I don't think we've beaten this horse yet

I think a lot of "tone" is the player because:

• as over time I've practiced on the same equipment I've heard my tone develop and change and improve
• if I lend my sax and mouthpiece to someone else they still sound like themselves not like me
• if I borrow someone elses sax and mouthpiece I still sound like me not like them
• Steve Neff's recent blind test experiment with mouthpieces shows how similar it is possible to sound on a range of different mouthpieces
• Charlie Parker
• The science of sax playing shows that a lot of the things we might intuitively think affect tone (eg brass or bronze) do not in fact affect it

But I also think that part of the reason for the player being so instrumental in "tone" is because "tone" is actually not just the sound itself but the way the sound is created, ie articulation, dynamics etc.. We may think "nice tone" when we hear something but in reality it is other things as well that are making us think that (human perception being dodgy at best).

An example of this someone posted fairly recently about a student who failed an exam because their tone was marked down as poor and practised articulation for a year and came back and passed with the comment "tone much improved".

This is going to sound crazy.....but....

I have found it is the player's sound concept (dictated by the player's individual physiology). I tell my students to do an impression of kermit the frog. (or someone everybody knows) and 99.9% can do a serviceable impression of "it's not easy being green" in a psuedo-kermit voice. The reason is the student/musician has an idea of what kermit sounds like and can therefore reproduce the sound. I then ask the student to explain what they had to do to their body to get the kermit voice and this leads to: what do you have to do to get a warm/dark sound--or bright/buzzy sound, etc?

It is the same for saxophone. I'm not saying one should try to sound exactly like their favorite player (or kermit for that matter), but this "teaching technique" drives home the point. I follow this up by playing a jazz tune on my Rousseau set-up (followed by a nice ferling or something), then play the same classical etude on my jazz set-up (followed by the same jazz tune.) Because an advanced saxophonist can get the same core sound on any set-up (due to changes in the throat, tongue, air stream, etc) it has to be the player. I have found finish effects response more so than tone. Obviously, different mouthpiece choices do effect the tone, but at the end of the day it is all the player's sound concept and his/her physiology.

Good answer Blue Boy. Also, in regards to the hypothetical guy with the deep Shaq-voice - maybe that guy picks up a saxophone as a way to produce a noise that is inside his head, but unable to be expressed by his big manly voice.

I think music (and art in general) are more interesting when there are a multitude of factors involved. For example, one person may be concerned with letting the most pure, natural, uninhibited sound out of his horn, while the next may try to create a sound he hears in his head, but is unsuited to his given body/throat shape. What I'm saying is that there's a more interesting, personal and nuanced place in between these ideals where the player understands his personal abilities/limitations but also factors in the sounds in his head.

This feeds into something I've thought about for a while now. Without going any further into it, it's that extremes and ideals are important for the practice room but making real noise in the real world requires taking a multi-dimensional view of yourself, your music, and your audience.

One of the most important lessons on tone quality I have ever learned was in a clinic given by the great trombonist and arranger Bill Waltrous. At the time for questions after his demonstration the trombone players in the room started to barrage him with questions about which mouthpiece and trombone he played on. He abruptly ended the questions and said that throughout his playing career he would buy a new trombone or a new mouthpiece hoping to get that great sound that he was looking for and find after two weeks of playing he sounded exactly like he did on the old equipment. He remarked that he did the same thing over and over and over again, until one day he realized that if he wanted to change his sound, he had to first change his concept. Once that was accomplished, he said the equipment issue just kind of took care of itself.

The equipment does not create the sound, it simply provides a pathway to achieve the sound that is in the player's head. If it does so efficiently, then the setup fits that individual. If the player has to work hard to force the equipment to produce a sound that conforms to his concept, then he would do well to find a more efficient setup.

John

As I read your replies I'm thinking, I know there's no scientific way to measure the effect of a person's physiology on tone. Nor can anyone say that my idea of tonal quality is the same as others. Maybe that's why people get all rapped up into discussions over gear. It's much easier to identify what gear someone is using as opposed to explaining how they're using it.

Mastering the instrument is all about overcoming one's perceived limitations. However, we can all agree these limitation do exist. Otherwise we'd all be at near the greatest sax players ever. So it begs to question, how does our predisposed physical limitations, for lack of better word(s), effect the ability of creating the tone we what to hear? Is there such a type of individual who is a natural at any one sound? Or, is the "learned" theory more valid?