Still can't growl… grrr

[Anonymous]

Don’t give up Martin !
Even an experienced band leader can listen to your tone while playing alone, and know straight away you sound different too different to how his band sounds like. These blokes have heard their band played that many times, they can compare in their head what you sound like compared to what they are used to hearing. Just like 8 times out of 10, when i listen to the way someone tslks, i can usually guess if they can sing very well.

From what you are saying, i don’t think the band leader is telling you the full truth about why you were turned down. It’s quite common for bands to turn people down, for more personal reasons like differences in personality (people don’t want to work with someone they struggle to get on with), or your image isn’t in keeping with the band’s image. It’s no different to an office job, people with the correct qualifications for the job get turned down for the exact same reasons.

Sounds like you had a lucky escape.

The only other thing to do, is to have a few lessons with a sax teacher, and get the sax teacher to conform that you sound like a saw mill.

[Martin Pavíček]

I dont give up improve my tone. I give up this dicussion.
(Bandmaster is not a problem, he knows me a lot of time, and yet he invited me to the test. but even if I did not have this experience, I would wonder how much the saxophonist can change the color of the tone without changing the tool / mp / reed – but I have described it in many different ways above, and none of you understand :-(.

[Anonymous]

the change of colour is done through the embouchure and breathing, try lots of experimenting.

But and a big but, when i moved to a metal guardala mouthpiece + ddario reed, i suddenly discovered i could do lots of things that i could never do with previous (mouthpiece + reed) setup combinations, and that included colour.

I think further down the road, you’ll have ‘light bulb’ moment, singers have the same problem, colour to them is ‘expression & feeling’. Just like some one says ‘Sorry’ and you can tell they don’t mean it – thats colour. endof.

[john]

Martin, yes I do understand what you are saying.
But in my different performances/recording sessions I am using the same equipment, same room, same distance freom mic, these are almost always the same but it’s my approach that is changing….
to get a different sound/tone I change things inside me; embrouchure, oral cavity, air support. these are things we can change that do help make a difference.

[Simon]

Martin i understand your question. And i can tell that sax player can change ‘color’ of tone using same reed,mpc and sax. Some songs can be played with warm soft sound and next song can be played dirty. It’s in all in our head. Alot to do with your sound is listening to certain sax players. If you listen Johhnys recordings long time and practice with him, your sound will go in direction of his sound. But if you will listen recording of classical sax player,then your sound will go in that direction. Anyway i think you need to have the sound that you want to get out of sax in your head. For concert band i use classical mpc vandoren TL4. I can play with my high baffle mpc too, but i’ll have to hold back myself all the time to not cut thru the rest of players. So diff mpc can help play diff kind of music, but at the end it will always be you and your sound, no matter what mpc you use.

Correct me if i’m wrong.

Simon

[john]

yes good points Martin.
if you use a low or no baffle rubber mp you will get that “dark” sound preferred by classical musicians.
if you’re going for a more pop, blues, rock (like my sound) you can’t do it on this type of m I know that because I can’t either!

[Anonymous]

Just to throw a spanner in the works, my guardalla metal king is far better sounding for classical music than the previous classical mouthpieces i had, and it works well for pop, rock etc.. To me this mouthpiece, by sheer genius is a far superior all round saxophone mouthpiece. There’s no way i would go back to the so called classical setups, i’ve played in an orchestra a few months back, and my tone was exactly the same as the rest of the altos in the orchestra. This mouthpiece lets me do a lot more things than all my previous setups.

[john]

yes good point, I believe that it’s totally possible to be much more versatile on that mp whereas the rubber one is one dimensional.
some would and do argue that these materials have nothing to do with the way you will sound. But I experimented with a silver plated guardala against a gold plated one and even then some could hear a difference. so, this becomes more extreme when comparing a hard rubber one to metal

[Martin Pavíček]

OK, thank you all for the answers. The only thing I still miss is a practical demonstration – someone who would record, for example “I’ll play as warm and soft tone as I can for one minute”, and then “and now I will play the same as sharp”, and so on. It is about “limit states” – to what extent can this be influenced. That would help me to get an idea of what might happen to me in the future, and what rate is already out of bounds.

[Anonymous]

Probably a demo for Johnny to do in the paid forums. It might be far quicker to get your sax teacher to demonstrate it one to one, unless you can find something similar on utube. I don’t do videos or record demonstrations of any kind, my set up is too poor quality for playback listening.

[Author]

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