19th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON ACOUSTICS MADRID, 2-7 SEPTEMBER 2007

Acoustic measurements along the history of : from Adolphe Sax to vintage instruments.

PACS: 43.75.

Vincent Gibiat1 Hamid Louaked2 Jerôme Selmer2 1University Paul Sabatier PHASE 118 route de Narbonne 31062 TOULOUSE Cedex 9 France ; [email protected] 2Henri Selmer Paris 18 rue de la fontaine au roi 75011 PARIS France; [email protected]

ABSTRACT A complete collection of alto belonging to the successors of Adolphe Sax factory () beginning with Adolphe Sax instruments (1856) followed by all the different models produced all along the twentieth century has been acoustically studied. Model 22, 26, 28, Radio improved, as well as the mythic Mark VI or unique instruments based on a factory model and realised for a special event have been studied to follow the evolution of what is both an historic instrument and a popular one. As these instruments are all in playable conditions impedance measurements on all the possible fingerings have been obtained. Sound recordings have also been realised on chromatic scales and short musical excerpts. We present the synthetic results obtained that show the continuity between Adolphe Sax production and the earlier Selmer Instruments, then the quality and homogeneity gap between some different models. Through the evolution the musician demands on sound quality appear clearly. These historic instruments have also been compared to the most recent models showing an evolution and a preservation of the historic sound that is certainly not finished.

INTRODUCTION Both ancient and popular the saxophone has a peculiar place in music history. Invented in the middle of the nineteenth century (around 1840) by Adolphe Sax to replace bassoons in military bands, it has been patented in 1846, four years after its first public presentation and two years after the warmful report that Berlioz gave in “le journal des débats” about its sound quality in 1844. Designed as a military instrument (a whole family in B flat and E flat) and in addition as a possible member of the classical orchestra with another complete family in C and F, it began its musical history with great success ; for example Wagner suggested its use to replace horns in Tannhauser or to use it in the scene orchestra in Tristan. It became also rapidly a very popular instrument in jazz bands, essentially through the Eb and Bb family but also with the Tenor in C only survivor of the “classic family”. Oscillating between classical orchestra with music from Berg to Berio and popular bands, in around one and half century the instrument developed the same mythology than older instruments. The end of the twentieth century have seen incredible debates about the unbelievable sound of “vintage” saxophones, or about the incomparable sound of mythic Mark VI or Balanced Action built by Selmer just before and after the second world war. As Henri Selmer Paris company is de facto the heir of Adolphe Sax factory they have bought in 1928, there is a continuity of fabrication from Adolphe Sax, Adolphe Sax fils and Henri Selmer Paris, that asks for a complete study, acoustical, ergonomical and musical. The present work deals only with an acoustical study of Alto saxophones as Henri Selmer Paris owns a complete collection of playable instruments that begins with an Adolphe Sax instrument (1856) and indeed ends with the newest factory models. As acoustic input impedance measurement is a regular research tool of the company, it has been possible to have an objective characterisation of the instrument, as well to record short musical excerpts played by musicians. This study reports the preliminary work that has been done in the factory, it will go on with the tenor the soprano and the other instruments of the collection. The whole collection of instruments is visible on Henri Selmer web site [1] In the first part of this paper the collection will be presented, then we briefly report some particular impedance measurements extracted from the whole fingerings measured (around 40 fingerings for each saxophone) to do a comparison with the selected musical examples where it is easy to detect some specific features. Finally we will compare the acoustical analysis on some examples.

I THE SELMER ALTO COLLECTION Beginning with an from Adolphe Sax factory (circa 1856) the alto collection also comprise an instrument made by Adolphe Sax “fils”, a saxophone said as it is written on the bell to have been assembled by Selmer. Some of the last instruments produced by Adolphe Sax workshop were made by Henri Selmer who had commercial contacts with Sax family. A saxophone Selmer model 22, the first produced by Selmer on his name, is followed by a model 26, the first Selmer “Sax Heritage” as it corresponds roughly to the date of acquisition of Sax factory by Selmer. An alto model 28, said Cigar Cutter because of the particular design of the octave key mechanism, a radio-improved (1934), a balanced action of 1936, are then some of the first mythic instruments always searched for and played by many saxophonists for “their sound”. The later (1936) has a design very near of what are known as modern instruments. The super action of 1948 is one of the testimony of this heritage just after the second world war. It has been rapidly replaced by the mythic Mark VI of 1954, a saxophone that is always widely used all around the world and whose price is often higher than those of modern instruments. With this instrument we are going from history to modern fabrication. The Mark VII, the super action 80, the super action 80 série II the most recent serie III and the revival reference inspired from the mark VI will end our set. This incredible collection of historical instruments is only a selection from the complete collection of saxophones that Henri Selmer Paris has constituted all along the years, with rare instruments of all possible sizes from the bass in Bb to the sopranino in Eb, beginning with exceptional instruments by Adolphe Sax himself. As Alto saxophones in E flat collection presents all the models that have been built between 1856 and today, with at least one of each in playable conditions it has been decided to realised both an objective exploration through impedance measurements for all the fingerings and a subjective experiment with the recording of a chromatic scale and small musical excerpts played by two musicians of different schools. The first was the assistant professor in Paris National Superior Conservatory –CNSMDP- (Christophe Bois) who played excerpts from Bizet Opera “l’Arlésienne” -1872- and from Ravel orchestration of Mussorgsky “Pictures of an exhibition- il viecho castello” -1922- both well known solo for alto saxophone. These short solos have the advantage to have been at the saxophone repertoire all along the history of our sample instruments. As the saxophone heritage and the vintage search for some of the instruments under study are coming from jazz music, we also asked Pierrick Piedron who belongs to the staff of musicians that help Henri Selmer Paris to define the future instruments and is a well known jazz alto saxophonist playing “vintage” instruments to blow the instruments only replacing the classic solos by a short ballad. The question that arise immediately from such a confrontation is that of the sound, immediately followed by that of the differences, in playability, pitch, homogeneity etc. In other word what is making them so fascinating? With saxophone we are in a very different situation than that is known for violins, where the instruments have been modified to follow the evolution of the played music. We are also in a very different situation than that has aroused with barock revival where original instruments are rare and often not playable, very different from modern ones replaced by replicas and needing another kind of playing. During the short history of saxophone, only a few has changed between the Adolphe Sax N°15511 instrument and the Mark VI of figure 1. After a few minutes any trained saxophonist is able to played both “horns” as it has been a modern instrument. As we would like to study only the different saxophones and because replicas or original mouthpieces (and ) are not common, all the instruments have been blown with the same “classic” mouthpiece. We are perfectly aware that it is a drawback of our study but as the mouthpieces are replaced by a volume in impedance measurement it would have been very difficult to extract information from the recorded sounds to correlate them with impedance. In the other hand these instruments are played today, and have been played all along the years with very different mouthpieces. As the present work is obviously a preliminary one where we are trying to fix the methodology to study such a rich ensemble. We will focus here on some particular features that are evident both on the sound of the instruments, on the visible modifications and on the impedance curves giving us a set of results where objective and subjective observations converges.

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19th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON ACOUSTICS – ICA2007MADRID Our first surprise has been the weight of the instruments; the older the lighter, but the most important is that, excepted two octave keys and the absence of the low Bb (written note as it will be the case all along the text for fingerings and keys) on the Adolphe Sax instrument, the others are incredibly similar. The saxophone was only subjected to minor external changes during the last 150 years, but as we will see later these minor external changes appear to have had important consequences for its sound. On figure 1 are presented three couples of instruments, the older ones, by Adolphe Sax and his son, and the two models of Selmer factory before and after they bought Sax workshop, models 22 and 26 followed by a balanced action and a Mark VI. The model 26 is a special model designed for an international exhibition in 1929. Its finition is particular and the keys are made of amethyst. It is easy to follow the major changes, addition of the low Bb pad, change of the lowest pads position, allowing to play with the saxophone along the thigh. The apparition of additional keys (F sharp for example along the main part of the tube) is also visible . A smaller change occurs with the position of the low C sharp key. On the first instruments this key is clearly visible on the curved part of the instrument body. On the later (Mark VI and Balanced Action) it has disappeared to be placed on the same line than the low B flat B and C keys. It implicates a less easier construction and mechanism as the key is depressed by the little finger of left hand.

Figure 1.- Three couples of historic saxophones, from left to right Adolphe Sax (1856) , Adolphe Sax fils assembled by Selmer (1922) , Selmer Model 22 (1924) and 26 (1929), Selmer Balanced Action (1938) and Mark VI (1954)

This more complex construction may be understand as some design will but it has its importance on the sound.

II IMPEDANCE MEASUREMENT ON THE WHOLE COLLECTION. Input Acoustical Impedance measurement is may be the most efficient and powerful objective characterization possible for woodwinds. It has been used for years following the works of Benade [2] Caussé et al [3] to characterize brass instruments. The problem of woodwinds with their tenth of fingerings is more complex Backus [2,4],. It is not possible without a system allowing a fast measurement with an instrument normally “played” but not blown. Such a device has been developed by one of us for both a musical and an industrial use [5] and this set up is now used as a normal help to conception by Henri Selmer Paris. The setup allows a complete impedance measurement through a three calibration three microphone method in less than 10 seconds for each fingering. All the impedance curves are then numerically stored on a computer and can be studied through any other computer aided software. With some experience it is possible to obtain the whole set of fingerings possible on an instrument in less than half an hour, included calibration and numerical transfer. It produces a huge amount of objective numerical data that are not yet all exploited for the instruments of this study. The first to do when comparing so different instruments is to choose a common pitch. It is certainly not the good one for all the instruments but is a reference absolutely needed. It has been arbitrarily decided to tune all the saxophones at A440 (written F sharp) played by the same musician with their common mouthpiece and reed (Selmer S80 C* and Vandoren 3.5). The instruments tuned

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19th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON ACOUSTICS – ICA2007MADRID have been impedance-measured replacing the mouthpiece by its equivalent volume [6]. This procedure reveals many drawbacks. They are tuned with reference to a player a reed and a mouthpiece. It is well known that another musician will lead to another pitch. Another possibility is to tune the reference note (A4) to obtain the first impedance peak at the reference 440 Hz leading to another equivalent volume. As we would like to compare the sounds with the help of musician the first solution appear to be better. The measurement has been done the same day at a controlled temperature of 25 °C. in the acoustic experiment room of Selmer factory in Mantes. For each instrument a whole map of the positions of each peak has been done. The comparison of these maps reveals the large discrepancies that appear not on the global shape of the curves but on some note tuning, on some details. As an example we present on figure 2 three curves of the low E (written note). Two of these curves correspond to model 22 and 26 while the third one is the same fingering for the Balanced action where the C sharp key has been displaced. It is worthwhile to point out that a common practice of classical saxophonists is actually to depress the C sharp key while playing E and F written notes to adjust the tune of these notes. Actually on figure 2 the three curves show clearly the effect of the key on the regularity of the impedance with an increasing peak around 700 Hz.

Evolution of the E fingering from Model 22 to Evolution of the low Bb fingering from Model 22 Mark VI to Mark VI

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19th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON ACOUSTICS – ICA2007MADRID Figure 2 comparison of two fingerings for three vintage saxophones

A simple experiment has been done, measuring the input impedance for low E with the C sharp key depressed, the fourth impedance peak disappear. The very small differences concern essentially the strength of the individual resonances, showing that from model 22 to Mark VI the lowest notes become more easy to play at low level and that the effect of the C sharp key is visible more and more when the instrument becomes more modern. More interesting is the evolution between Sax original and his son. We have chosen to present one example among all the impedance curves ; the low B as Sax initially built alto saxophone without low B flat . It is obvious that this lowest note of the instrument was not its better note, but it is also obvious that a few years later it was a full note of the instrument as it is easy to see it on figure 3 where the amplitude of the lowest peak is greater in the case of the Adolphe Sax fils instrument.

Figure 3 : the lowest notes of the oldest saxophones, left original Adolphe Sax and right Adolphe Sax fils

III MUSICAL EXERPTS ANALYSIS.

Figure 4.- Spectrograms of the sounds recorded by C. Bois show clearly the formant zones around particularly 3 kHz and 6 kHz as well as the continuity in the spectra for all the instruments from mod. 22 to Mark VI The musical recordings have been performed two days after the impedance measurements for C. Bois and during another recording session for P. Piedron. The instruments have been tuned as described previously. It is not possible to present the whole set of spectral analysis done on these recordings. Each musician has played a chromatic scale on each saxophone, mezzo forte legato and staccato, followed by one or two short examples. We summarize on figure 2 some of these results. It is easy to identify the main formant zones around 3KHz and 6 Khz. The global result is that of a continuous and small change from Adolphe Sax instruments to the mythic Mark VI that has been built more than 20 years. It reveals that the less appreciated instruments have lost some of the characteristics of the initial saxophone, and those that are more appreciated are in terms of spectral components very different from the original instruments of Sax. It is obvious that the instruments of Sax do not share all the improvements of a more

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19th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON ACOUSTICS – ICA2007MADRID modern instrument as the 1954’s Mark VI. The analysis of detailed parts show the heterogeneity of some notes, particularly on the second register where E and F sound different. When hearing all the examples it appears clearly that the main audible change between Sax instruments and More recent ones concern essentially the homogeneity in timbre as well as the tuning of the saxophone.

IV CONCLUSIONS Measuring historic instruments as the 1856 Adolphe Sax model presented on figure 5 is very rare as they very often belong to public collections where access to impedance measurement is difficult and often impossible. When private collections exist it is also impossible to perform reliable measures as the owners do not have the possibility to maintain the instruments in playable conditions. The existence inside a company as Henri Selmer Paris of an important collection that covers the complete history of saxophone is more than a chance: it is exceptional. The “sampling” of the results presented here is obviously a very little part of what has been done (around 40 impedance curves for each 16 instruments, sound recordings of around 2 minutes for each of them) and a lot of information has to be extracted from these data and will be presented later to musical acoustic researchers, and musicology researchers. It is woth to point out that the acoustic, in a large meaning, of the saxophone is not a constant progression to some ideal sound. On, the contrary it is obviously the preservation of some miracle built by Adolphe Sax. The evolution of the instrument all along of what is the tradition of Sax invention has been done to improve the ergonomic, the tuning, always preserving the sound quality. As a matter of conclusion P. Piedron playing (figure 5) for the first time this original saxophone Sax of 1856, said “what a sound, it is incredible, we had to wait the Mark VI to find this quality again”, and playing just after the Adolphe Sax fils, “This instrument I could play it in a session, in a club”, and finally playing the same model he is playing today, “I am at home”.

Figure 5 detail and blowing experiment of a very old alto saxophone.

AKNOLEDGEMENTS The authors would like to thanks L. Benlmoulden and P. Dufay for their efficiency in impedance measurements, Christophe Boix and P. Piedron for having blown the saxophones and given us their comments and the whole Selmer factory for their help in preparing the instruments.

References: [1] http://www.selmer.fr/html/french/sax/saxs/serie/serie.htm [2] A.H. Benade Fundamental of Musical Acoustics p395 Oxford University Press New York 1976 [3] R. Caussé, J. Kergomard and X. Lurton “Input impedance of brass musical instruments- a comparisoan between experiments and numerical models” J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 75 pp 241-254 (1984) [4] J. Backus,”Acoustic resonances of a ”, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 43 pp1272-1281 (1968) [5] V. Gibiat and F. Laloé, "Acoustical impedance measurements by the two microphone three calibration (TMTC) method", J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 88 pp 2533-2545 (1990). [6] X. Boutillon, V. Gibiat, "determination of the mechanical characteristics of a woodwind reed by means of the reactive power balance concept" J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 100 pp. 1178-1191 (1996)

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19th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON ACOUSTICS – ICA2007MADRID