Using Words to Describe Sound

Hallo,

im Masterclassvideo eines Saxophonisten, dessen Namen ich von wegen Bias mal nicht nennen möchte, gibt es eine Sektion, wo er über die Beschreibung von Sound spricht.

Er bringt dabei eine "Ancient Chinese description of the qualities which should be present in what one would call a satisfying tone"

Klar, ancient chinese books sind immer schön, um zu zitieren, aber ich finde das trotzdem ganz interessant.

Happiness, elegance, sadness, sweetness, subtlety, resonance and strength.
Also Fröhlichkeit, Eleganz, Traurigkeit, Süße, Feinheit, Resonanz und Stärke, wenn ich das mal mehr oder weniger richtig übersetze.

Mich würde nun interessieren, welche Musiker, Jazz oder Klassik, Ihr mit den Begriffen assoziieren würdet.

Ich bringe Euch für jeden Beispiele aus dem Video:

Happiness: Cannonball Adderley, Satchmo

Elegance: Johnny Hodges

Sadness: Bill Evans (Piano )

Sweetness: Audrey Gopinath (kannte ich nicht )

Subtlety: Steve Lacy

Resonance: (die Erklärung, kein Beispiel): Resonance. Now we're going to have resonance and strength. So let's distinguish between resonance and strength. What do we mean by resonant sounds? This is good because we're going to get there with us. It's got a bigness. Yeah, a depth. May I say darkness? That's a word we have to think about because a lot of times we say dark and bright when we talk about sound. A certain kind of heaviness. Weight. The resonance is weight. Deep. Depth. You think of resonance. When you think resonance you hear deep. Deep sound. Baritone voice. Baritone saxophone resonance. Although it doesn't have to be. So maybe below middle C and down is resonant. I don't know. You know what I'm saying? Something about deep, deep sound. But you can have a resonant alto sound. Right? Or a resonant soprano sound. So it's not restricted to the range of the instrument. It's about the tone the guy gets. I mean wing is a very resonant sound in soprano. I mean it rings. Especially in a high register. When he hits those high notes they're not like they're a pinpoint. They're like a white sound. So that's on the high D. So that's not about range obviously. Because that's pretty hard to do. So resonance. And then how would we think about strength? Does strength come back to... Well we said happiness. Is strength...

Strengh: Coltrane, Dexter Gordon

Ich freue mich auf's Mitmachen,
Ton

 

Nicht einfach, die eigenen biographischen Kenntnisse über die betreffende Person vom Sound von Instrument/Spielweise zu separieren.
Bill Evans: "traurig-träumerisch" bei den Balladen von "Kind of Blue", ein Leben durchsetzt mit Phasen von Tragik -> Sadness?
Dexter Gordon: Strength? Für mich eher Elegance. Aber lasse ich mich vielleicht von den Attributen leiten, die man seinem Aussehen und Verhalten zugewiesen hat?
Seine Spielweise, sein Sound: für mich jedoch Elegance.

 

Ich glaube das ist ein Fehler im Transkript des Videos und denke sie meinen den Herrn da:

 

Hi,

schnell aus der Hüfte geschossen:

happiness: Clark Terry, Willis Jackson, Richie Cole

elegance: Paul Desmond (eh klar), Wes Montgomery, Pat Metheny

sadness: Chet Baker, Lee Konitz, Gil Evans, Sonny Greenwich

sweetness: Johnny Hodges, Ben Webster, Ray Nance

subtlety: Oliver Nelson (als Instrumentalist), Benny Carter, Teddy Wilson

resonance: Sidney Bechet, Pharoah Sanders, Coleman Hawkins, McCoy Tyner

strength: Booker Ervin, John Coltrane, George Adams, Maynard Ferguson

alles höchst subjektiv und oft trifft die Kategorie nur Teilaspekte des jeweiligen Musikers. Bestimmt fallen mir in der nächsten Stunde noch alle anderen ein, die ich vergessen habe...

 

Mir fallen da gar nicht so viele ein, die jeweils passen könnten,
aber ich probier's mal

Happiness: Paquito d'Rivera

Elegance: Paul Desmond

Sadness: Chet Baker

Sweetness: Kenny G

Subtlety: Branford Marsalis

Resonance: Jan Garbarek (der frühe)

Strengh: Sonny Rollins

Gruß,
Otfried

 

Super Spiel! Liebe auch schon die Vorschläge von @bluemike und @Otfried. Desmond und Chet Baler scheinen gesetzt, auch für mich, drum erwähn ich sie nicht nochmal. Der Rest spontan aus der Hüfte:

Happiness: Kid Ory, Oscar Peterson

Elegance: Joe Pass, Frank Sinatra

Sadness: Billie Holiday, postbop Miles

Sweetness: Benny Goodman, Natalie Cole

Subtlety: Bill Evans, Freddie Green, vielleicht Zawinul (für den fehlt die Sparte entspannt-tiefsinnig)

Resonance: Sidney Bechet, Cannonball, Joe Williams

Strength: Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughan, Brecker

 

sweetness: Lester Young

strength: Johnny Hodges

sadness: Paul Desmond

subtlety: Art Pepper

resonance: Chu Berry

elegance: Sonny Stitt

happiness: Charlie Parker

Ich habe mich mal nur auf Saxophonisten begrenzt.

 

Auch gut. Da wäre wie gesagt Desmond eher elegant bei mir. Lester eher traurig (vom Sound, nicht vom Inhalt), Stitt mit Stärke…

 

Ich finde die ganzen Attribute haben garnichs mit dem Sound zu tun,sondern mit der Art,wie jemand spielt

 

Happiness: Cannonball Adderley, Nat Adderley, Oscar Peterson
Elegance: Dexter Gordon, Tom Harrel, Keith Jarrett
Sadness: Jan Garbarek, Chet Baker, Bill Evans
Sweetness: Kenny G, Louis Armstrong (der späte), Fats Waller
Subtlety: Wolfgang Engstfeld, Lee Morgan, Carla Bley
Resonance: Coleman Hawkins, Miles Davis, Brad Mehldau
Strength: John Coltrane, Freddie Hubbard, McCoy Tyner

 

Happiness - Leo P, Candy
Dulfer

Elegance - Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan

Sadness - Paul Desmond, Chet Baker

Sweetness - Kenny G, Mindy Abair

Subtlety - Micheal Brecker, John Coltrane

Resonance - Scott Hamilton, Lester Young

Strength - Sonny Rollins, Charlie Parker,
David Sanborn

CzG

Dreas

 

Resonance : Armin Küppers !





Hä? Armin Who?

Spoiler

 

Würdest Du es tatsächlich so generalisieren (und damit Deine Äußerung bestätigen) oder ggf. manche Zuweisungen, die hier bereits vorgenommen worden sind, als eher passend oder definitiv unpassend bezeichnen?
Beispiel:
Ich habe auch versucht, das Klavier für jede Kategorie mit einzubeziehen.
Als Instrument im Sound-Vergleich viel weniger aussagekräftig als ein Saxophon, also tendenziell vielleicht eher ungeeignet im Sinne der "Spielregel".
Anderes Beispiel:
Findest Du es wirklich völlig unpassend, den Sound von Chet Baker in die Kategorie "sadness" einzuordnen?

 

Und manchmal auch nur damit, wie jemand lebt. Das ist die große nichtssagende Schwelgerei in ungenauen Metaphern und Analogien.

 

Du hast völlig recht. Einerseits. Andererseits ist das, was wir als Sound empfinden oft überwiegend durch die Art, wie jemand spielt geprägt. Deswegen habe ich bewusst auch Pianisten gewählt, im vollen Bewusstsein, das es eben eigentlich nicht geht. Es ist quasi ein bewusstes Schwelgen in der Sinnestäuschung namens Wahrnehmung.

Und dann gibt es vielleicht noch ein paar, bei denen ich finde, dass der Klang selbst charakteristisch ist und die Spielweise eigentlich nochmal einen etwas anderen Charakter hat.

Sei nicht so streng! Metaphern sind Teil des Vergnügens und schwelgen ist auch OK.

 

Richtig. Man kann immer alles zerreden.

Und natürlich beinhalten die Einsortierungen als Kriterium nicht nur den Klang, sondern auch Spielweise, Wissen um die Lebenssituation und subjektive Beweggründe.

Das ist doch völlig o. k. und daher gibt es auch ganz unterschiedliche Sortierungen.

Ist auch alles nicht trennscharf.

Beispiel für mich: Paul Desmond

Ich empfinde sein Spiel AUCH als elegant. Aber für mich überwiegt seine feine Melancholie.

Daher bei mir „Sadness“

CzG

Dreas

 

Ok ok you're right - nobody zwings mich, Vergnügen zu haben. Ich hatte Ernst unterstellt.

 

Ich denke genau DAS war nicht gemeint. Aber vielleicht irre ich und @Ton Scott erläutert es.

CzG

Dreas

P. S. Offensichtlich konnten ja einige etwas mit der Fragestellung anfangen, sonst hätten sie nicht konkret geantwortet.

Daher ist aus meiner Sicht Dein Beitrag für diesen Thread überflüssig.

 

Ich stell mal das Transkript des Teils im Video rein.

Before we go into the actual saxophone, I want to have a little discussion, I want to get you involved, about words describing sound.

There's one thing about sound that puts us in a different category than other arts. Literature, painting, sculpture, even dance to a certain degree, obviously filmmaking. What we do goes in the air and is dispersed.

We don't hold the painting, we don't read the book, we don't admire the sculpture. We hear it in our head, it goes into the air, and of course it can be captured by tape obviously, but it is really not concrete.

And this leads to a challenge, and the challenge is how to talk about sound using language.

Now first of all, why talk about sound using language? Obviously if you're teaching, obviously if you're assessing somebody's sound, obviously if you're trying to improve or emulate somebody else, somewhere along the line you have to use language.

This is how we communicate. You can do just so much by saying, boom, this is it, go do that. We can get a certain amount of that in that system of master-apprentice oral tradition, which still exists in India and Africa to some degree. That certainly can be done.

But in a Western culture, we of course use vocabulary, we use words, we try to describe what we're doing, and we try to describe sound.

And describing sound is quite a difficult task, because it is not concrete.

And I have something I want to read to you, and I would like to ask you a few questions about these words, because this gets us a little closer to what we're talking about.

Because in the end, for your own sake, you need to have some concrete idea in your mind, in your inner ear and your mind, about what you'd sound like, what you would like to sound like.

It's like eating. If I'm having eggs and I suddenly need seasoning, I'm going to put pepper on or salt on, I know that. So we have to address the issue of sound in a verbal sense to be able to understand how we can improve. And that's what's important.

But it's problematic, because these words can mean different things to different people. But see if we can find a common ground now.

This is something I found somewhere, I can't tell you where, but it's from the book I say I write. Concerning a concept of sound, I want to refer to an ancient Chinese description of the qualities which should be present in what one would call a satisfying tone.

Happiness, elegance, sadness, sweetness, subtlety, resonance and strength.

Now let's see if we can pin this down a little bit. And maybe some examples from the jazz repertoire, from the jazz literature.

What is a happy sound? What does he... Whoever this great wisdom comes from, could come from Brooklyn, I don't know, but let's take it accepted at this point.

He has a happy sound. There's a certain amount of energy in it.

Energy? A single tone is one thing, a series is another.

Let's divorce this from content. Let's divorce it from what the guy plays. Let's talk about maybe one note, I'm exaggerating, but sound, the overall sound.

What other words? Energy is what Eliot said. What else? What do you think?

Okay, let's do this. Who in jazz, name somebody on saxophone, who you would say depicts a happy sound?

Happiness. Absolutely. No matter where I ask this question, he's first. In other words, the unanimity of decisions is funny.

Around the world will probably, as we go on, be pretty much the same.

And we don't have to be just saxophone. Let's say horns. Okay, so let's hear Cannonball Adderley in our head, which we can if we know the music.

Besides energy, what else? How else would you describe it?

Patrick, what other words could you use?

Voyeur? I'll take that. I like joie de vivre, taken from the French, which of course is a great language of description for me.

Joy of life.

There's a certain, let's say, optimism, positiveness, positive energy, buoyancy, lift, that you get when you hear Cannonball.

Anybody else? On any other instruments? Any instruments?

Satchmo? Absolutely.

Now remember, when we talk about an artist and we describe an artist, we say Van Gogh liked blue. Yeah, he liked yellow. We mean, of course, not only that. But we mean that in the end, when you describe somebody and somebody goes down in history as depicting something, especially artistic, you say, he was that.

We're basically talking about 51% of what he did. I mean, I'm exaggerating. It means that the oeuvre comes out as being identified by a couple of words.

So Lewis, of course, had a lot of sides. Cannonball could play the blues, but there's definitely this joie de vivre, even when he played the blues. It was a happy blues.

I think of Art Tatum, who not just because of his amazing facility, which of course, I don't want to confuse energy and technique with this word we're talking about. But in Art Tatum, there's definitely a lift. He had a buoyancy compared to, let's say, another piano player of that period, compared to Bud Powell, and so forth.

Okay, that's happiness. Good.

Elegance. There's usually a couple of guys that come up with elegance pretty quick. Johnny Hodges, maybe? Absolutely.

Anybody else? A couple of guys can have a couple of things, so we may double up on a few people. Lester Young? Absolutely. I would agree. What do you call Coleman Hawkins elegance? This is not a disc, by the way. We're not judging. We're deciphering and describing.

The reason I'm doing this is that at least the four of you and my friend over there in Montreal, and anybody who sees this, can say, yeah, that means that. That's what we're doing this for. It's an exercise in matching the aesthetic with the vocabulary in order for us to be able to describe sound.

John Lewis, in a certain way. Absolutely. I agree. I never heard that one, but I'll go with that. How about Desmond? Elegance. Forget about it.

How about Stan Getz at times? At times. Etc. Interesting. How about, in a certain way, Clifford Brown? Good. So polished, so elegant. Elegant. It's a word. Okay.

That's two. Sadness. Okay. Here we go. Now, remember, we're going to have sadness to distinguish from... Well, sadness is the only one in this case. Sadness.

Any instrument. What do we mean by sadness? First of all, what would something in its tone be that would say... You'd say, there's a certain sadness. I'll use the word melancholy in that sound.

Joe Henderson. Joe Henderson? Maybe. Maybe we're not. How about Chet Baker? Yeah. How about Bill Evans, even if he's playing fast? Piano. Piano playing. What would we say sadness means? Does it mean...

We're not sitting here crying. It's not dramatic. It's a certain... What is it? A feeling. A little bit of a narrower range in energy, a little more... Very good. I would accept that. Narrower range of expression. And choosing to be on a certain part of the scale, narrowly, of downplaying maybe. Maybe not lack of energy, but a certain...

Constraint. Constraint. Good word. Yeah. Excellent word. I like that. Okay. All right. Continue on.

Sweetness. Thank you. Okay. Can I get it? You okay? Yes. Sweetness. Any part of it? Absolutely. Definite again? Yes. Yep. Definitely. Even stand yet again in some cases, although it can also be completely the opposite. It can be very robust. Who else? Sweetness in a sound.

I'm going to throw a name at you. You guys may not know so well. An Indian player. Audrey Gopinath. I don't know. I don't know. South Indian Carnatic saxophone. Oh, Carnatic. Is that the guy who's the amazing saxophone player? Did he play with Rudrish? Yes. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I can hear that because I heard that. Yeah. Yeah. So certain sweetness in the sound. That's something that is depicted by a certain constraint, but a certain way of trying to depict the sound. Maybe light. Could light, could sweetness be light? Lightness and airiness. Have a good time with me. Have a certain lifting, but not heavy lifting. Something to think about.

Subtlety. This is a tough one. Subtlety in sound. Steve Lacey. Steve Lacey. Very good. Excellent. Somebody else. Some of the same names come up. Leslie Young, of course. Miles. And certain period Miles. In Miles' case he's traversed several vast areas because of the length of his career and the amount of change he went through. But certainly in the ballet period, in the fifties on those records. Talk about subtle. I mean he played so little. Bill Evans, another one. I'm just saying it was so dense in certain ways. In a certain way, yes. So there's lightness, there's subtlety, there's sweetness. All kind of go into that kind of basket. Different from the happiness basket. Okay, good. I'm trying to make some divisions.

Resonance. Now we're going to have resonance and strength. So let's distinguish between resonance and strength. What do we mean by resonant sounds? This is good because we're going to get there with us. It's got a bigness. Yeah, a depth. May I say darkness? That's a word we have to think about because a lot of times we say dark and bright when we talk about sound. A certain kind of heaviness. Weight. The resonance is weight. Deep. Depth. You think of resonance. When you think resonance you hear deep. Deep sound. Baritone voice. Baritone saxophone resonance. Although it doesn't have to be. So maybe below middle C and down is resonant. I don't know. You know what I'm saying? Something about deep, deep sound. But you can have a resonant alto sound. Right? Or a resonant soprano sound. So it's not restricted to the range of the instrument. It's about the tone the guy gets. I mean wing is a very resonant sound in soprano. I mean it rings. Especially in a high register. When he hits those high notes they're not like they're a pinpoint. They're like a white sound. So that's on the high D. So that's not about range obviously. Because that's pretty hard to do. So resonance. And then how would we think about strength? Does strength come back to... Well we said happiness. Is strength...

What is strength? Coltrane? That's strength. Sonny Rollins? That's strength. Dexter? That's strength. Now what about these words? Added to this description we just discussed are words that musicians use. Light. Put the word sound after all of this. Light. Airy. Cutting. Brassy. Bright. Full sound. Fuzzy sound. Deep. Dark. Nasal. You've heard that one. Piercing. Definitely heard that one. Clear sound. I don't know. Like water. Smooth. Shimmering. Silky. Biting sound. Watery sound. Tinny. Cool. Harsh. Dry. Sour sound. I don't know what that means. Screeching. Lush sound. Luxurious. Velvety. Bell-like.

These words all allude to the point that within a beautiful and artistic tone, emotions and feelings are apparent.

When a saxophonist, or anybody actually, performs, he, she is telling a story, painting a picture, relating their feelings as the music unfolds.

What the listener first perceives is his emotional response to the sound coming from the musician. That is the first thing anybody hears. I don't care if you're the master musician in the room, or you're a taxi driver that doesn't listen to music. The first thing you'll respond to is sound. You're going to go, I got it. And sound means these words. And going further, it may even mean emotional.

Besides shimmering, it may mean melancholy. It may mean sentimental. It may be happy. It may be sad. It becomes even emotional. You start to read into a guy, when you hear his sound, you start saying, I got a feeling that that's the way the guy felt today. You have no idea. You're a psychologist, and you have no idea what's going on. You cannot read the line. But just from the way the sound is, and especially if you're an experienced listener, you go, I've heard this guy on other occasions, but tonight he sounds a little whatever. So you're getting this vibe.

So therefore, the bottom line of this discussion is to bring up the subject, or is to underscore that sound is everything in the end. And what you play here, and what you technically do, is absolutely secondary. Everything is sound, and that's the first thing that the experienced or the novice hears. And by the way, while we're on that subject, the second thing is rhythm. Because rhythm is beautiful. Because we feel the rhythm. And whether it's a classical, pop, or jazz, just to use those three categories, the next thing you relate to is the feeling that the player is translating rhythmically to you. That's, of course, not a discussion for today. That's more pertinent to jazz. But that's, by the way, obviously right on the sound.

So sound is all, and that's why we have to talk about sound production.