Just been reading about a new sooper-dooper saxophone ligature which retails at $425 (they also do a budget version which is a snip at $225). My jaw dropped when I realised that the price didn't include the saxophone, a mouthpiece and a reed but was just for the bit that clips the reed to the mouthpiece!
Reminds me of when I bought an upmarket lig - albeit not in the above price range.
I tried it out and, would you believe it? I sounded like Earl Bostic! Only problem was I was trying to sound like Johnny Hodges!
Did Bird ever worry about ligatures? I doubt it - at least not from a sax mouthpiece point of view.
Thoughts on ligs, reeds, mouthpieces etc. please - Lance
3 comments :
A surprise comment from a guitar player! For many years I got Crescendo Magazine. George Evans' saxophonist brother Leslie wrote an amazingly detailed article every issue on such things. There were pages of info which I found strangely compelling and read them avidly.
I use o-rings. 3 of them on the mouthpiece holds the reed well enough in place, and it'll cost you next to nothing. Get lots of resonance due to very little contact with the reed
Harry Keeble's comment is interesting - my first sax ligature was made of elastic bands. Not very effective, especially on a very close lay mouthpiece, so my father suggested a jubilee clip, which worked a treat, but tended to knacker the reeds. I use an old Rovner now on tenor, but I'm going to find some of those O-rings! More generally, after 55 years of playing, I reckon that ligatures and even mouthpieces have a lot less influence on your sound than your conception of what you want to sound like. To some extent your horn can have quite an influence on this too. For instance, using the exact same combination of reed, lig. and mouthpiece on my (no.1) Pierret tenor, which I've played for 26 years, my Conn "Chu", my Conn 10M, and my Martin Handcraft, I make completely different sounds, which are nonetheless instantly recognisable as me!
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