When I was a younger player, a lot of my tone was exclusively brilliance. I liked a lot of the sound of Drum Corps, and I associated brightness with them, so I was like "welp, gotta go entirely for brightness and be that part of the band". I *could* play with warmth and core, but I often chose not to. I recall once I was at thing with a couple other high schools, and I was blasting on one of the low notes extremely bright stuff, and the guy in front of me looked at me and wagged his finger, and in defiance I blasted even harder. These days, I try to take a more balanced approach, but I lean somewhere between warmth and core with brilliance on the loud parts. I take a lot of that from Charles Vernon, someone whose sound I love. I met a player a couple years ago who had a very bright tone. The first note I heard him play was a pedal Bb at like FFF and I was like "well that will certainly fit well in jazz".
Not even gonna claim to be anywhere near Jim Markey's caliber, but I came up with a similar concept system in school for weekly forum feedback. The main difference is that it was a double circle diagram. Outer circle (Control): Jagged = Harsh Solid Line = Strong Thin Line = Soft Humps = Overly soft Inside Circle (Pitch presence): Darker shading = Stronger fundamental Lighter shading = Weaker fundamental More of a shading spectrum than dark/light. Space between circles (Overtone resonance/tonal body): More shading to denote fullness/resonance of the tone itself (overtone resonance).
I don't know squat about Markey's Tone Triangle. But back in the mid 70s, I had a composer (on a commissioned work) tell me I had the most unique trombone sound he had ever heard. As he, and his wife, became quite chummy with me, I considered his comment as a positive one. As for what I think I sounded like back in my haydey, I strived for the current sound that Charles Morris of the Albany Symphony has.
I think a great example for a sound with lots of brilliance is the one of Kris Garfitt, principal of the WDR symphony orchestra and winner of the last ARD Music Contest.
Trusting others ears in the audience helps. The sound behind the bell can be very different. Espcially, with some equipment. Mics help but also can mislead. Recording is easy and good for checking things but sound itself is hard.
I’m laying in on the side of the pool and watching your videoes. And was thinking about the brilliance part. For me if I even have that aspect of my playing. It has a lot to do about the vocal you use. If I have to play softer and still have a brassy/brilliant sound I lean towards the “e/i/u” vocal in the mouth. And specially if I have to play high and loud or soft the tongue plays a giant role in my sound. 😊
Thanx a lot for this interesting aspect. It would be nice to get a more practical approach to this by discussing, which other instruments or sounds (e.g. sackbut, tuba, bagpipes, french horn, human voice of XY, ...) would represent very distinctively one of the corners of the triangle.
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When I was a younger player, a lot of my tone was exclusively brilliance. I liked a lot of the sound of Drum Corps, and I associated brightness with them, so I was like "welp, gotta go entirely for brightness and be that part of the band". I *could* play with warmth and core, but I often chose not to. I recall once I was at thing with a couple other high schools, and I was blasting on one of the low notes extremely bright stuff, and the guy in front of me looked at me and wagged his finger, and in defiance I blasted even harder. These days, I try to take a more balanced approach, but I lean somewhere between warmth and core with brilliance on the loud parts. I take a lot of that from Charles Vernon, someone whose sound I love.
I met a player a couple years ago who had a very bright tone. The first note I heard him play was a pedal Bb at like FFF and I was like "well that will certainly fit well in jazz".
Not even gonna claim to be anywhere near Jim Markey's caliber, but I came up with a similar concept system in school for weekly forum feedback. The main difference is that it was a double circle diagram.
Outer circle (Control):
Jagged = Harsh
Solid Line = Strong
Thin Line = Soft
Humps = Overly soft
Inside Circle (Pitch presence):
Darker shading = Stronger fundamental
Lighter shading = Weaker fundamental
More of a shading spectrum than dark/light.
Space between circles (Overtone resonance/tonal body):
More shading to denote fullness/resonance of the tone itself (overtone resonance).
I don't know squat about Markey's Tone Triangle. But back in the mid 70s, I had a composer (on a commissioned work) tell me I had the most unique trombone sound he had ever heard. As he, and his wife, became quite chummy with me, I considered his comment as a positive one. As for what I think I sounded like back in my haydey, I strived for the current sound that Charles Morris of the Albany Symphony has.
I think a great example for a sound with lots of brilliance is the one of Kris Garfitt, principal of the WDR symphony orchestra and winner of the last ARD Music Contest.
Trusting others ears in the audience helps. The sound behind the bell can be very different. Espcially, with some equipment.
Mics help but also can mislead.
Recording is easy and good for checking things but sound itself is hard.
I’m laying in on the side of the pool and watching your videoes. And was thinking about the brilliance part. For me if I even have that aspect of my playing. It has a lot to do about the vocal you use. If I have to play softer and still have a brassy/brilliant sound I lean towards the “e/i/u” vocal in the mouth. And specially if I have to play high and loud or soft the tongue plays a giant role in my sound. 😊
Thanx a lot for this interesting aspect. It would be nice to get a more practical approach to this by discussing, which other instruments or sounds (e.g. sackbut, tuba, bagpipes, french horn, human voice of XY, ...) would represent very distinctively one of the corners of the triangle.
Beautiful!