Adolphe Sax, Inventor of the Saxophone | Hacker News Reader

Adolphe Sax, Inventor of the Saxophone

dinant.be

75 pointsbobf39 comments

Also, note that technically a Saxophone is a woodwind, not brass. I played the saxophone for half my life and it is still my favorite instrument sound wise, even though I can no longer play it due to a lung issue. Also, it is quite close to the human voice which makes it very nice to interact with singing voices. Fantastic invention, and modern music really would not be the same without it. Try the solos in Baker Street and Year of the Cat, then try the same songs with that same solo on a different instrument and see for yourself.

What I love about this article is that it shows how much work used to go into 'designing a sound', something that we do today with synthesizers by the tweak of some buttons. That used to require a ton of craftsmanship and knowledge as well as the collaboration with others such as composers.

A question please, "and it is still my favorite instrument sound wise". Can the sax in general be said to have one sound? I knew 2 sax players at school, their instruments were much the same in size and appearance, excepting a little ornamentation on one. One was very smooth, it was a great sound. The other was much harsher, almost braying[0]. They seemed to be played with much the same high level of skill, so why the difference? They both sounded like saxes but...

[0] edit; certainly in tune but quite harsh, rough as a terrier's coat

It's all about technique and the style you want to develop. Two singers can have very different voices too.

That's a good point, you can actually change the way a sax sounds quite strongly, there are even people who modify their reeds. The difference between the way the same instrument family sounds on say Pink Floyd's "Dark side of the moon" (Dick Parry) sounds versus say Brandford Marsalis, Michael Brecker, Fela Kuti, Grover Washington or (god forbid) Kenny G is huge.

Of course 'saxophone' is a whole range of instruments going from Low-E giants to saxes so small you have to have pretty small fingers to not hit two valves at the same time.

The mouthpiece and the reed thickness are a big factor in this as is air pressure, 'tonguing' the reed and how you shape your mouth cavity. Endless variation.

But the basic harmonics are baked into the instrument, those would be very hard to change though I'm sure it is possible to manipulate which ones get amplified by the above changes to the environment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZjZBe6o78M

Is a nice example, it would be a pretty boring song without that raging saxophone.

> a whole range of instruments going from

I know but I simply didn't have the vocabulary to distinguish them by name or type, so emphasised their common size and appearance. Thanks for the comprhensive answer, and never even heard of Morphine, ta for that!

You're welcome. For some other really nice saxophone: Anything by Steps Ahead, Grover Washington's record 'mister magic'. If you want more drop me a line by email, I'll do some digging in my collection.

To give an idea of the range of saxophones:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sopranino_saxophone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XqwC1NmtG4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subcontrabass_saxophone

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgt2m9Q7Kz0

The sax solo that starts around 5:30 is my favorite ever, and I say that as a longtime Morphine fan. Never got into jazz much though...

https://music.apple.com/us/album/city-on-down-live/488251077...

Wow.

If I close my eyes while listening to the sopranino I would swear I was hearing a flute.

the same could be said for most instruments. Changing the reed, embouchure shape, breath quality all change the sound. Same with a guitar, if you change the strings, playing style, pick material, a lot of different sounds can come out of one instrument.

Fun fact: a cone open on one end (saxophone) supports all harmonics, as does a cylinder open on both ends (flute).

A cylinder open on one end (clarinet) only supports odd harmonics, which is why a clarinet sounds "rounded" and overblows into a twelfth, rather than an octave (as on former two).

Also makes it stupid difficult to do clean sounding smooth octave jumps on a clarinet.

On one hand, it seems harder to learn, on the other: clarinet is the king of large jumps. The shit the clarinet soloists that come to my orchestra squeak out would be impossible to do that cleanly on my instrument (bassoon), even though large jumps on bassoon is considered easy.

And it isn't just a Martin Fröst thing. I played recently with Christoffer Sundqvist, Emil jonasson and Harri Mäki (as well as with Fröst on several occasions) and they all did crazy big-jump-gymnastics that put every other instrument to shame.

My theory is that the sparse overtones makes it _easier_ once you have the kind of control these people have.

Yes, I think you are 100% right. On the sax large jumps are super hard because there are so many modes of resonance to choose from and they all 'work' to some extent. If the instrument already has a strong preference for one such mode you can hit it flawlessly no matter where you come from. > 1 octave jumps on the sax were always hard for me no matter how much I practiced especially when going up I kept getting the weirdest (and sometimes pleasant but hard to reproduce) sound effects!

Talking about sound effects and saxophone: https://youtu.be/KrFT5BcATFo

Wild! I could never do that on purpose. But by accident, any time ;)

Oh yea, once you learn how to do it, it sounds real fuckin' good

It just takes literal years to learn how to do something on a clarinet that is just pushing a button on most other instruments

Interesting observation is that sax having a conical bore and using a reed to induce the sound resembles an oboe. Indeed, the fingering is nearly the same. Yet, the brass resonates in a much brighter and louder way. The reed and the mouthpiece are of clarinet design, except of conical kind. A true hybrid, ingenious synthesis.

Oboe's sound is pliable, thanks to the double reed, player's embouchure, and the richer spectrum of the conical bore. On the other hand, clarinet's sound is more robust, but somewhat limited by the straight cylindrical bore. Marrying these two resulted in a robust yet richer sound. Let alone using brass for the body no need to worry so much about cracks and temperature swings. Perfect for outdoor performances!

Wish I've known these similarities back in the day ..., would've saved us lots of effort trying to blend in oboe sound into a 'cool' band - sax was all it needed! Oh, well, experimentation was fun still ...

Oboe is quite a neat instrument though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WJhax7Jmxs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE2O_yfgtBU

Soprano sax is not that easy to tell from an oboe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b-zbqcRick

There are differences of course, but I'd bet the majority of people couldn't tell most of the time.

Beautiful! I can easily tell the difference but that's cheating (after playing the sax of 17 years or so), the sax sounds a bit sharper and the oboe 'rounder' if that makes any sense, which makes it easy to pick out what is played by which instrument. Originally this piece is for two oboes, but this is a really nice variation and lovely to see a saxophone used for more traditional music, I wished more people would do that (but saxes are typically frowned upon for performing classical works in a 'serious' setting).

I keep describing the soprano sax as a "loud bluesey oboe". It's my second favourite sax to play.

Which is also why saxophones can be made to sound like an organ (one open end)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmFlxwvKLz4&gl=BE

That's very beautiful, wow, thank you for posting this.

For a lark I once played organ pipes of an organ that was being decommissioned. It is absolutely incredible how much air that requires, a 8' pipe I could just about get to resonate, and once they resonate it becomes a lot easier because you have some backpressure but that initial rush to get the reed to move at all is quite literally breathtaking.

To answer the 'dead' comment below: yes, I actually did. Nicely cleaned it and I'm aware what organ metal is made of (it is not the safest substance in the world). Would recommend.

Or rather an organ has pipes of all possible kinds and can sound like pretty much anything.

Think of it as a proto-synthesizer.

I played clarinet, piano, and guitar growing up, but before reading this I had no idea about the story of the relatively modern (i.e. post industrial revolution) invention of the saxophone. I never played jazz, but certainly appreciate it and this quote from the article really struck a chord with me, "Without jazz, what would music be? But without the sax, what would jazz be?"

I find it fascinating that many of these instruments did not exist in their modern forms until around the same period. Playing clarinet in school, I had never really considered that our instruments weren't necessarily the same as the ones a piece had been composed for.

* The development of airtight pads for the clarinet in 1812 allowed manufacturers to add more keys, culminating in the modern Boehm system in 1839. The earlier clarinets looked like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3NCGSvKHCQ

* Between around 1800-1850, the piano gained the cast iron plate, stronger steel wires, and the double escapement action. 88 keys weren't common until the latter part of the century. Earlier pianos (fortepianos) looked like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ef95BZfYcw

* Antonio de Torres is credited with developing the modern classical guitar starting in the 1850's. Steel string guitars were developed later, and were made commercially by Gibson and Martin starting in the 1920's.

I also played the clarinet in school, took piano lessons at home, and am currently learning guitar. Great choices!

> jazz was 'pummelled' by fanatics of rhythm and noise, which even discredited the sax

Sadly, I find this to be the case. I'm in the odd position of having grown up playing sax, and yet unable to enjoy it in the context of jazz.

If anyone is curious about some modern fusion of EDM and the saxophone, check out Big Gigantic (Dominic Lalli, tenor sax) and GRiZ (mostly alto sax). Seeing either of these guys live is more fun than I can describe. Also, Lalli put out a jazz album recently with a few other musicians, "A Blind Man's Blue".

I played alto and tenor sax in high school/college. What a great instrument. It still gives me chills when I hear a great sax tune.

Dinant is beautiful city, famous for Sax, but well worth the visit. Adolphe's house is a small museum, well organized.

If you do visit also get a Couque de Dinant, which I understand is the worlds hardest biscuit.

To be eaten soaked in coffee or tea.

I always assumed the Sousaphone getting that name was almost a self-indulgent joke, but it's in better company than I realized.

I grew up learning the alto sax (also occasionally subbed for tenor or even bari in my small school) in the late 80s and 90s. It was impossible to not have been influenced by Kenny G, somewhat unfortunately, as a tangible path to commercial success. Still SMH... I mean, talented guy, but complete Muzak, really.

I still have my 1987 Yamaha alto with Vandoren mouthpiece and pull it out every couple years. Remarkable piece of technology, really.

Pat Metheney doesn't agree with you about Kenny G's talent http://www.jazzoasis.com/methenyonkennyg.htm

That's still one of the best takedowns ever. As a huge Pat Metheny fan and a Kenny G hater I couldn't have agreed more with him.

Wow, that was great. Can’t disagree. I would say that he could be talented while at the same time being crass, pandering, and derivative.

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