[Dixielandjazz] The Key to Great Sax

[Larry Walton Entertainment - St. Louis]

It's sort of interesting because I have been saying forever that the shape 
and size of your oral cavity makes a huge difference in the way you sound. 
I equate it to whistling.  You shape the inside of your mouth and thought 
much like whistling.  In other words it changes with pitch.  High school 
level sax players and most clarinet players who switch to sax have a nasal, 
pinched sound because they are forcing everything forward including the 
tongue and pinching off the sound.  It's like a singer who isn't opening his 
mouth much.

I can take a player and get him to change from one sound to the other in 
just a few minutes.  Trouble is old habits die hard and they revert 
sometimes.  That's all the time it took for a pro to open my sound up but I 
asked him the right questions and many just don't know what to ask or think 
they sound great or like what they are doing and for them there is no hope. 
All I do is what he did for me.

I'll tell you what though, that WOW moment when you get someone to produce 
that full great sound and see the look on their faces is worth a million 
bucks.  I have never figured out why some of them go back to their old sound 
and just don't seem to get it.
Larry
StL
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Richoux" <tubaman at tubatoast.com>
To: "Larry Walton" <larrys.bands at charter.net>
Cc: "Dixieland Jazz Mailing List" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2008 2:36 PM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] The Key to Great Sax


>I don't play that way, but you reed folks might be interested ;-)
>
> http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-key-to-great-sax
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> (a Scientific American article, by the way...)
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> Dave Richoux
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