Tammerman175

I've been listening to quite a bit of Arturo Sandoval lately, quite an amazing trumpet player, and when I hear him play a song, his tone strikes me as more of a laid-back or a rougher tone.
I like the way his tone sounds, but is this good for jazz? Do people prefer this kind of tone, or do more people like the pure and clean sound that orchestral players often have?

Solar Bell

Well, he is a kazillionaire from playing trumpet, people all over the world know him and love his playing.

What is a pure and clean sound the orchestral players have?

Many people would say the Artural has a pure and clean sound.

Is it good for jazz? He is making a lot of money with that sound.

If it's not good for jazz, it's good for him!


-cw-

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note360

jazz tone depends on a few variables.

1. Style - A Nawlins (New Orleans) style jazz tone is gonna be different than a latin jazz song.

2. The band your playing with. If your with a big band you will have to do more blending than if you are with a jazz combo.

3. Yourself......... Realize that in jazz your tone is the best. Your voice not some one elses.

Your job is to analyze the situation and change your playing style appropriately. However, still maintaining a unique sound. I get very good comments for this too. I analyze the style and can change to the style. Though I am not the best improviser, I atleast can analyze and address the issue of style. I generally have a much quieter sound than my fellows and mess around with equipment (mutes and sometimes a flugel) during solos.

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Tammerman175

So I should go for whatever tone I want?


Btw, solar bell, the clean orchestral sound I was referring to was Sergai Nekariakov's (sorry, hard to spell). I generally brand his tone as a pure orchestral sound.

vetchguy

I really enjoyed Note360's reply, in particular the analogy with the human voice. It stimulates a lot of thought, at least for me.

My observations on my own playing really shine when I apply the voice analogy.

Back when I had teachers, I was daunted by the individuality of their tone (and style, which I think is different but is totally wrapped up in the tone, much as the cadence of someone's voice is difficult to distinguish from its tone quality). I was encouraged to keep imitating until I found my own voice, but that's been a long quest.

Trumpet folk who've studied in schools who roll through my neck of the woods have something of that "daunting" tone--like listening to someone who has taken elocution classes speak. It wasn't in my cards to study jazz in any formal setting, so I set about trying to find my voice, figuring it would come in the way things like voices and handwriting do.

When I started playing some real gigs and doing some traveling playing with a jazz-influenced act, it was one of my bandmates who woke me up. She told me she liked my playing, but thought I could improve my tone--that it sounded like lazy speech, a speech that has decent sentence structure but isn't used to public speaking, unclear, fumbling in places. So I started paying more attention.

The choices! Billy Holiday could sing about an octave's worth of notes--but how she sang them! Then again, Ella had that clean, pure tone and a virtuosity to power it . . .

I found that I was sensitive to the style I was playing at the time. I'm one of few trumpet players in a smallish town in a smallish region, so I get calls to play all sorts of genres, and so I spent some years trying to find the right sound (which includes tone and style) for each genre. But that wasn't enough--under there was the "right" voice--mine--hiding beneath all those different "accents," somehow linking them together.

If you really want to hear what your own voice sounds like, listen to a recording of yourself, and you'll be surprised at the difference between your voice in your head and that sound coming out of the speakers. A trumpet sound (mine, anyway) is no different. The insight that came from doing recording gigs really helped me find the way I play.

And I find, on top of all that, that I'm as sensitive to the horn I play as I am to hearing my voice in the bathroom versus the outdoors. The way I hear my voice out of a different horn, with its different response and subtleties of character that are hard for me to define, helps me refine and refine my own sound. I'm soon to be getting a new horn, one which I hope will help me explore this further.

That's just one person's two cents; and I suppose you could parse the whole thing by just saying "it takes time" or "play with the sound you want to"; but for me anyway, finding that tone, and everything that comes with it, runs parallel to my horn career, and deepens along with my ongoing playing experience. Getting to know and refine your own sound is something like forming a friendship over time is another analogy, I guess.

BergeronWannabe

I don't know...but I think that a "good" tone is one that pleases
you. Jazz vs. orchestral? Not sure it exists except for the extreme
high note players like Chase or Maynard. But Clifford Brown could
play with any symphony IMO.

TrentAustin

I think a great tone is derived from solid work on fundamentals:

Miles (attended Julliard)
Wynton (same)
Terence (Rutgers)
Arturo (you can tell he's spend a ton of time on fundamentals).

Always strive for a pure tone when practicing. I try to play and eliminate the "dirt" from my sound during technical drills.

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trumpetnick

I don't want to be offensive in any way, but Sergei is hardly an example of orchestral sound. He is quite remarquable technically, his articulations are very clean, but his sound is way too bright and he uses way too much of vibrato to blend well in orchestra setting. Clean classical sound - maybe. Orchestral - no way. If you want to hear real orchestral sound Bud Herseth, Phil Smith, Thomas Stevens, Rod Franks, Maurice Murphy, Manny Laureano, Gabor Tarkovi would be much more appropriate. The list actually can be quite much bigger, but these were the first top class orchestral trumpet players, who popped up in my mind.

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jazz_trpt

I like jazz players to have some stink in their sound.

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trumpetnick

I like jazz players with smooth silky tone as well.

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Spada Bach B flat 72, leadpipe 2L/DWMM1.5C
Spada Bach C 256, leadpipe 2LQ/DWMM1.5C
1956 Olds Ambassador Cornet
Spada Custom Piccolo

If you don't know where you are going, you 'll end up someplace else