Mouthpieces, horns, volume, style and surviving

[Groovekiller]

I've often thought about volume (loudness) and how it affects my choice of mouthpieces, horns, and my approach to the instrument, (saxophone, and to a certain extent, clarinet).

If I'm playing in a pit orchestra, there is a need to blend well with delicate woodwinds, strings, and of course it is necessary to stay under the singers onstage.

Orchestral playing on saxophone is an even more demanding situation. If you are in the woodwind section, you blend. If you are the soloist, you adapt to the style of the music being played.

In a modern big band or in an electric jazz group, or even in a loud clubdate band, the environment is LOUD. That's LOUD, LOUD, LOUD. The saxophone player doesn't dictate terms, he screams until he is heard.

For years, playing rock and roll full time, I had one philosophy of how to select a mouthpiece:

BUY THE LOUDEST MOUTHPIECE IN THE WORLD AND LEARN HOW TO PLAY IT IN TUNE!

35 years later, and I'm playing nearly every style of music they can throw at me, and things have changed, but not as much as I expected. It's still pretty loud. the big difference is, sometimes you have to play soft - really soft.

So the name of the game is flexibility and dynamic range. Of course you are expected to play in tune at all these dynamic levels, but you have to play really loud, and really soft.

I see all kinds of horns and mouthpieces on big gigs. Selmer Mark VI saxes still predominate, but mouthpieces are all over the place. Lots of Links and Dukoffs on tenor, lots of Meyers, Dukoffs, and others on alto, Lawtons are big on Bari. And there are still old Selmer HR mouthpieces in use on all saxes. Usually bigger tips, but Selmers nonetheless.

What do they have in common? Regardless of the setup, the good players can play loud. I mean scary loud. Blood curdling loud. And then they can play so soft you almost can't hear them, but they still have a great sound, and they are perfectly in tune.

If you want to improve your usefulness in contemporary music, sit in with a rock band, and don't use a microphone. It's possible. Then, with the same setup, play a duet with an oboe player or flute player the next day. Having trouble? Find a way to do it. That's your assignment.

 

[Gandalfe]

A theater pit orchestra is a classic example of the need to play extremes in dynamics. One minute you're trying to get the bass clarinet soft enough to support one singer and the next you are blowing your brains out on a bari sax for a herd of tromping dancers. All in one gig. It's quite the challenge. But one that helps you become a better player.

And then there is the challenge of making a bari sax sound like a viola at one point and a bassoon for the next song. I'm meant it probably be nice to have/play a viola or bassoon, but then that wouldn't be my cup o' tea. To get a bassoon-esque sound I use a soft synthetic reed--it's a matter of pride with me to try to get as close to the instrument sound called for without having to learn a new instrument. We can't all be Merlins.

 

[Ed]

Groovekiller,

To a large degree I pick mouthpieces based on being able to play dynamics from ppp to fffff and everything in between. I think as a player you have to be able to dominate your horn when necessary. I'm still working on that concept with my bari playing. SideC hipped me some good advice.

 

[SOTSDO]

After some fifty odd years of blowing on these things, I am of the firm opinion that the best "school" to learn about musical performance is in a pit orchestra. Nowhere else will you be placed in so many "realistic", demanding environments, period end of sentence.

(And, no, I am not forgetting how 'hard' it is to be in a woodwind quintet or a string quartet. Note my use of the word "realistic". In any event, performing in one of these organizations will not prepare you for the pit, but doing the pit well will ready you for a woodwind quintet.)

I felt so strongly about this back in the days that I took in students that I always included some Broadway stuff as part of the assignments. It was good to teach manuscript reading skills if for no other reason, but it also taught modern rhythm patterns ("jazz") and the like, as well as serving as an easy introduction to the saxophone (for young bass clarinet students).

Aside from the frequent (and often unrealistic) horn changes, there are the varying musical demand pointed out above. The use of saxophones as "string section filler" is one of the most obvious, but others exist as well. You have to be able to excel as a soloist one moment, then be as facile when playing muted background parts the next. And, you have to do it for "six shows a week, two matinee", over and over and over.

Those Broadway shows that most will attend for entertainment cost a lot for a number of good reasons, and one of them is the musical talent in the pit orchestra. Even with current and ongoing cutbacks in costs, there are still some pretty formidable pools of talent in that "pit" that we talk about so freely but which is alien to the "civilians".

People who would never go near a symphonic concert or a performance by a woodwind quintet will readily attend a performance of The Producers, but they will never for a moment think that the orchestra is a large part of what makes it all worthwhile. Such is life; you can't always be the "talent" and sometimes you have to be the help.

I enjoy playing modern music for money (and like rubbing up against the dressed to kill intoxicated women at those events in the bargain), but I have to say that I look forward to the "musical season" each year. I play in three or four of them each time around, ranging from the lead clarinet book (in the classics, like Sound Of Music) to the Reed IV ghetto (in most of the modern ones). The money isn't as good (maybe $1,500 all told if all of the programs are flush that year) as what I get from "commercial work", but the challenge presented by most of the parts is well worth the trouble.

 

[Dave Dolson]

I've never played in those environments described by Groovekiller (or the others) but I have had to vary my volume from extra loud to soft. Fortunately, I can do it with the set-up and horn I have on the gig (and I often vary those things just for the sake of variety).

Last Sunday, our band did a soprano feature (BLUES IN MY HEART) and while I blew out pretty good for most of the tune, I laid back and harmonized the melody when the piano took over. Later, a fellow soprano player came up and complimented my soft playing, saying he'd never heard a soprano played so softly while still playing in tune. Well . . . maybe he hasn't heard a lot of soprano players but I still valued his comment. DAVE

 

[Gandalfe]

Last Sunday, our band did a soprano feature (BLUES IN MY HEART) and while I blew out pretty good for most of the tune, I laid back and harmonized the melody when the piano took over. Later, a fellow soprano player came up and complimented my soft playing, saying he'd never heard a soprano played so softly while still playing in tune. Well . . . maybe he hasn't heard a lot of soprano players but I still valued his comment. DAVE

I live for compliments like that. I had a soprano solo two concerts ago and I gave it to another player to 'share the wealth'. I was later told that I had made it look easy and the other player never came up to snuff. The director asked me to talk to her about solo assignments from now on too. Even though it is a community band and the director heard the new player through practices, it is important to play the solos well.

 

[pete]

My over-all philosophy on mouthpieces is:

* Get one that you can control properly. That means that you can play in tune and that you have appropriate dynamic contrast that's in tune.
or
* Use the one your teacher tells you to use .

For bari (and other saxophones, for that matter), I used a Sigurd Rascher hard rubber 'piece. Why? My teachers told me to -- and when folks with the experience and degrees they had tell you to do something, you do it. I don't know how much of a disservice to me that was or wasn't, but that mouthpiece does allow a classical player to play a bari more like a cello than if I used, say, a Wolfe Tayne.

Now, for clarinet, I never had any strictures of any kind and I eventually found that the hard rubber Selmer C85/120 worked the best for me.

The only thing that I can say regarding volume, specifically, is that i've found that metal mouthpieces are harder to control at any volume other than molto blastissimo. I mentioned elsewhere that I proved this to myself by trying a metal and rubber Berg Larsen 110/0 next to each other and found that I could control the rubber one better. YMMV.

Now, with my Berg Larsen (sold awhile ago), I used it in jazz ensembles primarily to blow away the brass section: the bass trombonist was a backup for the $City Symphony and had a bit of a chip on his shoulder. I needed to knock him down a bit . Everything else, I used the Rascher and thought it was good on my YBS-52.

The experience I have with pit orcestras and the like is that if $instrument is too quiet -- generally the oboe -- it gets mic'ed. Therefore, I never really worry about "loud" so much as "control". I think I'm more than sufficiently loud when I play and if the director wants louder, I can go there, too.