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How to approach a dark and soft sound on alto

638 views 0 replies 1 participant last post by  molst 
#1 ·
Hi all!

I started playing about 8 months ago and have read a couple of books, seen countless of youtube videos and have lately tried to approach that warm, soft sound of legends like Paul Desmond and Stan Getz. Even though 8 months probably sounds short, I have learnt a lot playing regularly and with a lot of focus on the timbre and so I think it's now time for me to share something that I think could be of value to those that want to sound like these fantastic players.

I played about 7 months with the mouthpiece that comes with the Yanagisawa AW02 that I purchased as my first sax and by the end of this time I had pretty good control with Vandoren red 2-3 strength reeds. I did all I could following videos with tips on how to produce the subtones that I needed and always considered the warnings about different bad habits that could be tempting. I ended up leaning the head forward, moving the jaw and lower lip far out on the reed and was able to get a pretty dark and soft sound. This was the only way to produce a sound that came close to what I was out for. However, as could be expected, this had a pretty bad effect on my general embochure when I wanted to quickly move to the upper registers, so I understood that it was time to try another mouthpiece.

I bought a big chamber, minimal baffle, mouthpiece that gave some interesting resonance that I was never able to produce with the standard mouthpiece I had been using previously. It's a 6 tip opening and I quickly realized that I should probably try a 3.5 reed. With that change I finally came to understand that I was quickly approaching that warm, dark sound. All that it takes to play airy and dark is now to loosen the lower lip, and in the lowest notes also let the chins puff just a little to so the reed can start it's vibration more easily. I don't have to move back and forth on the reed, which means I can very rapidly jump more than an octave up. Fantastic!

Today, I can already play both softly and with power on the lowest notes and quickly jump up to the highest notes and play those with both flutish and sharp sounds as it fits. It's so nice to control the dynamics. Playing with power with this mpc/reed setting takes a lot of energy and I'm starting to learn how to use all of the stomach. This is clearly not the most efficient way to achieve powerful sounds, but it's a great deal of fun to actually have the flexibility to do almost anything with a single mpc/reed setup.

I hope this short description of my journey will be of some value to the sax community. Thank you for a great forum!
 
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