| Re: What words would you use?
There can be confusion in the use of many words to describe the tone quality / timbre of an instrument.
When I hear that a trumpet is "dark", that might mean that the trumpet sounds "dead", lacking higher harmonics, or that the trumpet sounds "rich" in harmonics, just the opposite of "dead".
Bill Chase was famous for a "shrill" tone, but it was not a "thin" tone like Cat Anderson and some others allegedly had.
Maynard Ferguson in concert sounded much better than he did on most records, and his tone with the 1970's Holton mouthpiece was extremely difficult to describe. His tone could be thin and wide open and bright and mellow and powerful and beautiful all at the same time. So how would one decribe it in just one word?
I like it when someone says that a certain trumpet or a certain mouthpiece encourages a "Bill Chase sound" or a "Miles Davis sound" or a "Doc Severinsen sound" because it instantly conveys the type of sound without attempts at putting the analytical details into words.
And I like it when someone says that a trumpet gives a more / less cornet or more / less flugelhorn sound because we instantly know what they mean.
And I like it when people use analogies to convey types of sound, such as saying that Cat Anderson's upper register is a compact rifle bullet while Maynard Ferguson's upper register is a more diffuse shotgun shell. |