Joe the Musician: the first rule of woodwind doubling
I’m not much of a tweeter (though you can follow my automatically-generated tweets about new blog posts). But I liked this one today from Joseph “Joe the Musician” Tomasso:
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Saxophone low notes
The saxophone’s lowest notes can be notoriously unresponsive. This is partly due to the instrument’s acoustics, particularly its fairly extreme conical bore. (For technical details, see for example Acoustics of Musical Instruments by Chaigne and Kergomard, section 7.4.6.1.) The oboe and bassoon, whose bores are conical but not to such an extreme, have this problem to a lesser extent, and the tips that follow apply to those instruments as well.
For the best chance at successful low notes you need:
- A well-adjusted, high-quality instrument. Even a small leak anywhere on the saxophone makes the lowest notes more difficult. And the best-designed and most meticulously-made instruments help to minimize the difficulties of the low range.
- A good mouthpiece and reed combination. This may involve tradeoffs: a mouthpiece/reed combination that really improves the low register may, for example, make the highest notes more difficult. Since mouthpieces and reeds vary in so many ways it’s hard to make reliable generalizations, but often I find that a wider tip opening with a softer reed tend to favor the low register more (and the high register less).
- Good, stable fundamentals of saxophone technique. Breath support, voicing, articulation, and embouchure (let’s include jaw position in embouchure here) should be properly set, and shouldn’t change for the low register. If you find that you need to increase breath support, lower your voicing, change your embouchure or tonguing, or open your jaw to make the low notes succeed, then you should probably already be doing those things, in every register. Don’t make the low notes even harder by creating a moving target.
To expand on that last point a little, if you find that your low notes need a little extra help, then a small alteration to your voicing is the right way to provide it. But know the tradeoffs: lowering your voicing as you approach the low register affects pitch and tone, besides creating instability in your tone production technique. Manage these concerns by aiming for the smallest possible change.
Practice smart. No shortcuts!
Transcription: Stan Getz, tenor saxophone on Huey Lewis and the News “Small World (Part Two)”
Huey Lewis tells the story in Kansas City Magazine (strong language edited):
Well, my dad was a jazzer and Zoot Sims died. And when Zoot Sims died, they had a benefit in San Francisco at Kimball’s or somewhere. …
So I take him and sit down … and then I get a tap on my shoulder. I turn around, and it’s Getz. It’s really amazing … he’s wearing his horn and taps me on the shoulder, and my dad turns around and Phil Elwood turns around. And my old man goes, “Holy s***!”
Getz says, “Why don’t you let me play on some of your s***? I can play that s*** too.” And I said, “Oh, why, yes sir, I’m sure you can.” And then he took a card and he wrote on it: “Stan Getz. Have sax, will travel.”
He played beautifully, and on the way home, my old man says, “If you don’t take him up on that offer, I will never, ever forgive you!”
Woodwind doubling and the “main” instrument
I identify very much as a woodwind player: as far as I’m concerned, if it’s a woodwind, it’s part of what I do. But when I introduce myself to someone that way, I am frequently asked, “But which one is your main instrument?”
I am hesitant to give a straightforward response to this. To identify a “main” instrument feels like an admission of failure. I work hard to play all of my instruments at a high enough level to be qualified for whatever gig you were thinking of hiring me for—if I pick just one, are you going to write me off as a possibility for the others?
photo, Neil Moralee Do I genuinely play all of my instruments at the very same ability level? Of course not. It would take some strange kind of balancing act to keep them perfectly equal all the time. I do have a woodwind that I played for a decade before getting serious about any of the others, the one I earned a bachelor’s degree in performance with (my graduate degrees are “multiple woodwinds” degrees). To some extent, that one still is my comfort zone, though that gap is very slowly closing.
Not all woodwind doublers feel the same way about it, nor should they, necessarily. There are lots of ways to be successful and fulfilled as a woodwind player. But my own goal is to play them all well enough that I could convincingly claim any of them as a “main” instrument. My favorite compliment is when, after hearing me play several instruments, someone still asks which is my main one. Sometimes I receive that compliment, and sometimes I don’t.
Woodwind Doubler Census results, part 7: doubling tips
We’re close to the end of the results from the Great Woodwind Doubler Census of 2011. I’m particularly excited to share your answers from one of the final questions:
Q. What is/are your best woodwind doubling tip(s)?
Your answers covered a lot of ground, but a few main themes showed up in many of your responses:
A little explanation:
- Practice (quantity, quality): No surprise here—a large number of you mentioned the need for consistent, organized, focused, and/or extensive practicing.
- Each instrument is different: A number of respondents pointed out that each instrument must be studied and played on its own terms, without depending on skills to transfer from one to the other. (It’s worth noting that a few of you saw the other side of this issue: that similarities between the instruments can perhaps be leveraged for more efficient improvement.)
- Get good instruction
- Work on fundamentals
- Practice switching: Several of you suggested practicing the actual act of switching quickly between instruments.
- Get quality gear
- Flute-specific advice: Some of you offered advice about the flute, mostly about the particular challenges of maintaining a good flute embouchure on limited practice time.
- Get experience: A few of you mentioned university or community groups as good ways to log some hours of experience on secondary instruments.
Here’s the full list of woodwind doubling tips. If you missed out on the survey, you’re welcome to add your own tips in the comments section.
Read More “Woodwind Doubler Census results, part 7: doubling tips”
Hello there Bret,
Love your website!
I am doing a bit of research to see if I can learn more about the few sax players out there who have managed to earn a full time living playing sax who *don’t* double.
Do you know of anyone who matches that description?
Thanks!
Doron
Hi Doron,
Doublers have more fun, but I suppose there are a few people out there who are forced to make their living with just one instrument. You might try my list of saxophonists’ websites as a starting point.
Haha, yeah, it is fun to play flute, although clarinet isn’t really a favorite of mine. Anyhow, thanks for the list will check it out asap.
:-)