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Distinguishing Aspects of Tone

4K views 19 replies 13 participants last post by  rleitch 
#1 ·
I've been playing for a while now, but it wasn't until a about a year ago that I started thinking about tone. Since then, I've tried to analyze other people's tone, but I can't. I know what I like, but I don't know why I like it because I don't know what things like dark, bright, or edge sound like. I have Larry's Teal's Art of Saxophone Playing where he gives definitions, but I don't know what the aspects of tone really sound like. Can anyone help me? I hope that this makes sense.
 
#2 ·
David,

I'll give it a try. The terms "edgy", "bright", even "reedy", refer to the relative harshness of the sound. Listen to Charlie Parker... he has a VERY "edgy" sound which at one time was roundly criticized, but is now emulated to some degree by all good jazz players. At the other end of the spectrum, Paul Desmond had a "dark" sound, which to some ears even sounded muffled (although quite beautiful).

In general, the more the reed can vibrate, the "brighter" the sound. That is why Cannonball Adderley, for instance, used a mouthpiece with a relatively wide opening, so that the reed could vibrate like mad. In contrast, Paul Desmond's mouthpiece was relatively closed.

But it's not a simple as simply selecting a mouthpiece. For instance if you buy the mpc Paul Desmond used, you will still sound like you, perhaps with a hint of Paul Desmond. :D There are many other factors, especially including your personal embouchure, which greatly affect your tone. The only way to effectively change your embouchure is to listen to a lot of players, and determine what sound you're after, then, with that in mind, practice long tones til you drop. I've been working on a "Phil Woods" sound, and slowly I can hear it, altho no one has confused me with PW yet :roll:

Hope this helps.

Al
 
#3 ·
So if "bright" "edgy" and "reedy" all refer to the roughness of a particular tone, is there a difference between them? Does that mean that the description of a dark tone is anything smooth? And I've heard someone's tone before be described as dark, but edgy. How can that be?
 
#4 ·
David,

I think most people are referring to the relationship between the core tone and the harmonics/overtones. For example, "dark but edgy" just means that there is a strong core tone, but with some overtones attendant to the core tone. It's a very subjective, relative thing. Again, think of Paul Desmond vs. Charlie Parker at the two extremes. "Dark but edgy" tone lies (very subjectively) somewhere between the two extremes. For myself, I've found that the first step is to find a mpc/reed combination that's "in the ball park" of what you're looking for. For me, that has meant a Meyer LE 6M, and either a LaVoz med. or a Rico Jazz Select 3S reed. But that's just the first step. As you work on long tones, slight changes in air support/embouchure can make a dramatic difference in tone. I suspect that slight embouchure changes affect the intensity of the reed vibration, as well as the parts of the reed that vibrate the most. This is VERY important... in my opinion, once you've found a mpc/reed combo that's in the ball park, the truly dramatic changes come with practicing long tones and making slight changes to the embouchure. Check out Larry Teal's "The Art of Saxophone Playing" for good technical advice on embouchure, various embouchure exercises, etc. And be patient ... Rome wasn't built in a day, but you WILL make progress if you keep at it. I recently compared my sound with a tape recording made 2 mos. ago, and I was absolutely amazed. Almost sounds like a different player :wink:

Hope this helps.

Al
 
#5 ·
David A.,

A good comparison between dark and bright/edgy would be to compare
Paul Desmond -- Dark/Sweet/Full

With David Sanborn Bright/Edgy/Full

Notice that I included full in the description of both -- there is a core sound that a sax makes thats full -- room filling if you can see it that way.

The rest is just accenting certain frequencies. Bright emphasizes the higher frequencies, dark emphasises the lower frequencies.

Edge to me is just reediness in the sound. Its the buzzing sound that the reed naturally produces emphasized in the core tone.
 
#6 ·
This too confuses me. We have:

dark
bright
thin
full
thick
buzzy
edgy
smooth
sweet
warm
lush
vintage
velvety
raspy
reedy
breathy

I have my own ideas what these mean, but it's based nearly entirely on the connotation of the words and not the actual sound produced. To be honest, I still don't know the difference between bright and dark. How appalling. But what I would need is to hear recording A, then recording B, and have a composium of SOTW'ers vote: Dark, Bright, etc.
 
#7 ·
Another way to think of it is a graphic eq.

If you go to you home stereo and push the faders in the lower midrange up and take the higher faders (300K / 16K) and pull them down -- then your music takes on a darker tone quality. If you take the lower midrange and leave it flat (right in the middle) and take the higher frequencie faders and push them up, that leads to a bright sound -- kinda like the mouth on this guy :wink: .

If you take the faders between 2K and about 10K and push them even higher -- to me, thats comparable to reedy/edgy -- it almost hurts you ears if you push them up to much -- but it adds a sheen to the music if its done well.

And for my analogy of the best tone to target.

Do you know what eq curve on a graphic eq that 95% of America considers the best setting for their ears. Well, it looks like a smiley face --
sort of like this guy :)

Thats what I go for when I tailor my sound, I image a smiley face eq. Which give you lots of low end (darkness) with plenty of highs to make the upper partials of the sax speak (brightness) and keeps a balanced midrange -- which if pushed to hard seems harsh to the listener.

It equates to the sax tone having plenty of body with enough brightness to make it stand out and sound exciting.

Does this help?
 
#8 ·
Let me have a go. Technically, dark vs bright: dark has less higher overtones (parts of other specific higher notes as a component of each note).

All these are only my opinions.

dark - sounds lower on the same note than bright, thicker sound (more to the sound than just the note)
bright - Sounds almost higher, sort of shrilly in comparrison to the dark sound. tends (for me) to be a bit thinner.
thin - lacking in depth of the sound - the sound is not pure, too much air sort of, not enough sound
full - everything is there - the core sound, the other aspects on top. thick, full. same thing.
thick - thick sound. think of it like a drink. a thin drink flows easily, a thick drink has more to it and flows slower (speed of flowing is not a part of this analogy)
buzzy - you can hear buzzing sounds from the reed - i dont like this.
edgy - edge: articulation is sharper, a bit more pronounced, shrilly, etc.
smooth - smoother articulations, deeper and thicker sound
sweet - for me, its a mellow thick dark tone. may be bright edgy sound for someone else.
warm - again, a thick deep centered (pure) tone
lush - same thing as warm, really thick and sweet.
vintage - um.......... :?


i tried
velvety
raspy
reedy
breathy
 
#11 ·
One more thing, how do I achieve these different types of sounds? I asked someone how to make my tone more brilliant, and they said they use cold air, and play louder, but how do I use cold/warm air. Everytime someone tells me to use warmer air, I just take a deeper breath. So how do I make my tone change between dark, bright, brilliant, reedy, edgy, etc?
 
#12 ·
You can visualize "warm" air by the air you use to warm up your hands - simple (your throat will self-adjust) and cooler air as if you were cooling off a cup of coffee, soup, etc... (and your throat will adjust again)

Lemme put a different spin to this whole "tone" blurb.
I think the players' own cavity (nasal, throat, lungs) are PART of the sound. I think of it as PART of the instrument itself thus affecting the tone by virtue of it's shape and resonance. This is why no matter what piece Bird would borrow beg or steal to play his gigs, he ALWAYS sounded the same!
And this helps me forget about equipment once I have something that responds well in all registers and intonation, forget about it and focus on your airstream.
Whatchya think of that?
 
#13 ·
More than any other aspect of tone, the thing that most people identify as a good tone have very little to do with bright/dark, reedy, etc. If the player has good, clean attach and release, good tonguing, fluid, natural vibrato, he will be perceived as having a "good tone".

Good intonation is also very important.

But ESPECIALLY important is how cleanly the note starts and stops. Let me tell a little story.

When I was in college many years ago, a good friend who was a Music Ed major, and trumpet player, continually got poor marks in her juries... everything else was OK, but they criticized her tone.

She was just about to quit, she was devastated. The brass teacher told her, "I think your basic tone is fine, it is your tonguing that is sloppy, and makes it all sound bad. This semester, we will work on nothing else, just tonguing." And that they did.

At the next jury, she got all A's. Some A-'s and some just A's, but they were all A's. All jurors made the notation, "Tone MUCH improved."

And all that changed was better tonguing.

So, there are many aspects to "tone".

Does that mean a bright tone is better, a dark tone is better? No... Paul Desmond's tone was perfectly suited to how he played with Dave Brubeck. And Cannonball had a huffin' and puffin' band, and his brighter tone was good with that, and blending with his brother Nat on cornet. Desmond's tone would not cut it in Cannonball's band.

And a very dark, classical tone, the kind the band directors want kids to have ("I want you to sound like a French Horn"), while blending well and disappearing into the tone of the symphonic band, is poor for projecting a solo in that same band.

So, these are some things to consider in deciding just what your tone should sound like.
 
G
#14 ·
Just one thought from me...

Something that I think should be considered in this discussion is that it isn't just the inclusion or exclusion of uper partials/overtones but also WHICH ones are being boosted. When I was studying recording we would record a low tone and then play around boosting odd versus even overtone frequencys. The general affect was that the more the odd overtones were busted the sharper (not pitch) the tone became, the more buzzy and unpleasent (to me). Sort of like a oboe being played badly. While Boosting even overtones added a "roundness" or crystaline quality to the sound. (FYI this is why there had long been a tube vs not-tube debate, more THD+N in a lot of tube gear but it is of even partials not odd, in general)

Again this is just my own way of thinking about sax sound but there how much TONE Vs REED SOUND (buzzy Vs Clear), How much fundemental Vs overtone (relative bright or darkness) and which overtones are loudest (even round, clear trumpety sound while odd tends to add a tightness/buzz ((of a different sort))) I admit that I am a geek and have actually played with spectrum analysis of individal players....

Ok 5 cents not 2 but still I meant well :oops: :D
 
#16 ·
Fat is all in the size of mouthpiece chamber, size of the bore, but most of all in the size of the oral cavity and how fast you can get the air through a big fat oral cavity! 8)

I agree with Paul C. here; how the tone is actuated, affected, released, and altered are about 70% or more of what people perceive as "fine tone"; the other 30% or less is in all that jargon listed above. And words can help you out but you need a reference point. Live playing is the best reference point! But recordings of players with extreme tonal characteristics such as Desmond (dark to me) and Coltrane (nasal to me) and the like are very important too. Still, I don't think these recordings would be as valuable to me had I not had much experience with playing and hearing my own sound and the live sound of other saxophonists.
 
#17 ·
As a newbie, I've been trying to grow my "sax ears" to distinguish between the various sax tones and learn what is meant by the various descriptions listed above.

It isn't easy! :scratch:

One problem may be that while a person may know what they themselves mean by "bright", "dark", "edgy", "full", "fat" and "warm", someone else may mean something slightly (or completely!) different.

I'd like to resurrect Gaijin-san's suggestion from this old thread. Please could members select appropriate videos from YouTube and describe the tone here?

It really would be most helpful!

Thanks,

Frank
 
#18 ·
More Quantitative Analysis of Tone...

I got tired of hearing terms like Edgy, Cutting, Fat (Phat?), Smoky and wondered if there were some way to analyze tone in a more quantitative method. I used some software to look at the tone on a YAS-52 as seen on this webpage http://doctorsax.biz/yas52.htm.

The red line was where I fingered Hi C (Eb) which gave 624.5 Hz (s/b 622.3)
The purple line was Mid C (Eb) which gave 311.5 (s/b 311.1)
Green line was Low C (Eb) which gave 154.34 (s/b 155.6)

The lines are a little hard to see, but you can see the dominant tone (freq. marked at the bottom) plus all the other tones that go to comprise the overall tone/timbre.

There are still a lot of variables...reed, mouthpiece and player. I am a pretty poor player (which is probably why I am trying to quantify all this). It would sound and look entirely different for a different player with a different setup.

Unless you get some sort of machine () to play it the same every time. The sound is pretty poor on the machine playing video, but it does sound like a....machine. Bad.

And, bottomline, it is the way it sounds subjectively anyway. Doesn't matter much what the colored lines look like, unless they can halp diagnose a particular flaw in the horn.

That's my 2 cents worth.
 
#20 ·
Link Tone?

Is there a distinctive Link tone?

I've recently changed horns and added two new mouthpieces and I've been really focused on and struck by the different tonalities I get with my LinkSTM compared to a Morgan8L and a refaced NYWWco piece.

I actually prefer the WWco piece because it is the warmest without being dark. Although Links are, I think, known to be "dark," I find the STM to be the brightest of the three. When I'm playing live, the brighter Link tones cut through the stage volume way more than the others and so is much easier/more enjoyable for me to use. Also, I find that the Link has a really distinctive tone in the middle register--say C2 to C3. I'm not sure what to call it: "dry" maybe or dry/hard? But what I really notice about the Link tone is that, if I'm being lazy at all when playing in that range, my tone really goes south. It's like the mouthpiece is saying: hey wake up and play this right. When I do focus, it almost sounds Coltrane-ish (albeit played by a government mule rather than a musical super genius:) )

R

ps. I used to play Link HRs on alto: I didn't find their tone to be dry/hard like the STM at all.
 
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