Notable woodwind doubler Buddy Collette, known for his skill and artistry as a jazz saxophonist, flutist, clarinetist, and composer, passed away on Sunday. Check out the Los Angeles obituary, or, even better, enjoy his flute and tenor:
Tip of the hat to Eric at jazz-sax.com for bringing this sad news to my attention.
I like mouthpieces that are easy to play, especially in terms of response and tuning. But I also really like something easy to replace; I don’t like the idea of a mouthpiece that is so expensive, variable, or rare that if I drop it I can’t just order a new one, have it in a few days, and expect it to play like the old one.
A few years back I did a fairly detailed review of the Rico Reserve clarinet mouthpieces (in two parts), and have been happily using the Reserves as my main clarinet mouthpieces ever since. The Reserves are, in particular, astonishingly consistent from specimen to specimen, presumably due to the very precise tooling that obviates the need for hand-finishing (which sounds cool but ultimately means a relatively high degree of variability).
The pro-line products formerly released under the Rico name are now D’Addario Woodwinds products, and they now include some alto saxophone mouthpieces, the Select Jazz series. I was pleased to hear from a contact at D’Addario Woodwinds who sent me some samples to try out.
My point of reference is the various Meyer-ish alto mouthpieces I have played for about the last 20 years, most recently the V16 series from Vandoren. I used the A6/medium chamber for a number of years, but more recently switched to the A6/small chamber, which gave me a little more bite in my sound that works well for me in louder situations (like big band lead playing, or blues gigs here in the Mississippi Delta) without having to strain as much.
The new D’Addario Select Jazz alto mouthpieces are currently available in three flavors, the D5M, the D6M, and the D7M. Larger numbers in the middle correspond to larger tip openings (details at D’Addario’s website). I got a couple of each to try. Each one says “medium chamber” on the box, so maybe D’Addario is considering other chamber sizes. At the moment street price seems to be a little higher than the V16s, but still basically in the same class.
If you read the second part of my Reserve mouthpiece review, then you won’t be surprised to see that the Select Jazz mouthpieces are extremely consistent. Check out the very even and symmetrical rails and tips.
As mentioned in a couple of other reviews, the Select Jazz mouthpieces have an unusually tight fit on the neck cork, and they chewed up my aging cork a bit. Cork grease!
The mouthpieces have individual serial numbers, like the Reserve clarinet mouthpieces. When I asked about this during my clarinet mouthpiece review, the Rico/D’Addario rep told me there might in the future be some way of registering your mouthpiece online, maybe to access some kind of members-only content. I haven’t seen anything happen along these lines, so maybe there’s a more logical explanation, like that the numbers are just for quality control.
Here is a sound clip of each of the six mouthpieces I received, plus my two V16 mouthpieces for comparison. For all the sound clips I used the same inexpensive fake-leather-type ligature, but different reeds, a D’Addario Select Jazz filed 3S and a filed 3M, depending on which worked best with each individual mouthpiece. The V16s and the Jazz Select D5Ms worked better with the 3M reed, and the Jazz Select D6Ms and D7Ms seemed to prefer the 3S reed.
The differences are minor at best, and really in a pinch I could make any of these eight mouthpieces work, but here are a few observations:
I think the Select Jazz D5M is going to be my new mouthpiece. (I’m keeping a D6M in my case for now too until I can try them both on a loud blues gig, but so far the D5M has worked well for small-group jazz.) The combination of solid intonation, pretty-but-gutsy tone, budget-friendly price, and amazing consistency make this a solid, versatile, and practical option for a working saxophonist. They are great for educators, too—they are easy to recommend to students because they are so easy to play and because they are so reliable in quality (much less need to order a half-dozen on approval and hope there’s a “good” one in the bunch). A great all-around, no-nonsense alto jazz mouthpiece.
I look forward to more offerings from D’Addario Woodwinds, perhaps alto mouthpieces in other chamber sizes, or mouthpieces for other saxophones.
Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger III, who heroically piloted US Airways Flight 1549 to a safe emergency landing in the Hudson river, was first-chair flutist in his high school marching band, according to the New York Times. Read More “Flutist spotlight: Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger III”
I don’t usually think of the double reed crowd as being terribly interested in woodwind doubling, but there were a number of doublers (ranging from amateur to professional) present at the IDRS conference this year. I know of these ones: Read More “IDRS 2008: Confirmed doubler sightings”
One of my favorite things about being a performing musician is moving in and out of different styles. Recently I’ve performed as a classical, jazz, rock, and blues musician. I’ve been thinking a little about the skills that I associate with each, especially skills that have expanded my musicianship and carried over into playing other styles. It’s too many to name, but here are a few. Feel free to chime in in the comments section with your own insights.
I have college degrees in (essentially) classical music performance. From playing solo repertoire, chamber music, and orchestral music, I’ve had to pursue a disciplined, precise approach to my instruments. I’ve had to try to blend seamlessly into a variety of instrumental textures. I’ve had to try to give every note delicacy and beauty, even when the music is trying to communicate something that isn’t delicate and beautiful. Other aspects of my classical music education involved informing my performance by studying centuries of tradition and history and methods of musical analysis.
I’ve also done a lot of study of jazz. From big band section playing, I’ve had to try to make every note crisp and energized, even in the sweetest of ballads. I’ve had to try to blend into sections that take a wide variety of approaches to style—much wider than I’ve encountered in classical music. I’ve learned to use purposeful imprecision (in a way) by, say, playing a little behind the beat, or being a little more flexible with pitch. I’ve learned to really, really use my ears, transcribing notes and chords and rhythms but also nuances of style. (For jazz players, “transcribing” doesn’t always mean writing something down; it’s copying some or all of a performance from a recording.) And of course there’s improvisation, an art unto itself that many classically-trained musicians never delve into. From that I’ve gained a much deeper, more practical, more useable understanding of harmony. I’ve also gained confidence to play something that isn’t on a page in front of me, and a sense that I can make things work musically even when I’m not sure what will happen next.
It’s not uncommon on a rock or blues gig to play songs that I don’t know and have never heard before, with no fakebook and nobody to tell me what the chord changes are. On some blues gigs, I’ve had to watch the bass player’s fingers to try to anticipate even which key the song is going to be in. That kind of unstructuredness can be terrifying to my classically-trained side, and even my jazz-playing side, which is used to improvising within fairly well-established frameworks. But it’s also freeing and thrilling to play for several hours with no music stand and no agreed-upon set list. Sometimes it means reaching way back into my memory to try to roughly reproduce a rock horn section riff I’ve heard once or twice on a recording, but often it means having to create my part from nothing. The protocols often aren’t as strict as they are in jazz, and I’ve had to learn, for example, that just because I played a fill after the blues singer’s first phrase doesn’t mean the guitarist is going to leave me any space after the next one. And, of course, formal education in rock or blues aren’t nearly as widespread or formalized (yet?) as jazz education or especially classical training, so these are lessons learned on stage.
Every new gig is an adventure. See what you can learn in the concert hall to apply later in a smoky club, or vice versa.
The most recent release of the Fingering Diagram Builder introduces some “shortcut” controls that make it easy to turn certain keys on and off. For example, with a quick check/un-check of a box you can turn on clarinet half-holes or some non-standard keys.
Or, as always, there’s a dropdown list of “key sets” (which I referred to as “presets” in previous FDB versions) to turn on and off the right keys for a complete instrument variant.
“Bass clarinet, pro,” for example, turns on (among other things) the right thumb keys down to low C found on many professional bass clarinets. “Standard Boehm” turns them off.
All of these menu controls work by changing the behavior of the keys present in the instrument diagram. The behavior of each key, or group of keys, can be set to “Always,” “Never,” or “As needed.”
If you have a specific set of keys in mind, you can set the behavior of each key directly. Let’s say I have a fancy new oboe with a left-hand “long” C-sharp key and a left thumb low B key, and I want to make a fingering chart to map out some of the new fingering possibilities. (There’s currently an easy check-box for the left C-sharp, but we’ll ignore that for now to explore the hands-on method.)
I’ll start with the thumb B key. If I open the “Keywork details” section of the menu, and then the “More keywork details” section, I see a long list, partially pictured here.
The last key in the picture is the key I want to use in my fingering chart. Before we go on, notice that its name is aligned all the way to the left, meaning that it is a stand-alone key, not part of a group of keys. A little above it you can see the name “Thumb octave keys,” with four keys below it and indented. “Thumb octave keys” is a group, and the keys listed below it (“First octave key,” etc.) are in that group.
Okay. “Left thumb low B” is currently set to “Never,” which is pretty self-explanatory: the key simply never appears in the diagram.
Setting it to “Always” is also clear enough: the key will be visible all the time, pressed or not. If I set it to “Always” and don’t press any of the oboe keys, here’s what the diagram looks like:
Visible in this image are the six “main” keys, with a little horizontal line visually separating the left hand from the right hand, plus the thumb low B key. All of these are now set to “Always.” The other keys—the octave keys, the little finger keys, etc., are not visible. This particular layout is probably not what I want. Some people like every available key (including the octave keys, etc.) to be visible in every image, but I prefer and recommend showing only the most relevant ones for the particular fingering. The left low B will only be relevant for a specific note or two.
So let’s set that key to “as needed” instead. Since this key isn’t part of a larger group, its “as needed” behavior is easy to understand. When it’s pressed, it appears in the image. When it’s not, it doesn’t. I will still be able to see where the key is while I’m using the FDB, because it will appear in gray outline when I hover over the diagram with my mouse or trackpad, or appear constantly if I’m using a touch device, but it won’t be part of the downloaded image.
If I set it to “As needed” and hover my mouse pointer over the diagram in the FDB, I see this, with the left low B present:
And if I download the image, I see this:
Now let’s turn to the left C-sharp key. Since it is part of a group (“Left little finger keys”) its behavior is a little more complex. Here’s what the group’s behavior settings look like for the “Conservatory” key set:
Several of the keys are set to “Always,” and several are set to “Never.” But the group itself is set to “As needed.” Here’s how that works: if none of those keys is pressed, the FDB determines the group is not “needed,” so none of the keys are visible. But if any of the “Always” keys is pressed, the FDB considers the group needed and makes it visible, including all the “Always” keys within it. (The “Never” keys are still not visible.) So, for example, if I press the “Left E-flat,” I get this:
Only the left E-flat is pressed, but the other keys in the group appear too, to give a little visual context.
So, to make the left C-sharp available, I will set it to “Always.” But when an oboe has a left C-sharp, the left F-key usually gets moved over a little and has a little different shape. So I’m also going to set “Left F” to “Never,” and “Left F (with low C-sharp),” a key designed for this situation, to “Always.” Now I have this (low C-sharp in red, altered left F in yellow):
By setting the behavior of individual keys, you can do just about any combination of keys you can think of. And you can use the “Custom key sets” menu to save your settings for future use.
This system also makes it relatively easy for me to add obscure or unusual keys to the diagrams, and keep them hidden except when people need them for specific purposes. So, if there are keys you would like to have in your images, and you didn’t find them in the “More keywork details” list, let me know and I’ll consider adding them in future versions. It’s extra-helpful if you can send good photos.
Enjoy!
To my own amazement, this blog is rapidly approaching its 10-year anniversary later this month, May 24th. (Some of the content is dated even earlier than that, because I wrote it before starting the blog and retroactively turned it into blog posts.)
If you like, send me question(s) about whatever you want, about woodwind playing, doubling, blogging, teaching, or whatever. You can remain anonymous if you like. If it makes sense to do so based on the responses, I’ll answer them in one or more blog posts starting on about the 24th. If the response is low or the questions are not particularly of interest to my audience at large, I’ll answer as many as I can privately.
Thanks for reading!
