Every Instrument has a personality. I started playing music when I was 3, before my earliest memories. I have always played music, as long as I have a sense of myself. But I do not remember making the choice. And therefore it wasn’t ‘mine.’ Since much of the early pressure to play came from my outside myself as a kid, and I am naturally resistant to nagging, the element of choice was instrumental in continuing to play music through adulthood. Finding the saxophone made my music belong to me in a personal way that carried through the trials and tribulations of the transition into adulthood.
The Piano
My first instrument was the piano, and I started taking lessons when I was 3. The piano is a kind of patriarch of the musical world. It has depth, context, facilitates abstract understating of structure, musical theory, and is semi-universal amongst all genres of music. Anything can be played on it, and it is an orchestra in itself – capable of melody, harmony, rhythm, counterpoint and key all at once. The piano is also a percussion instrument, meaning the action to make a sound is a physical strike. Many young kids love to bang the keys and delight at the sounds it produces, no matter how cacophonous. Like the ‘many flavored jelly beans’ in the Harry Potter stories, you never know what sounds you will make when you strike keys randomly. But you made them, and that is fascinating enough for a young child. However, the Piano has a very gradual learning curve and in order to really find a voice playing it, one needs many, many years of steady access. The Piano is sedentary and weighs a literal ton (grand pianos, at least), and therefore prone to the risk of losing access as a young adult.
My relationship with the piano is slightly different. I had access, both my sister and I grew up with a piano thanks to the fortitude of my mother. But I never chose the instrument. I had no memory of ever starting to play, or making the decision to start. As long as I had been alive, in my memory, the piano was a part of my life. As was the obligatory daily practice. It was an hour as far as I could remember, though as a 3-year-old I’m sure it was less. I can’t recall. For a kid with a fierce streak of independence, I equated my reluctance to sit and practice for an hour every day with my lack of choice.
The Piano can rumble like thunder, or prance like a pony. It can roll like the second half of Rock. It can dance, swing, waltz, bop, slap, clap, and laugh. You can ask a question of the gods; walk jump, or fall like an avalanche. It can stampede, trample, or tiptoe. It can be furious, or cry like a weeping, wailing widow. You can summon the spirits, tell the future, cast spells with the piano. It summons jazz tension, speaks of pain and anguish, blesses with resolution, if even for a note only. It can hammer. It can kick. The Piano gives voice to so many things we have no words for. We can have an entire conversation without speaking, all at the touch of our fingertips.
String Instruments
Classical string instruments are the ‘old man’ of music. Stuffy, curmudgeonly reluctant to help you in any way. They don’t even have frets on the finger board. Whiney and in need of bows, classical strings are mostly played in small groups of 4 or 5, or large orchestras. Almost all violins I know of were playing classical music in respectful, stodgy venues. The violin is the star of the orchestra, and usually takes any solos or key lead parts of an arrangement. They are the rock-star of the string family, though that is an oxymoron. The violin has come to be synonymous with the idea of ‘classical music.’ It has been used by great composers and brilliant musicians for millennia, to explore the depths of the human condition, to voice both devils and angels. To speak, wordlessly, of secret things. It stands as the Everest of musical talent, among the most complex, inscrutable and divine pursuits of those that would speak the language of the soul. From folk to fine art, the violin has its place, cemented in the center of all lyrical truth.
The violin sings. It seduces. It dazzles, barks, chastises, all without taking a breath. The violin asks the best questions. It dances too with the most beautiful dexterity. It cuts the silence like a knife, like a fin through water, sometimes a shark, sometimes a whale, pushing silence aside in eddies and currents of resonant vibration. For this reason, the violin sits alone on top of the whole orchestra, crying out with a single sweet sharp voice, above all others. The violin is the only instrument played equally by Angels and Demons alike.
The rest of the string family does not deviate much from the gravitas of their star violin: The viola, a little more sober enterprise… The cello, a rich, somber counterpoint to the violin, is strong enough to have its own heroes and myths… The cello can move even the most recalcitrant of obstinate souls, all on its own. But still, it is a clear second to the soaring, soprano arias and odes of the violin. The bass… well, all musical instrument families are required to fill the full standard range, set by the original instrument, the human voice. Instruments tend to range further than that, because they have the mechanical ability, and because the human ear can hear it, and so there are usually rare oddities all the way from double-soprano to double-contra bass… but for most instrument families, the bass is the lowest you will see, and its usually an afterthought. It rarely has a personality, let alone any inspired repertoire. Besides, the lower an instrument is, the bigger and heavier it is too, meaning bass anything is a logistical nightmare to carry around, especially for zealous young students.
The bass violin, aka the ‘upright bass’, is an exception to this rule. It’s actually a testament to the design of the wooden string instruments, both that they are so ancient and that they have so much individual personality (relatively). The bass has been adopted, in many smoke-and-laughter-filled dark basement bars, by that cult of personality – Jazz. But its primary role, and character, is that of a support instrument. The bottom of the orchestral string family. Not for me.
Drums
Drums are an enticing prospect. A drum set rumbles, bubbles, toils and troubles. In an orchestra, drums come in many forms and shapes, together which are known as the ‘percussion’ section. Drums come as tympanies, kettles, snares, hand drums, bongos, many more odd shapes, and are the most ubiquitous form of musical instrument across all cultures and ethnic backgrounds. Music exists without drums, but is rare among genres. The percussion section also includes other objects to strike: chimes, cymbals, the xylophone, bells, cabasas, castanets, cowbells, gongs, and high-hats. The Percussion section in an orchestra or wind ensemble, or any large musical group, takes a large amount of space, and is further filled out with oddities such as maracas, marimbas, and musical saws. There are thousands of percussion instruments from all over the world, including the human body. Anything you can strike or manipulate with your hands to make a sound can be considered a percussion instrument. Of all of these, the drum set most people think of, the rock-star of percussion, is a distilled, ruthlessly edited and simplified version of the percussion section.
I could have become a drummer. But I was too far ensconced in the rich quagmire of melodic structuring, harmony, chord changes or progressions, and of course melody, the heroic voice of music… that playing drums would be like returning to the black-and-white movies after the invention of color-vision. A recidivist choice. Drums are cool though, and an essential part of the ‘new’ musics- the rock, jazz, and folk bands. Like the piano, they are foundational… but rarely are they the lead.
The Guitar
Many boys fantasize about the Guitar. It fits all the right places- it can soar, it can wail. It can rip or cry. It can bounce, or blow your mind. It can complete a single songwriter. It can be amplified or acoustic There are steel strings, plastic, gut, hide… It’s old. Images of stringed instruments similar to guitar, such as the lute, or the oud, have appeared in artworks since the Egyptian empire passed it to the Greeks. The modern acoustic guitar reached its current form in the early-mid 19th century. still produces some of the freshest sound being made today. A man and a guitar can (and may) save the world. Like the piano, a guitar can be all parts of music: the melody, harmony, counterpoint, rhythm, chords. It can accompany or be a solo lead. It has a very active cult following, skewing towards recent musical history. There are pantheons to the greatest guitarists, guitar solos, and bands, and guitars are collected like works of art. The guitar marched in the counter-cultural movement of the 60s, it kept pace in the bubbling turmoil of the emerging jazz art music of the 20th century America. But its true moment was the rock and roll revolution. Amped by electricity and fueled by fame, drugs and sex appeal, the guitar is a lifestyle all its own. Likewise, it reaches far back in many local cultures. Flamenco is every bit as majestic as any rock song, or jazz tune, and quite a bit more complex than pop music. But perhaps the mythology of the guitar has overgrown its actual true existence. I didn’t even consider it.
I was 8 when I added my second instrument, and had been playing classical piano since before I knew there was an I. My entire sense of self included the piano. The guitar was too much a deviation, it would feel like starting over. Besides, I knew every kid out there would probably choose the guitar, so competition would be fierce. Not for me. This, combined with the failings of drums, and there too goes the bass guitar off my list.
The guitar is the instrument most able to ask questions like ‘why, how come, and where?’ The Guitar, similar to the piano, is also a percussion instrument involving strings. Instead of hammers, anything can pluck guitar strings, and the tones that are possible to call forth are infinitely varied. A true chameleon. guitars weep, thrash, and wail. It can take the lead, or offer complex ‘comp’ chords under any other instrument. Guitar chords can be thick as walls, or sweet as a small forgotten summer night comes rushing back to memory after a long absence.
My choice
In my world, there were only two viable families to choose from, both woodwinds. I was not conscious of it at the time, but I believe now that I wanted to be even closer to the human voice, and wanted my music to come from my breath, like singing does. Like meditation does. Like spirit does. I believe it was Brahms who said he preferred writing for woodwinds, because he felt the music made from breath was closer to god. I didn’t learn this till much later. But it makes sense to me.
Woodwinds is a little misleading, since many of them have no wood…
The two families I thought about are brass and reed instruments. Brass consists of the flagship trumpet, evolved from an early ancestor the bugle, still played in military ceremonies. Brass is much more diverse than that, though, and includes french horns,[1] tubas, souxaphones, flugelhorns, trombones, and myriad hybrids of all of the above. Reed Instruments are even more diverse, divided into families by reed. The oboe and bassoon[2] are double-reed, and the oboe is considered the hardest wind instrument to play, followed by the bassoon. Mostly because the bassoon is the bass member of the double-reed family, with less flashy music written for it. Then there are single-reed instruments, most popular being the clarinet family and the saxophone family, soprano, alto, tenor saxophone,[3] baritone, bassinets. Then there are wnd instruments with neither wood nor reed: the flute and piccolo.
I could have been happy playing the trumpet. In fact I did try it out, years later, for a month. The trumpet is sharp, smart, and brings you to attention. It can be sexy, in the clean-cut kind of way, and it rings clear through any bright summer day, or misty dark winter evening just the same. There were trumpets all around, even back home at school. It was familiar to me the way you stand, straight at attention, all right angles and square stance, with only three fingers moving, ever. The only sound comes straight from the vibration of your lips. You can’t play many high notes when you are starting out. My imagination ran with what happened to your lips so that you could… The thought of this all was exhausting, if also slightly scary. I wondered about looking like a fish with swollen lips as some of the other kids did on occasion, just after an hour practice. They would all have a red circle around their mouth. With the saxophone, I had a constant scar on the inside of my bottom lip where my teeth bit into the reed. That too built up over time. But at least it wasn’t visible… I admit thought the trumpet is not that big, and not hard to carry as I was walking to school every morning at that age. Even small things can be heavy for an 8 year old. Weight mattered. But I had more exposure to the saxophone, mostly by chance. There was a musical college near me, and the dean, Dr. Stoltie, played the saxophone and agreed to teach me, thanks to the help of my mom. He was a very patient man. I do owe a lot of my music to him.
The Saxophone
The saxophone is a sexy instrument, all curves and speed wrapped in pale gold metal. Lithe and supple, each note has its own distinct finger position, the pitch determined by the length of the uninterrupted tube formed by each combination of fingering. It makes sense, easy to understand intellectually. There was no other instrument that looked like it, the Saxophone is unique in its hip, expressive self. It seemed to me to be the opposite of a stuffy thing. Some pop artists had saxophones in their music, and on the cover of their albums too. The saxophone was a living instrument, not stuffy and ancient like the violin. Or the straight, stoic, stodgy clarinet with its too-fat mouthpiece and illogical finger patterns. The saxophone wails, rips, sings, and riffs. Many jazz bands were led by saxophonists, and the music it played had a lot of solos, and opportunities for the spotlight. That was exciting to me at 8. The saxophone is a foundation for that esoteric art music Jazz, that whispered unnamed promises to me as I practiced my same old major scales year after year, and played the same melodic chord progressions written for hundreds of years by Europeans. I could be myself, express my sorrows and joys, and maybe get a gig on a Sade album. Or wallow in the smoky underground of the NY nightlife. I could sing of the torture of being made to practice music for an hour every day, for each instrument I played. That added up to a lot of time. The saxophone it was. I was hooked.
[1] The French made some pretty wacky instruments, 99% of which are not made anymore and therefore really rare.
[2] I started my third Instrument, the bassoon, when I was 11. A rare instrument that got me accepted to any school I applied to.
[3] John Coltrane’s instrument. Coltrane was always a mystery to me, musically. I couldn’t make sense of the thinking behind the mess of notes he played. I knew nothing about him, either. Later, in College, I took a class by Anthony Braxton called “the music of Coltrane, Mingus and Coleman” that changed my entire understanding of jazz music. Professor Braxton was a recipient of the McCarther Grant, aka the ‘Genius Award’ and he spoke his own language. I had to copy down verbatim everything he said, and couldn’t actually understand any of it until halfway through the semester. He was also a Saxophone player, and his picture was in the books we read in class. He listened to my music, and I heard he liked it… but that’s another story. Coltrane was an artist, there are a few, who not only was the best of his generation, but expanded what it meant to make the art. Those are the artists that are remembered. It happened through a mix of the changing Civil Rights environment of the late 50’s and 60’s, as well as a personal spiritual revelation that happened in his sleep, that set him on the path of modality, sheets of sound, and the search for the divine note he heard in his dream.