Focused sound?

[Toni Linder]

What exactly do you mean when you speak about a sound being more "focused" than another?

[gyrofrog.com]

Rather than answering your question I guess this is an indea of what "Unfocused Sound" is like.

I was in Europe over the holidays and heard a couple of saxophonists playing out on the streets. Both could play well but the sound, to my ears, did not sound focused. I can't really describe it, the only analogy I can come up with is a person trying to yell at a whisper. The sound just seemed to dissipate before it could go very far. This may simply have been a consequence of playing outdoors, and I have no idea what sort of mouthpiece, horn, etc. each was using. I don't intend this as a judgment of these players' abilities, as it certainly was not my a** out there on the street. But it was helpful in that it made me more mindful of how tone should sound.

It may be worth noting that this did not seem to be a problem for trumpet players out on the street. I also don't remember the saxophonists in New Orleans having this problem, but that was during the hot, humid summer, the streets aren't as crowded with tall buildings, etc. Or maybe they were just better players.

[Vincent]

Hi Toni,
Try to imagine this for a comparison of focused vs. non focused sound. Picture the bell of the sax, three to four inches in diameter and imagine the sound coming out of the bell right at you staying within an imaginary extended tube of the bell. That would be the focused sound.
Now, with the non focused sound, imagine standing right in front of the bell of the sax and as the sound comes out of the bell instead of it staying funneled and coming right at you, the sound as it comes right out of the bell it immediately escapes and shoots of to the right and left instead of coming right at you. Hope this helps.

[danny_tb]

To me, both replies sound more like some discriptions I've heard describing projection...

To my mind, "focus" has alway's been related to "centred" - the amount of the note you're playing that comes out when compared with the amount of the harmonics that are coming out. Of course, I could be wrong, because I too would like to know what the general consensus is with a lot of the terminology. Many terms are different to different people - at least it seems that way. Perhaps it would be a good idea to make a list of terms, and put their proper descriptions next to them so that we're all talking the same language.

[Docax]

The words people use to describe tone often reflect their own preferences in sax sound. People who like a tone where the fundamental is strong relative to the overtones call it "focused" or "centered", and call the opposite "unfocused" or "uncentered". People who like a tone where the overtones are strong relative to the fundamental call it "Fat" or "colorful" or "spread", and call the opposite "thin" .

"centered" or "Spread" are probably the least prejudiced terms, and a tone can be great with either type. I happen to like spread tone myself!

[Ritchie]

A focus is an area in a travelling wave with a maximum of energy density.

To get a really focused sound you should play in a room with an elliptical ground plan. An ellipse has two focus points and if you are standing in one of them, a person in the other focus will understand you even if you whisper.

The closest you come to a really focused sound is in analysis of speaker horns, and their shape is similar to the saxophone bell.

But language is unfocused, and my understanding is that if people talk about a focused vs. a spread sound this is more related to the combination of overtones in the sound than to the sonic energy distribution in the room. In a way we can come back to the definition of the focus above, but replace the spatial distribution by a frequency distribution: a focused sound has a clear sonic energy maximum in a particular frequency range.

[paulwl]

With focus, you can play at moderate volume in average acoustical conditions and have no problem being heard. Without focus, you can blow your head off and barely hear yourself.

Focus is the iron fist in the velvet glove. It is to spread as French press is to percolator java. It is at least half of the entity saxophonists call "projection." Edge is not much use without it.

Now I gotta find myself an elliptical room...

[Perfect Pitch]

Hmmmm :roll:

[rollen]

As I was scrolling down the responses the first thing that came to mind is that the answers were describing projection not focus. Then I read danny_tb's response and I thought that's exactly what I would have said. I think Docax expanded the thought perfectly.

[MojoBari]

Its not real clean, nor will it ever be. I think projection as being rich in the frequency range that your ear is sensitive to. Its a percieved volume as opposed to what a db meter might show.

So if you can "focus" on these frequencies, you will be heard with projection. On a bari sax, if you focus on your fingered note fundamental, you will not be heard as well as compared to a more spread sound. On soprano sax, a centered focused sound would project fine. Alto and tenor lie somewhere in the middle. :D

[wiju]

one old teacher i used to know told me something like this about focusing the sound:

imagine the sound like "light" and the bell of the saxophone a "lamp".
the focus sound would be like a spotlight, with the light compressed and travelling through the space, projecting itself, and the unfocused sound would be like and ordinary lamp, with the light spreaded all over and fading, travelling us well, but confuse and not to far, without projection.

i hope this could help.

hugs

[noelpaz]

My experience is although it is up to the player, the french-made horns are more focused and keilwerths are generally spread and the japanese and taiwanese in between with the exception of the yangisawa which is focused and of course the american vintage horn which can be focused like buechers and spread like kings - maybe it is genralizing it a bit :)

Focus in my experience happens when I use my diaphragm to support my air the sound is more focused.

[Docax]

There seems to be two trains of thought here. One holds that a focused sound is objectively better (like in-tune vs out of tune) and projects more and shows better diagphram support, etc. I must say I disagree with this, but it may be just a semantic issue. The other school of thought is that focused vs. spread tone is a subjective choice (like bright vs. dark), and that a sax tone can, and has been in greats of the past, be excellent focused or spread. I happen to agree with this stance, and FWIW play a Keilwerth.

Really it's not as much a musical disagreement as a word definition one. Since these terms (and so many others used here) are not "officially defined" anywhere, I guess we'er all right.