The sax is more than just another instrument. It's so much more than a
vehicle for producing sound. It presents the highest level of complexity I
have ever been presented with. Nuclear physics and quantum mechanics are
noble pursuits and I must say that the two topics bested me in University,
but the challenge they represent never consumed my entire soul the way that
the never-ending study of this magnificent invention has.
It's so simple;
a brass tube with a bunch of keys. All you have to do is blow into the end
and out comes this wonderful sound. That's what you think. But then comes the
day you pick it up and the first note that comes out squeals and screaches,
removes paint from the walls and sends a small dog into fits of instanity.
Immediately you start to wonder how the great saxophonists like John Coltrane
and Michael Brecker take this hideously sounding hunk of metal and have it
make music. I'm not talking about that pop "music" like Britney Spears
or many of her little clones which is geared not towards the notes or the
chord structure, or towards any complexity or imaginative thought but
towards the video, the tits and ass designed to make men get hard and
women get envious so they'll buy more exercise equipment. No, you wonder
how these people can make music that climbs inside your head, your heart and
your soul and paints the most incredible picture you've ever imagined.
If
you're desperate enough and if it's grabbed hold of you hard enough, you
study. You pick up that horn day after day after day, and you
start to learn. Eventually you realize how the sax becomes an extension of
yourself. You know that there will come a day when all you have to do is
think your way through the horn and it will do anything you want it to. You
learn that your breathing controls that sound. How your diaphragm exerts
pressure is essential, how your larynx warps the airstream is vital, how
the chamber in your mouth can manipulate the rate of reed vibration to get
a darker or lighter tone, hit those altissimo notes or just make
something sound weird. You learn what your lips do to make the pitch
change, the reed to vibrate softer or harder. You start to realize that all
of these things require decades to master and you haven't even started moving
your fingers yet!
You practice your overtones, your scales, patterns,
jumps, glides, pitch bends, intonation, experiment with warmth and
growls -- your lips bleed but you don't notice until you look at the
mouthpiece and realize that you've given more of yourself to the beast than
you intended. But you didn't really give it -- the damned thing took
it from you. It's become your obsession. You'll never be good enough!
Once in a very rare moment you'll come across a day that works;
everything happens for you. The licks come out, the ideas flow, the axe
responds so beautifully that you can scarcely believe it hasn't been posessed
by some sort of demon. The next day, the demon's gone. You're back to your
old self, and the horn just doesn't shine the way it did the day before. Your
old self is now a sieve, a shell. You've tasted greatness and you now find
yourself lacking.
Much like the study of jazz the saxophone
is the greatest thing in your life and, at the same time the most difficult and
depressing piece of your existence. Nothing else, not even a woman takes
me to the extremes of emotion like this beautiful and terrible instrument
does.