- Joined
- Mar 10, 2013
You and I are far too much alike, my friend, except for the beard thing and I'll give you a pass on that. We gotta get together Real Soon Now and hoist the coffee cup of peace or some such. I lost yer phone number, email, and everything else in a savage crash that left me data-less, which is why I haven't been in touch, please to email me back with the deets. I even forgive you for living in the southern slums with the rest of the riff-raff; I'll bop down there if I absolutely have to, but 'twould be far better for you to come up to the Avenues and see how the other half does it. If you have a strong arm, you can hit the church office building with a rock from my balcony, but I usually use a powerful laser I sort of happen to have. I've got a cute little astronomical telescope too, bounce up here some night when it's clear. The balcony also hosts a grill, and among my other titles I am the undisputed Master Of Fire™. One taste of my Dread Chicken and all other food will seem insipid.
But this is the music forum, and that's not what I came here to talk about. The moderators will forgive some topic drift, but I'm not going to push it any farther. Consider this a new post, starting here. What I really wanted to discuss is High Notes, specifically the higher register of the saxophone, and the strange connection it makes to one of my favorite forumgoers. (Also, it's 3:48 AM and I'm due over at LDS at 8, so sleep is out of the question and I may as well blather on the internets and see whom I can annoy.) Herewith:
High Notes: a retrospective
Every instrument has a highest note you are supposed to be able to hit. It's where the fingering ends. On the piano, it's a C that is almost never used because it's a little tinkly thing and there's no point except showing off. On the saxophone, it's normally a high F (there are two fingerings for it, one with the palm keys and one with what's called the "high F" key for a good reason) except some horns have an F# key (all of mine do) and there are instruments that go to G, which to my mind is a little silly.
I was flummoxed when a teacher told me there was a way to play higher. It involves "false" fingerings and using your embouchure and throat in ways that you totally never do in real life. Only one note up there has a generally-accepted fingering (high A) but even then you still have to trickfuck the instrument into sounding it. There are web forums with discussion boards on the subject and they always specify recommended fingerings, which is both hilarious and stupid because nothing works except what works for you. The geometry and physics of the airflow from your diaphragm, through your lungs, throat, larnyx, mouth, lips, toungue, and into the reed, mouthpiece, and the rest of the horn that determines what will happen. Until every sax player is a vatgrown ninja clone playing the exact same horn/mouthpiece/reed setup, there will not be any "standard" fingerings for any of it.
Some friends and I who were all sax players ran each other ragged for two years trying to learn to play up there. I humbly admit to being the undisputed master; my range went an octave and a half above what the horn is supposed to be able to do. It's great fun when another player is in the audience and you just keep going up and up and up to where the fucker knows he ain't the smartest kid in the room and slinks off.
Tie-in with aforementioned forum member: Ms. Altissimo, take a bow. I hadn't seen or heard anyone use the word for years until she showed up here. It's called the altissimo register. I once asked the gentleman who is probably the best saxophone player in the world, Don Sinta, what someone would have to be able to do if they wanted to be his student. He said "well, doubletoungue and play altissimo." (I learned how to doubletongue too, after that, though I haven't tried again for decades -- it's one of the things that is supposed to be impossible on a woodwind instrument, and nearly is.)
Back in the LA days, I went to dinner with my girlfriend of the time, one of our cow orkers and his girlfriend . . . I knew she was a sax player, and a good one, and during the conversation she mentioned in passing "my teacher was probably the best sax player in the world," so I asked her who, exactly, that was. She said "Don Sinta" and I damn near choked.
She split up with the cow orker after and omg I should have dated her because: sax player, and, well, other assets, but here's a Pro Tip from the old beardo segment: The Beard of Knowledge tells you to never, ever fricking try to date anyone ten years younger than you 'cause it ain't gonna work. (I'm borrowing The Dude's beard for this, as I don't have one of my own to pull on.) The funny part is she had a womens-empowerment website or some such, full of stories, advice, etc., about how women can do just as well as men -- which is damn cool and earns a hearty high-five from me. My ex-wife was a stunningly beautiful blonde flute player who earned Engineer Of The Year at Hughes Aircraft our first year out of college, and I'm all for the fuck-the-glass-ceiling stuff. I know many women that can out-math me and out-deathmatch me, and I can think of one that is in the rarefied air of Programmers I Consider To Be My Equal. You go, girls. But anyway, the funny part is that she eventually let the website lapse and the domain name became available for ten bucks for whomever wanted it. Her domain was "amazon.com," and sure enough, somebody wanted it.
Sorry, moderators. I digressed. Back to music. Pro Tips from the piano player: in an ensemble situation, don't ever play the tonic because the bass player will become disgruntled when you step on his turf and he's bigger than you. When you don't know what else to do, voice everything as 3 - 7 - 5 - 9 and you'll never fail. (A C major chord is played as E and B with the left hand, with G and D with the right. You can swap 'em around to whatever's convenient, but stay away from that cheap thug bass player's territory.) It always works.
Pro Tip #2: The dominant-seven sharp 9 chord doesn't need a tonic or a fifth or much of anything else, for that matter. It wants the third, the seventh, and the sharp ninth. Anything else just compromises the Funk, and you never want to compromise the Funk. When you want to get DOWN, a C7#9 is played as E - Bb - Eb (ok, D sharp for you anal-retentives, but the principal remains the same.) Hit it real hard on the piano and you'll feel like James Brown for several milliseconds, only less dead.
I have this thing, too. I have no idea why.
Most of you will claim it's the drummer. Most of you are wrong.
