To the best of my knowledge there seem to be three distinct styles of saxophone playing: "Legit" or "classical" (for lack of a better word), "Rock" or "Rhythm and Blues", and "Jazz' or "Mainstream Jazz".

There's a fourth. It's very commercial, Guy Lomboardo, businman's bounce, yacht club style of playing, but I don't know what to call it. And there's a fifth. Big band section playing. And probably a sixth and a seventh...

To answer the suggestion to place the mouthpiece further on the cork and play with a looser embouchure to solve the gurgling problem, yes that does work in some cases.

I must be missing something here. Or just misunderstanding. Are you saying one can address the gurgling problem by tuning sharp? How does playing sharp solve anything?

 

There's a fourth. It's very commercial, Guy Lomboardo, businman's bounce, yacht club style of playing, but I don't know what to call it. And there's a fifth. Big band section playing. And probably a sixth and a seventh...

And Kenny G and Boots Randolph et-cet-era, et-cet-era, et-cet-era.

I must be missing something here. Or just misunderstanding. Are you saying one can address the gurgling problem by tuning sharp? How does playing sharp solve anything?

Al, I was responding to the post by Mike F in which he said that he pushes the mouthpiece all the way on to the cork and then brings the pitch down to (A=440) by relaxing the embouchure and thereby playing much lower on the pitch of the mouthpiece. I do not advocate this as a solution, just commenting that it may work for some players. A straight soprano I repaired "gurgled" on the low tones everytime I play tested it. After about the 5th time going completely through the sax with my leak light and feeler gage, one of the more experienced techs in the shop said "have you tried putting the mouthpiece a little farther on the neck?" I moved it on about a quarter of an inch and the sax played the low notes with ease. I asked him why he didn't tell me this a couple of hours ago, and his reply was "why didn't you ask?"

This is why I think the mouthpiece placement can make a difference. Perhaps it puts the nodes of the sound wave in a more advantageous spot in the body of the horn. I don't know. As I said in my previous post, for a classical player, I think this very relaxed embouchure would ruin the tone quality he/she is trying to achieve. Curt Alterac (MusicMedic.com) has done a lot of study and experimentation in the area of sax acoustics. I am going to ask him what he knows on this topic at the NAPBIRT convention in April.

 

Only get the gurgling when I play quietly on a low B or C. Bb isn't effected as much. I play a Yamaha 82z with an SR tech mouthpiece. And yes, the mouthpiece covers almost all of the cork. Ill try the cork down the bell trick and see what happens

 

Maybe it has some psychological help in forcing the player to envision the cork being in there forcing the player to inadvertantly maintain air support due to thinking he needs to overcome the cork being in there.

Thus causing the player to push the air through the horn not at the mouthpiece........

then again maybe not..but I am sure the wine helps.

 

Al, I was responding to the post by Mike F in which he said that he pushes the mouthpiece all the way on to the cork and then brings the pitch down to (A=440) by relaxing the embouchure and thereby playing much lower on the pitch of the mouthpiece. I do not advocate this as a solution, just commenting that it may work for some players. A straight soprano I repaired "gurgled" on the low tones everytime I play tested it. After about the 5th time going completely through the sax with my leak light and feeler gage, one of the more experienced techs in the shop said "have you tried putting the mouthpiece a little farther on the neck?" I moved it on about a quarter of an inch and the sax played the low notes with ease. I asked him why he didn't tell me this a couple of hours ago, and his reply was "why didn't you ask?"

This is why I think the mouthpiece placement can make a difference. Perhaps it puts the nodes of the sound wave in a more advantageous spot in the body of the horn. I don't know. As I said in my previous post, for a classical player, I think this very relaxed embouchure would ruin the tone quality he/she is trying to achieve. Curt Alterac (MusicMedic.com) has done a lot of study and experimentation in the area of sax acoustics. I am going to ask him what he knows on this topic at the NAPBIRT convention in April.

John, I'd be interested to hear what Curt has to say about this. Do please let us know.

I just want to make it clear (for you, and also for Al) that the way I play/tune on the sax isn't to cure the gurgle problem. Sure, if I put the mouthpiece on the cork where many players put it, then I can find the gurgle, but I put the mouthpiece nearly all the way on the cork, (with about 2mm of cork showing) because that's where I have to put it to be in tune!

Yes, I do play with a low pitch center, but I haven't deliberately cultivated this way of tuning, it has just happened as a result of the way that I learned to play. I was taught to play with a big sound by relaxing my embouchure, opening my throat, and most importantly, by using loads of diaphragm (and therefore air stream support).

 

Getting rid of the gurgle certainly can be got around by playing technique. I have a gurgle of the sort described - But if I take in a little more mouthpiece and blow slightly harder (and louder), it stops. I've been playing on and off for around 40 years, and used to play around with some really beaten-up old wrecks in a repairer friend's workshop - I learned how to make most of them sound reasonable by blowing techniques, and many of them were riddled with leaks. We had a laugh one day with a teacher who happened to be there - She tried out a beaten-up old sax and couldn't get a note out of it, and declared that it needed a complete repadding and setting up - I had played this particular sax before, and took it off her and did a pretty good rendition of "Someday my Prince Will Come" - She was rendered pretty well speechless by that. I also used to play equally crap saxes on gigs on occasion, which I'd borrowed from my friend, so it's possibly to play over the "cracks" to a great extent when you've played lots of different saxes over a period of years, and especially when a lot of them were bashed-up wrecks. Trouble is, it makes to have to work harder, when perhaps you would like to enjoy playing and relax a bit.
By the way, talking of putting things down the bell - Has anyone heard of gluing a piece of string down a clarinet to put a HP instrument into LP ?
I haven't tried this wrinkle but it came to me from an old pro.
Richard

 

Additional -
I just tried some experiments regarding gurgling - I can make my horn gurgle if I deliberatly try to do it (This is a new horn, not a beaten-up old thing). So I played around with doing that for a while, then I put in a "C" size torch battery (I couldn't find a wine bottle cork)....... and played again. It's true - it was a fair bit harder to make it gurgle this time. It was also now safer to hit those low notes taking less care over them. This has to be better as it lessens the possibility of mis-hitting a low note accidentally on a gig. Could be a good reason to permanently use a cork. It doesnt seem to affect any tuning, or tone quality...... nor the volume.

 

Getting rid of the gurgle certainly can be got around by playing technique. I have a gurgle of the sort described - But if I take in a little more mouthpiece and blow slightly harder (and louder), it stops. I've been playing on and off for around 40 years, and used to play around with some really beaten-up old wrecks in a repairer friend's workshop - I learned how to make most of them sound reasonable by blowing techniques, and many of them were riddled with leaks. We had a laugh one day with a teacher who happened to be there - She tried out a beaten-up old sax and couldn't get a note out of it, and declared that it needed a complete repadding and setting up - I had played this particular sax before, and took it off her and did a pretty good rendition of "Someday my Prince Will Come" - She was rendered pretty well speechless by that. I also used to play equally crap saxes on gigs on occasion, which I'd borrowed from my friend, so it's possibly to play over the "cracks" to a great extent when you've played lots of different saxes over a period of years, and especially when a lot of them were bashed-up wrecks. Trouble is, it makes to have to work harder, when perhaps you would like to enjoy playing and relax a bit.
By the way, talking of putting things down the bell - Has anyone heard of gluing a piece of string down a clarinet to put a HP instrument into LP ?
I haven't tried this wrinkle but it came to me from an old pro.
Richard

I had a similar experience when I was a kid in school. I was struggling on a certain passage and occassionally squawking the notes at the break between d-c when the HS conductor came over, took my alto from my hands and was going to give me a lesson on how to play.
My beat up old lyon & Healey showed him. He couldn't get a note out of it. he gave it a few attempts and then declared the horn un usable and told me to get it fixed.
Air support and gorrilla grip was needed to play that baby.

 

My dealer friend said he'd love to have me there when he tries to sell an old wreck to someone who's about to begin learning to play. I could then play it and make it sound perfect and get him a sale. That's a rather dirty trick to pull on someone though, so I've never done it.

 

I'm currently experiencing some gurgling issues with my MK VI tenor- low F and E- which I'm consciously correcting by blowing "warmer" air by adjusting my throat opening and approaching those notes with more confidence. For the record, I noticed this when I played the horn in the shop after a tune-up (that I'd hoped would have been a fix).

I recently had my sax (SA II alto) for some re-padding and adjustments, and after that I too got the gurgles - low C and B.

Since I've never had the problem before the "fix", I suspect that something other than just the form of the curve is the cause of motorboating. I'm not sure that it is leaks, maybe something to do with material of pads or resos?

 

I remember when I was at university, some of my colleagues would put pieces of moleskin in their bells. They tried to explain to me why, but I can't remember.

When I bought my sop, there was a piece of moleskin in the bell.

Do you think this might be related to the cork thing?

I used to put a live mole in my tenor. A ball of wire mesh stopped it escaping.

 

Is a wine cork preferable to a mouthpiece cap?

 

In my experience, they both work, but the wine cork is preferable for two reasons. 1: a cap can create its own “bulges” and 2: it won’t make noise rolling around in the bottom of your horn.

 

In my experience, they both work, but the wine cork is preferable for two reasons. 1: a cap can create its own “bulges” and 2: it won’t make a noise rolling around in the bottom of your horn.

Thanks. What do you mean by bulges?

 

They currently make a fix for this ,its a stick in deal that takes up the space in the bow that causes the problem . Apparently easy to install. I have a old Buescher True Tone alto that has this problem, Ive chucked a cork down there and it works , also adjusted embouchure and that works ,but its a pain in articles I can live without. Selmer solved this with a factory made correction. That T.T horn is the only one that I have ,that has this problem. So I'm looking at the fix , because the horn is great otherwise.