Moz
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 655
- Location
- North of Liskeard, Cornwall,UK
Watched the youtube version of Julian Smith playing soprano sax on Britain's Got Talent this evening and was most surprised at how an audience can be enthralled by the simplest things. The guy, and good luck to him, played 'Somewhere' [there's a place for us]. He had Simon Cowell praising him to the heavens, Piers Morgan gushing with admiration and Amanda Holden was in tears of rapture (something Les Dennis must have envied), the audience rose to it's feet as one at the end.
Now, not wanting to rain on anyone's parade but going to drizzle on it anyway: The guy played well, he had a nice tone and holding that last note for about 15 seconds was a masterstoke. But he also had more reverb on his amplifier than is available in the caves at Wooky Hole so it was a good job he was playing something slow or all the notes would have come out as one. The audience were taken in by the ambience, the mass hysteria and not least by fact that probably 80% of them had never seen a soprano sax before. Apart from the last sustained note, I reckon most of the people on this forum could do as good a job because with that amount of echo, scraping nails down a blackboard could sound good. He got through to the next round and I'll be looking forward to hearing him play something that many of us here could not, THEN I'll give him a standing ovation.
He did have a nice tone though.
Moz
Now, not wanting to rain on anyone's parade but going to drizzle on it anyway: The guy played well, he had a nice tone and holding that last note for about 15 seconds was a masterstoke. But he also had more reverb on his amplifier than is available in the caves at Wooky Hole so it was a good job he was playing something slow or all the notes would have come out as one. The audience were taken in by the ambience, the mass hysteria and not least by fact that probably 80% of them had never seen a soprano sax before. Apart from the last sustained note, I reckon most of the people on this forum could do as good a job because with that amount of echo, scraping nails down a blackboard could sound good. He got through to the next round and I'll be looking forward to hearing him play something that many of us here could not, THEN I'll give him a standing ovation.
He did have a nice tone though.
Moz