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Categorization of sopranos

7K views 40 replies 19 participants last post by  CashSax 
#1 ·
Joe Giardullo of SopranoPlanet seems so busy that he is not able to spend much time on SOTW lately. He recently published an article where he categorized soprano saxes by sound and feel.

http://sopranoplanet.com/2017/04/14/about-soprano-saxophones/

Anders Bak-Nielsen has this categorization system on his website, although he also considers reed and mouthpiece.

http://saxworks.dk/om/how the sax works.html

What is your opinion? Is there a useful way to verbally categorize the effect that a soprano sax has on the sound being created?

Are soprano saxes consistent enough within Maker and Model to be able to be classified?

How much effect does the sax tech's setup have? Could a rebuild change the categorization of a soprano, changing the core or spread, or French to American sound, for example?
 
#34 ·
I certainly did not start this thread with any notion of answers to the questions I was asking, but I have gained an appreciation for the thought that Joe and Anders put into their articles. Consider what they each said.

Although Anders primarily addresses tone, he limits one's expectation of how much actually comes from the saxophone itself. He divides tone into core, overtones and dynamic range (which he describes as frequency range, but both may be important) and what he calls "Egality," which I think most would call evenness of timbre throughout the frequency range of the sax. While these concepts are not unique to Anders. I do think it's a good launching point for useful tone description. In fact, there are probably descriptors for these that are better than bright, warm and dark.

Joe took a very different approach since his article is part of a series on selecting a soprano saxophone. I have to admit my first reaction was to be a little rankled by his system. However, after posting here and considering what he is actually saying, it seems he is trying to group much of the experiences as one plays different soprano saxophones, a big picture kind of approach.

It's perhaps unfortunate that he chose countries as categories. It's less memorable, but I think we would be as well or better served by A, B, C, D or I, II, III, IV, or some other system. However, he does not limit his description to tone but seems to make an attempt to describe some of the playing experience, which of course includes tone. Rather than answering the question, "What does this soprano sound like?" He gets closer to answering, "What is it like to play this soprano?" The system is not complete, but it is another launching point.
 
#35 ·
Anders' system is actually verifiable with accurate enough spectroscopy on the EQ curve, because that's ultimately all differences in timbre are. However, I can tell you that I recorded long tones on two utterly different sounding mouthpieces and produced pretty detailed EQ curves and there was nothing notable to the naked eye. Our ears are pretty good and can easily recognise minor differences in timbre - e.g. we can recognise one person's voice from another even when, say, singing the same song at the same pitch.

So with enough dedication you could do a spectroscopic analysis on each each instrument (or mouthpiece, or reed, or ligature) but it's arguable what the point is. It's still not going to tell someone who hasn't heard it what it sounds like. The best it could do is say, if you liked A you might like Q and X because they have fairly similar EQ curves. Perhaps it would be better than another forty years of people talking about "edge" and "woody"
 
#36 ·
Maybe this could all be sorted out with a good old fashioned blindfold test like the one Pete Thomas did a while back for tenor saxophones? My guess is that the outcome would be similar; that listeners would have much difficulty identifying which sound recording belonged to which instrument.
 
#37 ·
A spectrographic analysis of a flavor or a smell would tell you what the content of each of these is but not how people perceive them, yes you can couple perception to data but you still won’t know what it is for a person.

We are talking of something completely different, though, we are talking of a sound which changes with independent variables the most variable of which is the player.

My contention is that the embouchure and oral cavity of each player (coupled to the thousands of mouthpiece, reeds variables) are different and the hearing of each is also different.

This originates millions of subjective variables and renders any objective classification pointless. In the end it would be just as incomplete and open to opinions description as: bright, edgy, warm, centered, spread, focussed or whatever oter themrs are used.

The measure of a circle is not the same as squaring it for visual purposes.

Meditate on this matters, this that you are postulating is the definition of Noumenon as in something that exists but in a plane of knowledge that cannot be experienced or known, I suggest Onfaloscopia.:bluewink2: enjoy!
 
#38 ·
Ha! I'm not sure it's just omphaloscopia. You could for example test 50 silver Yss875ex and 50 brass and average the results and demonstrate empirically whether there is any difference. If not we know it's only down to optics and if yes we've discovered what "darker" actually means
 
#39 ·
Well, since we keep going back to sound, tone and timbre, I guess the instrument's influence on tone actually is the difference between models and brands of soprano saxophones despite claims that our tonal concept dominates that influence and that reed and mouthpiece are more influential.
 
#40 ·
Damn what a far out thread..you guys are way smarter than me..But I play Sop too (no I ain't the greatest)..I played quite a few of them..I like VI best, everything gets behind..then I prefer a ONE piece series II.. hey I played Conn, Buescher, Kings, they sound great, along with yammys and yanisss and quite a few others..but the VI ??? no other choice for me...now the real story, my last Selmer Sop I bought new (when I had dough) was a silver series III, I never loved it, was very pretty, but 2 piece was a PITA and I always still missed my VI's..


I do enjoy playing a Sop and I got good mpcs..so a few mos back I got a eBay special, it's a Kessler "performance" Custom..hella horn for 3 bills.:twisted::twisted: I play a couple tunes on the gig or honk on it for fun.

Category..??? LOL
 
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