BOTM BOTM March 2017: Die Moritat von Mackie Messer

[Ivan]

Started off sight reading, then ended up just winging it. Oh, and had to kick wife's dog's our near the end

You lost the timing a tad when you winged it, the dog added flavour, I like the brighter fibracell tone if that's what did it 0.53-1.14 and there were one or two embellishments that dhow promise

Keep it up

I

Oh and my laughter rating woz the dog not the playing

 

[Tiberius]

...I like the brighter fibracell tone if that's what did it 0.53-1.14 <snip>Oh and my laughter rating woz the dog not the playing

The change to the fibracell is obvious at 0.53 as you say, much brighter (and better, yes), but, the strange thing is, it's actually the fibracell to the end, after a break at 1.14, I continued to use the fibracell, but it went much darker, almost like I'd changed back to the java...but I hadn't; I don't reeli understand that tbh.

I quite like the tone of the fibracell, but they don't have the dynamic range of the java's, and they're a little harder to keep in tune. I tried them because on of my favorite youTube players uses them (Mark Maxwell/Dr Saxlove).

yeah, sure, I believe you were laughing at my wife's dogs 🙂 ...actually usually they only bark at the soprano, I think my cat may have been wandering past.

 

[Colin the Bear]

The condensed wisdom of the forum seems to be that a new set up will sound different for a short while. As you adapt to it, you end up sounding like you again. It's good to try other players set up to see how you'll fare. You won't sound like them but may find more you. Your physiognomy is unique.

 

[saxyjt]

Your physiognomy is unique.

Wow, I never realized how 'physiognomy' was written in english, ending with 'gnony' when we have almost the same word ending in 'nomie', so for a while I thought it was a joke (or a typo) but I was just ignominiously ignorant. 😳

Now, I have to give this Moritat a try over the week-end. Not sure what with yet, but we'll find one that may be willing to cooperate.

 

[Tiberius]

...ending with 'gnony' when we have almost the same word ending in 'nomie',

Interesting, I haven't time to look this up at the moment, but I suspect the 'gn' indicates it's origin as Greek rather than Latin. French, being a romance language, I guess the Romans stole it and 'latinised' it by dropping the G. The Romans were a bit like the English here, 'stealing' words and making them look like they'd always been part of the language, e.g. Bungalow. I'd love to see what we've done with 'Tsunami' and 'Blitzkrieg' in a hundred years...sorry, off topic again 😳

 

[Tiberius]

... It's good to try other players set up to see how you'll fare. You won't sound like them

A previous BOTM I recorded myself playing my teachers gear (Sequioia sax, old metal Florida Link mouthpiece), this setup is about as far as you can get from mine. Much warmer sax, link v Berg mouthpiece...and I sound exactly the same on it. The difference from my setup is barely noticeable.

 

[David Dorning]

A previous BOTM I recorded myself playing my teachers gear (Sequioia sax, old metal Florida Link mouthpiece), this setup is about as far as you can get from mine. Much warmer sax, link v Berg mouthpiece...and I sound exactly the same on it. The difference from my setup is barely noticeable.

That seems to be quite common. I lent someone my Jericho J6 tenor whilst his Selmer Mk6 was being serviced. He said it sounded exactly the same, not noticeably any worse than his Selmer. But the action was awful by comparison.

 

[Ivan]

That's not to say you can't develop your sound

Takes practice

 

[Rob Pealing]

Interesting, I haven't time to look this up at the moment, but I suspect the 'gn' indicates it's origin as Greek rather than Latin. French, being a romance language, I guess the Romans stole it and 'latinised' it by dropping the G. The Romans were a bit like the English here, 'stealing' words and making them look like they'd always been part of the language, e.g. Bungalow. I'd love to see what we've done with 'Tsunami' and 'Blitzkrieg' in a hundred years...sorry, off topic again 😳

See physiognomy - definition of physiognomy in English | Oxford Dictionaries

 

[mrpeebee]

Here is my quick and dirty take of this nice song, played on a modern 10mfan HR Merlot 9 mouthpiece, a La Voz medium reed and a 1953 Selmer SBA tenor:

- 'Mack The Knife' (HR Merlot 9 - La Voz medium):
SoundClick

Difficult to play it fully in the format of a Ballad. I tried, but didn't succeed!

 

[Rob Pealing]

Here is my quick and dirty take of this nice song, played on a modern 10mfan HR Merlot 9 mouthpiece, a La Voz medium reed and a 1953 Selmer SBA tenor:

- 'Mack The Knife' (HR Merlot 9 - La Voz medium):
SoundClick

Difficult to play it fully in the format of a Ballad. I tried, but didn't succeed!

Thanks for bringing us back to the music with that interesting excellent version.

 

[Ivan]

Here is my quick and dirty take of this nice song, played on a modern 10mfan HR Merlot 9 mouthpiece, a La Voz medium reed and a 1953 Selmer SBA tenor:

- 'Mack The Knife' (HR Merlot 9 - La Voz medium):
SoundClick

Difficult to play it fully in the format of a Ballad. I tried, but didn't succeed!

Sonorous

 

[Rob Pealing]

I have been feeling guilty for a week because I chose this and hoped that the experienced players would have fun and lots of novices like me would would post a version. I have not done so and the month ends in few days. So here is tonight's effort.

https://soundcloud.com/sax-in-a-kayak%2Fmack-the-knife-backing-from-abrsm

View: https://soundcloud.com/sax-in-a-kayak/mack-the-knife-backing-from-abrsm


My fellow apprentices do not feel shy, if you look through the posts by novice players all you will find is help and encouragement.

I am keen to know how popular/useful/ fun this BOTM is so that if I am asked again I can try to make a good choice so please let me have your comments and fill in the questionnaire.

 

[Tiberius]

...My fellow apprentices do not feel shy, if you look through the posts by novice players all you will find is help and encouragement.

Shy? Wassat? 🙂

I can only repeat that advice, lots of people want to wait until they're 'ready' to post, but that's not the point of these threads. Get stuck in, posting the first few bars is perfectly ok. My own playing as come on a lot since I started posting on here.

Unusually for me, I've only posted once this month, personally I found this song way more difficult than I expected. I now understand the concept that it migrates up a semi-tone every so often and sort of goes round in a circle. Probably just me, but I find that difficult to execute.

I've got about 3 circles so far and I do intend to post again before the month ends, but I'm afraid I did get side-tracked with two other songs after going to the cinema. Out most of today, maybe tonight or tomorrow.

 

[nigeld]

I now understand the concept that it migrates up a semi-tone every so often and sort of goes round in a circle. Probably just me, but I find that difficult to execute.

That is not how the song was originally written. The key changes are a feature of some later arrangements, presumably because the song has a lot of short verses and somebody thought it would sound more interesting that way. You have chosen a backing track that modulates into exotic key signatures, and this makes the song much more difficult to play. If you choose a backing track that does not modulate, it will be a lot easier.

 

[Tiberius]

Ah, that explains it thanks Nigel I didn't realise that.

Of course, when I describe something as 'difficult ', it's not a complaint, there's no reason everything should be easy. I'm quite happy learning it, just this one is taking a bit longer than usual, even to get to a basic stage.

 

[Chris]

@Rob Pealing Thanks for being a great host Rob, and giving this classic to play around with🙂 Thanks also to everyone who posted🙂

Chris...

 

[saxyjt]

This is a great piece and I wish I had time to work on it more, but didn't work out as I expected. Life's always full of surprises that eat up your time. But I will persevere as soon as I can. It's one of those mythical pieces that I guess many of us want to play, but it's not as easy as it looks. Slow and simple requires maestria to feel right. I'm obviously still very far from that...

But I'll keep at it! One needs to be stubborn to get there... Especially if old and not gifted!

 

[Rob Pealing]

This is a great piece and I wish I had time to work on it more, but didn't work out as I expected. Life's always full of surprises that eat up your time. But I will persevere as soon as I can. It's one of those mythical pieces that I guess many of us want to play, but it's not as easy as it looks. Slow and simple requires maestria to feel right. I'm obviously still very far from that...

But I'll keep at it! One needs to be stubborn to get there... Especially if old and not gifted!

Thank you for your thoughts. It is one of the first pieces I tried to get my fingers around and as I practiced it and learnt the history of the song I realised it can be played in many different ways. There is a great version for a jazz band on Smartmusic.

 

[Chris Smith UK]

Almost two years late, but this was such a great song to learn... Still needs work to iron out the squeaks and errors, and make it more interesting, but I love playing this...

View: https://youtu.be/soVaiqaf4xM