Advice please on playing with non stringed instruments

Billy Murdoch · From: Glasgow, Scotland, U.K.

Hi all,

I tune My steel using the "Newman"settings 442 on the stroboflip and have not had any problems.
Recently We have had a sax player sitting in for a few(too many)numbers.Each time the sax is (over)playing My tone is awful and I imagine that I am out of tune.
Any ideas?
I will be doing a backing job in a few months with a visiting artiste from the U.S. who plays keyboard and accordion.Would I be advised to alter My tuning.
Many thanks
Billy

Steve Alcott · From: New York, New York, USA

If you've been in tune before the sax player comes up, you're probably not the one who needs to check his intonation. Sax players, particularly alto and soprano are notoriously sharp in the wrong hands.

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

While I do agree with Steve, it's your job to try to blend with whatever instrument that's playing at the time (sometimes called "finding the tonal center"), especially when you're unsure exactly where the problem is. So, that leaves you with only three choices: continue to sound "out", lay back when the other instrument is playing, or try to listen to that player and blend with them. Using the last option demands that you ignore the frets and use your ears. Fortunately, players who play "out" do so fairly consistently, so it's only a matter of finding whether they're sharp or flat, and then mimicing their error.

Experience has taught me that the mindset that "If I just play on key, they'll eventually 'find' me" is futile. You cannot correct in one night what they've been doing wrong for many years.

As Bill Clinton was wont to say, "I feel your pain".

David Doggett · Posted 10 Nov 2008 3:25 pm

What Donny said. I play sax. It's very much like a steel guitar. The keypads get you in the vicinity, but you have to play the note in tune with your lips and ears. Sliding the mouthpiece back and forth raises or lowers the reference pitch for the whole instrument. A good player will adjust that to the reference pitch the band is using. Most saxes tend to play flat at the upper end and sharp at the lower end. You have to compensate for that with your lips. Experienced sax players do that automatically.

All that being said, the pitch is so easily varied on sax that playing around with the pitch has become characteristic of sax playing in pop genres. They will actually go for dissonance intentionally - they like the tension. If you ever hear the pure pitch of a good classical sax player, you will suddenly realize how out of tune sax is commonly played in pop genres.

But even though saxers will play around a lot with the pitch, good ones will listen and hit the pure JI intervals when harmonizing. Not so good ones wont - not much you can do about that.

One problem I have noticed in playing steel with saxes is that steel and sax tend to play in the same registers. It's not good to be playing the same notes in the same register. If the sax goes high, steel should go low, and vice versa. Also, three string harmony with pure chords doesn't work so good. Single string, or maybe two strings works better. But thick jazz chords can work for comping like a piano or guitar. When comping, long sustains don't work so great, because both steel (with a volume pedal) and horns sustain in a very similar way, and it's not very complimentary.

For keyboards and accordions, Newman tuning at 442 reference works pretty good. With accordion (or organ, or synth), you've got the same problems as with horns. Don't play in the same register, don't use three string grips (except for comping with thick jazz chords), and don't try to sustain the same way.

Jody Sanders · From: Magnolia,Texas, R.I.P.

What David said. A good sax player will compensate to be in tune. I worked with two of the best( Vernon Drowzd-spelling, and James Henry Chitwood) and they both hung in tune with the rest of the band. Jody.

Steve Alcott · From: New York, New York, USA

David's absolutely right. The good ones will hear and adjust. I was thinking in particularly of a Jackie McLean disciple I knew who when the band tuned, got in tune with everyone, then pushed in to get a good 1/8 tone sharp; it was part of his concept and sound.

Herb Steiner · From: Briarcliff TX 78669, pop. 2,064

I think the out-of-tune flute solo on "California Dreaming" added to the hipness of the tune and contributed to its becoming a hit.
_________________
My rig: Infinity and Telonics.

Son, we live in a world with walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with steel guitars. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg?

Ken Pippus · From: Langford, BC, Canada

Know how to tell if the sax player is playing out of tune?

The reed moves.

KP

Marc Jenkins · From: Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

I've found that a mean-tone tuning helps greatly; I play in a band with a sustainy, mid-rangey Wurlitzer electric piano and/or accordion. More info here:

http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=135112&highlight=book+temperament

Herb Steiner · From: Briarcliff TX 78669, pop. 2,064

Amen, brother Jody Sanders. As you know I worked with Vernon Drozd for about 5 years on the Bush band, and he'd play excellent harmonies with the fiddle section.
_________________
My rig: Infinity and Telonics.

Son, we live in a world with walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with steel guitars. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg?

John Steele · From: Renfrew, Ontario, Canada

After many years of playing with saxophonists - some good, some bad - I'd offer this piece of advice before jumping to a conclusion about where the problem lies.
Watch the saxophonist tune up. Some don't, even.
The thing about horns is, they're always in tune with themselves. Horn players practicing at home by themselves pull out their horn and start blowing. The issue of tuning is not an all-consuming thing the way it is with stringed instruments, whose players go through a tuning ritual every time they pick them up.
The other thing about saxophones is an issue that drives me wild... Unlike clarinets, as David said, your embouchure is capable of changing the pitch substantially without really "tuning" the horn.

On way-too-many occasions, a saxophonist will say "give me an A", some other player will sound that A, they blow in their horn, and it's out... either flat or sharp. Watch them closely (!) Do they tune their horn ? Some do, but an amazing number of them simply bend the note with their embouchure until it's approximately right, then go on to play the rest of the evening horribly out of tune.
The problem is so pervasive that, now when a sax player says to me (the piano player) "Give me an A", I fold my arms, shake my head and say "No, YOU give ME and A !"
If they're not blowing down the centre of their horn, or using their embouchure to tweak one note without correcting their tuning, you're doomed.
- John

Billy Murdoch · From: Glasgow, Scotland, U.K.

Hi again,
I played the same gig last night and the sax player did not visit.
Had a great gig with Bass,Guitar and Steel.
No tuning issues whatsoever and My tone was pretty good.
In question to one of the earlier replies,I was advised to compensate for the sax being out of pitch,How would the Bassist and Guitarist compensate,surely the problem lies with the sax?
Best regards
Billy

Tracy Sheehan · From: Fort Worth, Texas, USA

Here is my opinion and we all have one.LOL.As i grew up playing piano,violin,and later steel it did not take me 50 years to learn what i knew right from the start.
No disrespect meant to any one but a player has an ear for music or they don't.Even one who reads still has to have an ear for music.
I have noticed every since the electronic tuners came out too many think because they have one to tune to they will play on key.Not true.All the older musicians tuned to each other not a tuner.For example a bass sounds more in tune tuned a little flat to the rest of the band.A piano can not be in tune in every key.When i played fiddle after the tuners came out i tuned quickly to it,then touched it up by ear.
For steel i will repeat what i have posed in the past.This is from the artice by the Korg tuner company.(Quote).An electronic tuner is used to quickly retune to a tuning you decided on your own was an in tune sound.Truer words were never spoken.
In my personal experience i never heard bands play so out of tune before electronic tuners came out.
Does pitch correctors ring a bell?
IN the old days if there was a piano in the band every one tuned to that.An electronic tuner doesn't know if it is day light or dark out side.
The bottom line is,train your ear.
If you do not have an ear to play steel,fiddle or what ever,take up what is now caled singing. Mad

Wish i could catch my typos before i post.lol

Billy Murdoch · From: Glasgow, Scotland, U.K.

Tracy,
Thanks for Your reply,
It was not My intention to create ANOTHER tuning debate,My confusion was that I (we) appeared to be in tune before the sax player sat in with us, I guess the sax player must learn to tune his instrument.
Ear training,I will be first to admit that My ears are awful,the Peterson tuner has been a Godsend for Me,I was probably waaay out before I bought it.I have tried over the years to improve My pitch hearing,can You actually teach Your ears to hear better,I have had a lifetime in industry and ships engine rooms with little ear protection.My singing voice is something like Lee Marvin's when He sang "Wandering Star" Very Happy

but I do'nt get paid for it.
We play in a local pub and the the highlight of the evening is the public getting up to do a spot,most of them do not have an idea of their key so it is left to the band to find it,If it was left to Me they would still be singing by the time we got back next week.I have struggled with this for a very long time.
I do'nt have a problem playing steel(tuned)in a rehearsed(known) song,sometimes if the band try a song I do not know I have difficulty hearing the changes to the "lesser"used chords like m7b5 and dim,
I have oftimes envied people who have perfect pitch but never really wanted to have perfect pich myself after "hearing" that anyone with this gift has a real hard time listening to live music because of the dissonance no matter how little it is.
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Best regards
Billy

Tracy Sheehan · From: Fort Worth, Texas, USA

Hi Billy.I think you answered your own question.If the sax is out of tune you will also sound out of tune.If his volume is higher than yours and he plays sharp for instance you will sound like you are playing flat.
His problem,not yours but of course you will be blamed as playing flat.
As i said before,most club pickers do not tune together any more.
I have worked many places that furnished the piano and some were so out of tune when a song was in the key of A for instance the piano player would have to play in B.And i am not making this up.Been there done that.
Again.The bottom line,if he can't tune his sax have him put it away and become a singer then he can use a pitch corrector.LOL.Tracy
BTW.One does not have to have perfect pitch.It can be and is a curse.One has to learn to live with it.

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