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Did early saxophonists have a bad sound?

24K views 68 replies 40 participants last post by  Tenorlude 
#1 ·
Did the saxophonists of the early days have a bad sound compared to today's? Because

- today, mouthpieces are produced with a much higher technology, and some are further refaced. I have doubts whether completely handmade mouthpieces from rudimentary material with the technology of those days had perfect details.

- today, ligatures claim to touch the reed on its acupuncture points, and open its chakras. Many sax and clarinet players would attach the reed to the mouthpiece with a string in the early days.

- today, horns have better pads and springs. Leaks are easier to spot with a lamp. They probably would play with horns that had many defects compared to today's standards -and even some leaks.

I personally believe that their tone was not that bad. OK, they may have had a coarse sound, not, however, because of the imperfections on their equipment but because of that different embouchure and blowing techniques had not been developed yet, and that coarse tone was what was expected from the sax; they had not heard Desmond or Getz.

It is my contention that, to some extent, a good player can produce a sweet tone even with an awkward setup and horn. The other day, I found the very first stock mouthpiece that came with my horn. I had discarded it since I was unable to produce a satisfactory tone with it. Now, however, after a few years' practice, I am of the opinion that I had been unjust to it. Lastly, I believe that the type of the ligature has a minimal effect on the sound produced.

What do you think?
 
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#39 ·
Bear in mind that what we hear of the early players (even St. Rudy) is largely shaped by what was doing the recordings. Like the sound track to an old cartoon, the articulations will come through loud and clear but the tone and timbre will not.

At least with the saxophone we have recordings from way back. There's no way to know what the early clarinet players sounded like, and from that has arisen a lot of myth. WIth the cross fingerings needed on the early clarinet, Muller (a virtuoso by all accounts) would have sounded muffled and out of tune compared with a modern player of even modest abilities. (I've played a "classic" clarinet - it made me appreciate Klose's modifications all the more.)
 
#40 ·
Well perhaps we should build a time machine and go find out.

While I'm sure a lot of things are easier to do nowadays, like making Saxes and repairing them... You cannot deny that a large number of players actually prefer the sound of older horns.

But think about all the time that one must have put into learning to do things by hand? The level of expertise a person would have. Certainly they probably couldn't get entirely consistent results but the same holds true for machine-made items today. There area always defects but back in the day, if there was a minor defect, it wasn't the end of the universe as we know it. People simply made-do with it or tried to alter whatever was causing the defect in something.

I'm sure that if one tied the string tight enough, there wouldn't be much trouble with the sound.
 
#41 ·
I play a 1935 Tenor and basic HR piece specifically to get a vintage tone. I no longer wish to have any brightness in my Tenor tone so would not require to use any modern set up.

This however could change tomorrow if I decided for example to play in an amplified context.

I don`t think the qualifiers Good or Bad are relevent when discussing the subjective issue of tone. It`s surely more a matter of WHAT the Player wants to hear and HOW they facilitate it.:)

Now if we would like to move on to the issue of Did early saxophonists struggle with Terrible ergonomics?:twisted:
 
#42 ·
They played on much heavier reeds and mouthpieces with smaller openings than most of us play now. However, i don't really take any stock in the idea that we play louder now because of competition with electric guitars. Think of the military and brass bands the 19th century sax players were part of. Competing with field drums and 20 brass players was not easy either.
 
#43 ·
Well stated above. The limitations of acoustic recording era mask the actual quality of sound especially due to greatly restricted dynamic range and frequency response. One has to listen to their basic musicality and technic. No doubt, for example, Rudy Wiedoft was a true virturoso in sound and technique which still comes through via the crude recording technology of the time. Same for Enrico Caruso, who never made an electonici recording.
 
#45 ·
Regarding volume of military bands full of trumpets and drums, it is not necessarily the role of every instrument, or instrumental group, to compete with these loud instruments. In such an ensemble, some are reserved for quieter, more melodic and soloistic passages, like oboes. Others are there to provide, when in a tutti role, a fullness to the band's sound, not a competitive role. IMO saxes do this in such a military band as described above.
 
#46 ·
You know, everyone is comparing modern horns to vintage horns and by this, I'm assuming, we are talking about Alto, Tenor, Baritone, etc... but let's look at one of the (almost) discarded members of the sax family. By this I mean the C-Melody sax! Here we have the unique opportunity to look at a saxophone that was popular in the 1920's but didn't last past the Great Depression. Because of this the mouthpiece designed for the C-Melody saxophone is very much of the vintage style. The sound produced by these mouthpieces is very muffled and somewhat muted compared to any modern mouthpiece! Now, to put a modern mouthpiece on a C-Melody, you will have to either go up (sizewise) to a Tenor or down to an Alto. I have a 1925 King C-Melody sax that I added a Graftonite B3 Tenor mouthpiece to. The change in the instrument was startling!! What I now have is a C-Tenor sax that I enjoy playing in our Church's orchestra. It is as different an instrument from the old C-Melody configuration as could ever be!
With this in mind, I would say that the early saxophonists definitely sounded different than their modern successors if for no other reason than that they had different mouthpieces to work with! We have had 90+ years of research and development to improve the design of the mouthpieces, necks, body, ergonomics, etc... in order to facilitate a different (hopefully better) sound. Some would say we reached the pinacle with the Mk VI while others would pick a different make and model but universally, almost all would agree that the saxophone continued to evolve well past the 1920's! New styles of performance were developed and the manufacturers developed their saxes right along with them. To say that the early sax players sound "sucked" is being very subjective! Their sound was state of the art for their time and as such, was the best in the world! Perhaps it would be a better question to speculate what Rudy Wiedoeft, Frank Trumbauer or Marcel Mule (or even Adolphe Sax himself!) would have made of the Selmer Mk VI or Ref. 36 saxes or one of the Yamaha or Yanigasawa pro models or even just the modern classical and jazz mouthpieces! In my opinion, that would be an interesting thread of speculation!
 
#50 ·
Perhaps it would be a better question to speculate what Rudy Wiedoeft, Frank Trumbauer or Marcel Mule (or even Adolphe Sax himself!) would have made of the Selmer Mk VI or Ref. 36 saxes or one of the Yamaha or Yanigasawa pro models or even just the modern classical and jazz mouthpieces! In my opinion, that would be an interesting thread of speculation!
Good question Steve, since Marcel mule actually "created" the Mk VI with Selmer technicians, and he also stated his famous vibrato was directly borrowed from jazz abd popular singers ;)
 
#49 ·
I've been re-reading some of the books on Saxophone history and I'm beginning to wonder if Adolphe Sax didn't know exactly what he had and what he wanted the sound to be (the man was a true genius!) There is an incredible richness to the sound of his original horns (even with old leaky pads!) Okay, here's an interesting speculation: Why not go back and recreate exactly the original saxophone design that Adolphe Sax came up with in 1844 or thereabouts. Then check out the bore, the taper, every dimension and go from there! Incorporate modern ergonomics to facilitate the ease of the keywork (i.e. get rid of that dual octave) and work with the original design of the mouthpice to get as close as possible to Sax's original sound and then go from there! There's a great idea for a Doctoral thesis!!
 
#53 ·
The Rascher tradition of classical playing has more or less that thesis. But...they've decided the proof of the pudding is in the hearing. So they play what Sigurd Rascher played - Buescher and similar makes of the 1940s and earlier, and mouthpieces in the style of that era - and go by what he taught, which is that Buescher did the least tinkering with Sax's design.

They leave science out of it completely.
 
#51 ·
As far as vintage vs. modern bass saxophones go, I think the vintage models have it all over the modern Selmer basses. Recently at a NAMM Show, I saw the two styles, reproduced by International Woodwinds (I THINK that is the company name); one was like a vintage Conn/Buescher bass, and the other was like a Selmer bass.

There were obvious differences in size, and when the booth-guy played them, there were obvious differences in the fullness and roundness of their tone. The vintage style was far superior in my opinion. DAVE
 
#52 ·
About recordings

...especially the very earliest, made before 1920: The acoustic technology then in use was far from high-fidelity, it introduced a high level of wow and flutter, and it wasn't terribly precise about speed. (Different record co.'s actually had their own speeds!)

Result: People have made judgments about how players sounded back then based on how the recordings sound. This can mislead you all kinds of ways. Wow makes intonation seem unreliable. Too slow a playback does the same, and muddies the rhythm too. Flutter accentuates vibrato. So does too fast a playback speed.

After 1925, when electric recording became standard, you get a much better idea of the standard in sax playing (or any other playing). And it wasn't much changed from the early '00s, only refined in technique and subtlety.

BTW: Classical sax (mostly solo w/piano) and pop sax (mostly dance band) had more or less the same sax sound then. Today we'd call it bel canto.
 
#54 ·
Re: About recordings

...especially the very earliest, made before 1920: The acoustic technology then in use was far from high-fidelity, it introduced a high level of wow and flutter, and it wasn't terribly precise about revolution speed. (Different record co.'s actually had their own speeds!)

Result: People have made judgments about "how players sounded" back then based on how the recordings sound today. This can lead you all kinds of places. Wow makes intonation seem unreliable. Too slow a playback does the same, and muddies the rhythm too. Flutter accentuates vibrato. So does too fast a playback speed.

After 1925, when electric recording became standard, you get a much better idea of the standard in sax playing (or any other playing). And it wasn't much changed from the early '00s, only refined in technique and subtlety.

BTW: Classical sax (mostly solo w/piano) and pop sax (mostly dance band) had more or less the same sax sound then. Today we'd call it bel canto.
Some of us wouldn't call it bel :).
 
#57 ·
"Beauty" is in the eye (or in this case, the ear) of the beholder! Okay, perhaps citing Marcel Mule as an example of an early player wasn't the best I could have come up with (I should have remembered that he was instrumental in the design of the Mark VI!) The early tones were incredibly rich but not that focused. I would be willing to bet that there would be early saxophonists that, if they had heard the "modern" jazz sound today on today's saxes, would hate the sound!!
 
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