The Versatility of the Saxaphone

Introduction

I have often read that the saxophone is a “versatile” instrument. Maybe this is because its inventor; Adolph Sax, intended the role of the saxophone to be somewhere in between a loud woodwind instrument and a versatile brass instrument. Indeed even the professor of saxophone at the Paris conservatoire, Claude Delangle, states “What instrument could be better suited than the saxophone, with its variety of forms and cultures, to adapt itself to the expressive devises of the shakuhachi?”1 Delangle is most likely referring to the jazz and dance band cultures that the saxophone has adapted to, not to mention its dominance in gospel, pop, funk and American church music. This seems to suggest that Sax's instrument is somewhat chameleonic, adapting just as easily to changing musical styles as it does to imitating the Japanese shakuhachi2 or the Greek Duduk3. Indeed the saxophone has become an icon of popular culture, making appearances in television shows and cartoons, and being used in experiments of industrial production (Ornette Coleman used a Grafton saxophone which was almost entirely made of white acrylic).

One of the cultures surrounding the saxophone is its reputation as a novelty or music-hall instrument, forged in 1920's America when novelty acts used the instruments' affore-mentioned versatility for comedic purposes. This association created a backlash of saxophonists who became very protective of the saxophone as a “legitimate” instrument. In 1944 the Paris conservatoire reinstated4 the saxophone department with Marcel Mule at the helm. Mule then went on to create a saxophone pedagogy based largely on transcriptions of Haydn, Bach and famous etudes of the time such as Ferling's Oboe studies. This pedagogy is sti...

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...e position which keeps the f#3 dominant but eliminates any blending effect, which due to my conviction that this note underpins the entire composition, has become my individual interpretation of this multiphonic.

In preparing this movement a performer can display an awareness of the context of the piece whilst still retaining the freedom to manipulate the acoustical and temporal aspect of the passage. This thesis will take acoustical and physical manipulations as a main theme in allowing the performer to control extended techniques and thus retain interpretative control over the work based upon an analytical and contextual understanding. This author does not intend to present a foolproof methodology for performers to execute an artistically intelligent interpretation, but instead to present my own and other saxophonists' opinions and approaches to the same problem.