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Posted: Monday, 27th July 2009 08:27 PM
SOPRANO SAX TIMBRE
A soprano sax should sound like a sax - not a sort of rough cor anglais.It should aspire to the sound of the alto sax.
Johnny Hodges got the voluptuousness of the tenor on his alto [same idea].
John Coltrane was a one-off and he had his reasons for adopting a soprano timbre akin to that of certain Indian instruments as he considered that sound to be germane to certain aspects of his music and possibly his'philosophy'.
However, this approach became the norm for many and so we
have, in many cases, the timbre [or something like it]
without the informed musicality of that great innovative
musician.
There is also the'oboe sound'school-perhaps the motivation
being to give the soprano a sort of respectability in
sounding like an instrument mainly associated with 'art'
music.
Why can't a sop sound more like an alto ['My Fair Lady']
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Posted: Wednesday, 12th August 2009 10:34 AM
From friend and colleague ,Paul Zec.
Hello Tony! How the hell are you? A few months ago I bought "A Night in Oxford Street" (Humph + Jimmy Rushing; you, Skids, Picard, Armit, Brocklehurst, Taylor). I WAS THERE!! Utterly unforgettable. 17 years old. Just listening to it now. Still giving me huge pleasure. Had to dive into your website and say hello. You're quite right about the need to treat the sop. as a saxophone. But I also take your point about Coltrane in this context. When I play my sop I imagine I'm playing a tenor - for obvious reasons. After all, when I play the 1936 Prez solo on 'Lady be Good' on sop , I'm using the same fingering as Prez (in principle). But this accords with your basic point doesn't it? I'll try and get down to de Wit's in October. Warmest good wishes, and thanks for the great pleasure of listening to you with Humph etc and Rushing. I WAS THERE!! Paul
How interesting that you were there ,Paul.It was about 236
worlds ago- TC.
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Posted: Wednesday, 09th September 2009 01:47 PM
THE SPELLING OF HARMONY
Hello,
You said that you would welcome suggestions .
I would definitely write I 7 rather than V7/IV as this involves a chromatic inflection-no modulation has taken place. I seem to remember Schoenberg making this point in one of his books.
One might have to have ,in an extreme case, V7 / V7 / V7 / V7 [ eg E7 in the key of C ] rather than ,simply, III 7 .
What do you think ?
TC
'
PS I think that your idea of a ' wrong good answer ' is excellent and much fairer on students.
PPS Similarly : VII dim7 rather than - VII dim 7 / ii . After all a dim can proceed to many places and there is an assumption, in the first spelling, that it must go to ii.
Again, here, no modulation has taken place.
The term 'dominant's dominant' is faulty.There is only ONE
dominant in a key.For instance ,in the key of C, G is the
dominant and D7 is the chromatically inflected supertonic i.e. II 7.
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Posted: Saturday, 15th August 2009 08:30 PM
TCs letter to Times
TONYCOE
Comment No. 1074219
April 28 18:26
I joined Humph's band early on and it was a tremendous kickstart to my career. He was a great musical influence on me and I am deeply grateful to him for his wonderful support through the years.
His playing had the prime requisite of an artist-honesty-Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker come to mind.
To paraphrase that which was said upon the death of Gershwin:
Humph died last Friday. but I don't have to believe it if I don't want to.
Tony Coe
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Posted: Friday, 25th December 2009 09:08 AM
TC 's mouthpieces
Hello Mr Stein,
Ed Pillinger ,who makes mouthpieces, has copies of my 'classical' clarinet mouthpiece [ German style,so to speak] and my 'jazz'mouthpiece and can reproduce them very efficiently .
www.pillingermouthpieces.co.uk
or on Google.
Let me know how you get on
PS Although I use a link on tenor,it bears not much resemblance to the original- I invariably have them changed in ,at least 2 ways and they arealways more playable.
Best Regards- Tony Coe
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