Was a good night tonight. Freezing outside but my space was warm. Practiced for about an hour, mostly just overtone exercises and just playing. Had a good breakthrough equipment wise.
You know in this modern world of crazy ass consumerism, there is always a new product that will make your saxophone journey easier. The latest I've seen besides silver or gold plated neck screws that increase your volume or big brass strap hooks that give you a better sound is a device that you clamp to the neck of your new horn and play Charlie Parker into a tiny transducer. This vibrates the metal in your horn and changes the molecular structure thus opening up your sound.....
I gotta admit, I've tried most everything just out of curiosity including nickel plating the neck of my old Conn to give it more focus (no, it didn't do anything, but I did get a shiny cool looking neck for about $35!) but the transducer thingy. Lordy. I'm in the wrong business. A lot of suckers out there.
But whether you believe it or not, enjoy the placebo or whatever, if it gets you there so be it. I guess I just think it's all so stupid when the small things make such a big difference. Small things like, a better reed. Practicing. The right mouthpiece.
Oh us tenor players tend to go through a lot of those. It's insane. And I mean textbook insane: trying the same thing over and over expecting a different result. We can spend thousands of dollars on that stupid chase, and if we are talking vintage or boutique that can mean 1 or 2 mouthpieces.
I bought this run of the mill hard rubber Otto Link piece last year. Nothing special, a #6 tip. It's probably from the 80's or early 90's. It's been a love hate relationship but I've kept going back to it. Nothing for me sounds more like the human voice than one of these and I can't get a metal piece to fill out the bottom of my horn as well. But his piece, yeah, it had its shortcomings, that stuffy bit. And I struggled with the altissimo which I'm not even close to mastering yet, but get better at every day.
So rather than give up on it yet I sent it to my man in Portland, Mr. Peter Deley to fix it. he opened it up a bit and fixed the facing. Not by much, it's now a .091 with a 24mm facing so it's easy as pie to play. When I got it back it played much better. Easy altissimo. Even gave me the confidence to hit some high notes on Reverend Vince's New Years gig. With my horn it has the guts I need for that type of music but.... I craved more cut. There is still a stuffiness. Too dark. But closer than ever.
So my consumer mind kicks in as usual. "maybe I need a Selmer, or a King Zephyr, or just drop $350 on an ugly ass Steve Goodson neck for rock gigs? or maybe another Berg Larsen yadda yadda no peace, no progress, not enough prosperity to buy more expensive stuff blah blah BUY BUY BUY!"
So exhausting innit?
So here is a good solution: Nail polish baffle. I already made the shank smaller with thin coats of nail polish. Need to go thin so it stays in there. Takes about 2 days to do that job. So I figured, use this bottle of blue metallic nail polish I found to fill that awful 'stuffiness well' behind the tip. This took about 2 days as well, thin coats:
The result? I'm happier than ever. Stuffiness be gone. Still a dark piece which I dig but now behaves like a 'good one' meaning, if I want brighter I simply play brighter, if I want darker I play darker and it goes with me. This is now one damn good piece and I have about a C-note and a half invested in it. Much better than some Link pieces I've played that cost $1200! And volume? Even with a tip this small I have no shortage of volume. Play double embouchure and BOOM. Harder to control but just knowing that much volume is available keeps the consumer in me quiet. Hmmmm. Practice or shop? I have way more fun with the horn in my hands.
So if you are about to spend your life savings on a sonic fix, consider this from the master of "the $1000 solution to the $4 problem in recovery"!
A little video of an old melody I wrote. Just to give a taste.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLiWbfvEF0Y&list=UUMhr-A-1fGhPjvHFF9fBP-A
So this is one more thing off my list of stuff to do. Fixed this piece and it's a keeper!
Keep on showing up, you'll get there! J
You know in this modern world of crazy ass consumerism, there is always a new product that will make your saxophone journey easier. The latest I've seen besides silver or gold plated neck screws that increase your volume or big brass strap hooks that give you a better sound is a device that you clamp to the neck of your new horn and play Charlie Parker into a tiny transducer. This vibrates the metal in your horn and changes the molecular structure thus opening up your sound.....
I gotta admit, I've tried most everything just out of curiosity including nickel plating the neck of my old Conn to give it more focus (no, it didn't do anything, but I did get a shiny cool looking neck for about $35!) but the transducer thingy. Lordy. I'm in the wrong business. A lot of suckers out there.
But whether you believe it or not, enjoy the placebo or whatever, if it gets you there so be it. I guess I just think it's all so stupid when the small things make such a big difference. Small things like, a better reed. Practicing. The right mouthpiece.
Oh us tenor players tend to go through a lot of those. It's insane. And I mean textbook insane: trying the same thing over and over expecting a different result. We can spend thousands of dollars on that stupid chase, and if we are talking vintage or boutique that can mean 1 or 2 mouthpieces.
I bought this run of the mill hard rubber Otto Link piece last year. Nothing special, a #6 tip. It's probably from the 80's or early 90's. It's been a love hate relationship but I've kept going back to it. Nothing for me sounds more like the human voice than one of these and I can't get a metal piece to fill out the bottom of my horn as well. But his piece, yeah, it had its shortcomings, that stuffy bit. And I struggled with the altissimo which I'm not even close to mastering yet, but get better at every day.
So rather than give up on it yet I sent it to my man in Portland, Mr. Peter Deley to fix it. he opened it up a bit and fixed the facing. Not by much, it's now a .091 with a 24mm facing so it's easy as pie to play. When I got it back it played much better. Easy altissimo. Even gave me the confidence to hit some high notes on Reverend Vince's New Years gig. With my horn it has the guts I need for that type of music but.... I craved more cut. There is still a stuffiness. Too dark. But closer than ever.
So my consumer mind kicks in as usual. "maybe I need a Selmer, or a King Zephyr, or just drop $350 on an ugly ass Steve Goodson neck for rock gigs? or maybe another Berg Larsen yadda yadda no peace, no progress, not enough prosperity to buy more expensive stuff blah blah BUY BUY BUY!"
So exhausting innit?
So here is a good solution: Nail polish baffle. I already made the shank smaller with thin coats of nail polish. Need to go thin so it stays in there. Takes about 2 days to do that job. So I figured, use this bottle of blue metallic nail polish I found to fill that awful 'stuffiness well' behind the tip. This took about 2 days as well, thin coats:
So if you are about to spend your life savings on a sonic fix, consider this from the master of "the $1000 solution to the $4 problem in recovery"!
A little video of an old melody I wrote. Just to give a taste.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLiWbfvEF0Y&list=UUMhr-A-1fGhPjvHFF9fBP-A
So this is one more thing off my list of stuff to do. Fixed this piece and it's a keeper!
Keep on showing up, you'll get there! J
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