Mouthpieces Listening to my mouthpiece

[josh_johnson]

I've just had a sax playing friend come up to town. He is having some work done on his sax. The upshot was that he gigged using my sax and mouthpiece (Yamaha Custom Tenor, RPC 115).

It was a real insight hearing the actual sound of my sax and mpc. Unfortunately he put an old reed in which made the mouthpiece sound really 'toppy' and brash (to be honest a very good player was making it sound pretty bad).

The second set was a completely different story - a good reed gave depth and body to the sound - I was very relieved!

If you ever get a chance to let somebody else play your own set-up..take it.

 

[rhysonsax]

That's cool.

It would be interesting to hear a range of different people playing in turn on that same set up (if they didn't mind sharing germs).

Then you could get a feeling for just how much variation in the sound is down to personal physiology and differences in technique. The common elements would be down to the equipment.

It is also a big revelation to hear your own playing, provided it is really well recorded. Very different from what you hear normally from "inside yourself" and different too to what you can hear from playing up against a wall or from foldback speakers.

Rhys

 

[Bobby G]

I've never heard a recording of myself, in what way would it be different to how I hear it? Would it be more 'sax-like'? The nearest I can get to it is playing off a wall, or better into a corner, and it doesn't sound too bad - at least, no-one's winced yet when I play :erm:

It would be interesting to hear someone else playing my setup, even though it might not be an exact reproduction of my sound a there are so many variations in embouchure, playing style etc.

 

[josh_johnson]

I liken recording myself to looking in the mirror - the mirror doesn't lie and you see things that you don't necessarily like. Time for a musical face lift....

 

[Mikec]

I've recorded myself periodically right from when I began playing. It's helped me enormously. How does the sound differ? Completely! It's like when you hear a recording of yourself speaking; you think "Do I sound like that?". As Josh Johnson says you hear everything...

 

[jools]

Absolutely. I went through a long period of recording even the most humble practice sessions. I could hear exactly where I was going wrong and was able to rectify it very quickly.