A question for those who play tenor and soprano

[Kevin]

I was holding my comments regarding this for a number of days, somewhat in expectation that someone would be bolder than I to comment on a recording that was done by one of the all time great sax players, BUT… (may I not get struck by lighting…) that recording of “Favorite Things” was borderline hideous to my aging/ringing ears. The tone of that soprano on that recording and the chirping short note phrases and maybe the overall arrangement was not something I would not deem good at all, more so for a player of that caliber. I’ve been to one Dave Koz concert where the soprano(curved) is one of his featured instruments and I’ll make my comment short that there is no comparison…
I’m curious to perhaps find some of Coltrane’s other Soprano sax performances to hopefully find that he can really play that instrument. I don’t think he “represented..” on this one.

[Michael Bishop]

@ Kevin: I agree with you 100%, not sure what the deal is there, kind of surprising to hear that coming from Coltrane. That’s cool how you bring out Dave Koz, his tone on Soprano is just incredible, awesome stuff. I’m way more of a fan of his Soprano playing over Kenny G..I’m not bashing Kenny G at all, just not a big fan of his music. When he plays the Soprano, he holds the MP in his mouth kind of sideways, really weird v.s. what we see King Curtis doing/should be doing. One song I plan on doing of Dave Koz’s when I get my Soprano now in late March is this one below called “You Make Me Smile”, beautiful stuff. There’s loads of stuff suitable for the Soprano, definately plan on putting it to good use. Because I’m doing Saxophone for fun, I want to be versatile and just play all 3 of them.I’m not sure if I’ll ever end up with a Bari, there’s only so much time in the day/week to play and it’s possible to try and take on too much. I was also going to also do a Soprano/Tenor Duet for the Love Theme to St.Elmo’s fire, I will play the Piano lines with the Soprano and play the famous sax solo with Tenor as originally done. The Sax solo is pretty easy.

[Anonymous]

The problem with horns, is if you start with a massive great big one, they sound like Shrek with gas, then if you start tinkering with them and you make em smaller and smaller you end up with a penny whistle. lol

So the tenor and alto to me sound the best range for a sax , too big and they sound too farty and too small they sound like a whistle, and i can take them seriously. lol

imho – if you give a soprano to joe bloggs, no ones going to listen, but if you put it in the hands of any famous sax player, then we have to listen, and we dont dare disrespect the player?

sorry folks for me its either tenor or alto – in my case alto (shh don’t tell anyone – i can’t afford to invest in a tenor)

[Marc]

Thanks, Mike… soprano sounds gorgeous on those two clips… Still don’t understand why some people don’t like its high pitched tone.
I’m more convinced each day I’ll give a soprano a go.

[Michael Bishop]

@ Marc: As Johnny told us in this post, the Saxophone is all about having fun and that means different things to different people. His bottom line is that if you try the Soprano, love it and you know you’ll use it regularly, then get one. I tried it a couple of months ago and loved it. As we can see from these posts, the Soprano isn’t for everyone and that’s great too, we’re all different. For me, there’s LOADS of stuff I’m going to do with it and I will make equal use of all 3 Saxophones that I have…well, soon to be 3, right now it’s 2 Saxophones LOL But again, that’s just what I want to do because as Johnny said it’s all about fun/enjoyment. Whatever approach we decide to take to our Sax playing, we can all enjoy what we do just as much as the next guy. We can enjoy the Sax just as much as any other pro player out there, that’s a really cool thought when we think about it 🙂 It seems like as members of Johnny’s site or just as student players in general, we arrive at this point in our playing where we start to branch out and find our own voice on the Sax…and that’s awesome because that shows we’re growing/improving 🙂 There’s many times that we don’t see that we are improving, and that’s the beauty of recording ourselves/uploading to Johnny’s site because we can look back at old videos and see the proof for ourselves that we are improving 🙂
The St.Elmo’s fire theme song didn’t have Soprano in the song, it was Piano/Tenor Sax. But I’m going to do it as Soprano/Tenor. I’ve seen some folks do St.Elmo’s Fire on youtube for a live audience and the sound was amazing for the song, gorgeous. So it will make a super-fun project.

[Anonymous]

I think one point you are overlooking is that a good horn appreciates in value over the years, besides all the joy it brings you each time you play it. My wife really enjoys listening to me play as well. These instruments bring you much pleasure for your investment. If I compare the cost of the sax to other entertainment, I can buy a new Sax every 4.5 years with the money I save by not subscribing to our satellite pay TV channels.

When you purchase a new car and drive it off the showroom floor it immediately loses a 1/4 of it’s value. It makes far more sense to buy an expensive sax than an expensive car, also the juice to make the Sax run is a lot cheaper – LOL!

[Anonymous]

Another point to consider is that the Soprano’s range overlaps the Tenor’s by 63% and the Alto by 78%. The Soprano is only 12 notes higher than the Tenor, and 7 notes higher than the Alto, so more than half of it’s lower range is within the normal range of the other two saxes. The Soprano’s lower end sounds pretty cool too – IMHO.

[Michael Bishop]

@ jeff: Pretty cool points 🙂 There’s certainly no comparison to watching TV v.s. playing the Saxophone, which is also a great point. Sometimes to get that regular practice time we need, especially if we feel we’re so busy, the solution in looking for that needed time can be cutting back on watching TV, it can be a real time waster for sure! It can cost not $ but precious time LOL Like you said it saves $ by it can also save precious time too.

[Anonymous]

cool – great to see you guys/gals with soprano’s luve them.

Time is valuable – i just haven’t got the time to pond hop from instrument to instrument, or the funds to justify buying different types of saxes.

in my case when i started the alto 2 yrs ago, i had to give up playing/practicing the guitar couldn’t find the time to pond hop between them.

Same thing with mouthpieces, i’ve got a luvely guardella king – when was the last time i used it? 6 months ago – just hsven’t got the time to pond hop to it at the moment.

I do luv the sound of the other saxes, but just couldn’t commit to any other types.

But if u play soprano and u wsnna be in my rock & roll gsng? mmmm i’ll get back to you – lol (only kidding, no u’re not, yes i am .. woops put my fut in it again

[Anonymous]

Hi Sxpoet – You put your left foot in, your left foot out, in out, in out, you shake it all about, you do the Okey-Cokey, and you turn around, that’s what it’s all about!

Hey, did you do your exams yet? I went and purchased James Rae ’20 Modern studies’ & ’36 more modern studies’ with the aim of working through the levels.
I have already acquired enough music to keep me busy for years to come! But the few Jazz books I bought are becoming impatient. Sooo much to do!

[Author]

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