked to play the 1st dance at a wedding. I actually used Johnny’s backing track of “I Can’t Help Falling In Love”. Was a huge success. I actually had many people asking to me to play more. LOL.

[Michael Bishop]

Asked to play the 1st dance at a wedding? Wow, that’s irrefutable proof that you’re getting better and better and better. That’s great that they actually asked you, so others are starting to recognize you with your Sax and respecting it…can’t beat that!
Yeah, I’ve been very pleased with the Claude Lakey MPs; kind of took me by surprise because it was the farthest thing from my mind. I just went to the shop to pick up some reeds for the Alto and the exact same Claude Lakey MP that Johnny did in his review was sitting there in the glass window. Not sure if that saying holds true of the cat being killed because he was curious LOL but I wanted to see it for myself. So I asked them about it and they had an extra that they keep for players who wanna try their MPs–they do that with all of their MPs v.s. pulling it out of the glass case and opening a brand new one. It’s very a very Versatile MP, from low, subtle tones to edgy, rockin’ tones. In the Pink Panther, I obviously wasn’t trying to “blow my brains out” like I did in the Green Onion with some of the Notes I threw in there LOL, but I wouldn’t have hesitated to use this MP on the Green Onions…with a good ligature. As you start really playing hard with this Claude Lakey, the edge/projection is awesome; perfect for Rock and Blues (that’s where my heart is right now LOL) But it doesn’t have quite the brights or “screaming” sound like a Guardala or my other MP has. My custom Guardala felt a little rough to me and I’ve talked about that before (I felt that way playing it and saw it for myself on video too) so it’s getting some adjusting right now.
My take on this Claude Lakey is that if you’re looking for a great, versatile Mouthpiece that is well suited for just about everything you can think of v.s. stock piling on MPs and pulling out that one MP given the kind of music we’re playing (we all know how Saxophone players seem to carry more Mouthpieces than they will ever need LOL), then you may wanna check out Claude Lakeys. I’m thinking about doing Pick Up the Pieces or something on this Claude Lakey too, so you can see how it sounds in the Altissimo range/tonguing the notes very quickly.

[Kevin]

Michael, your son is doing a great job learning the software, putting in the link tags, timing in/out the text headers, adjusting balances, etc.. What little bit I’ve chosen to mess with those software features, I find that it takes a bit more time than I have to debug them, and my patience and frustration level start to add to the “background noise”. The backing tape is a very good quality recording, and it sounded very good for you to be playing along to. The sax volume was pretty much right where I would have deemed it in good balance to the backing track, maybe just a bit on the “louder” side, but for displaying your playing for the Forum it was very clear.
As with most of my comments I don’t have the time to add more, got to get some shut eye for another grueling work day tomorrow… Intonation needed more attention IMHO, once you lay down a track if you play it back over a speaker system with your trusty tuner, or tuner app (one that hopefully responds in milli-seconds), you can zero in on those particular notes, then go back and work those sections until you get the pitches dialed in. Over time your embrochure, air delivery, and ear start to memorize the feel and difference between a note played in tune, and one that is not. So experiences shared will hopefully be beneficial…

[john]

I agree that this mp is good on ya Michael, suits you and improves your tone for the better.
I would keep rockin on this one for sure as it’s giving you a slightly bigger and warmer tone.
you either played a few wrong notes or your chart is wrong so check that very carefully.
tuning is an issue as well… one thing I tell students is to stop the notes with your tonque instead of just letting them fade off because doing this makes them sound even more out of tune because they drop off instead of being deliberately cut off.

[Michael Bishop]

Thanks for the comments guys….maybe some of the notes that you’re talking about that sounded out of tune was simply because I scooped them, slurring them, etc.. too much/too strongly and simply lost a little bit of air support while doing so? I had seen a Sax version of this song that someone else did and it gave it a very jazzy-type of feel. I can tongue them and what easily, that’s no problem. I just thought that the slurs/scoops, letting it fade off, etc. gave the song a jazzy-type of feel and that was deliberate on my part. But if that doesn’t sound good then I can play it the other way around too like you’re talking about here. Thanks for to pointer in that regard…guess that wasn’t a good approach then on my part. I’ll go back and check the notes again, maybe I hit a couple wrong in my Improvisation?

The mouthpiece feels really good and on the Alto it feels REAL good. It’s real versatile and well-suited for just about everything you can think of. The ligatures that they send you with these MPs look like something from planet Mars, or something you would use while Snowboarding LOL But I did try it and hated it. So I just used a cheap ligature on this video….a good ligature is definately something that is on the list if you guys feel that this Claude Lakey MP suits me better. On the Alto, right now all I have is a cheap stainless-steel ligature…you know those ones that are like the worst in the world. As stated before, the custom MP that I was using felt very “harsh” and the blank used for it, as I discovered afterwards, was a blank that was imported from Bejing and when it resonates it came across as very “harsh, rough” to me…and your guys insights/comments have convinced me of that…my own ears weren’t hearing/feeling that wrong.

[john]

the wrong note is the 9th note of the melody.
this is correct:
F F# G# A F F# G# A D C#

You’re playing an E on the 9th note every time, when it’s really a D

[Michael Bishop]

Okay, the sheet music I have is showing E for that part, so that means the sheet music I was given is wrong there. Thanks for bringing this out Johnny for me, I will fix it.

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