TromboneChat

Many times I have seen remarks “You sound like you”, or something along those lines. I kind of agree; everyone has a sound concept he/she is after and will work or tends to work towards that concept.

On the other hand, I recorded myself playing with Yamaha Yeo Signature and Bach 3G, with the same horn and the same piece, side by side (I was doing multitrack). I did not adjust anything (other than the lip to cope with the smaller rim) and did not notice any “out of concept” sound from behind the bell. Yet there is an obvious difference in the tone color when I listened to the recording, at least to my ears: the Yeo has more depth and sounds more mellow, while the Bach is brighter, as expected from the spec, but it is more obvious than I thought.

But then again, when I changed my working mpc from Yamaha 59 to the Yeo in January, I realized my embouchure was wrong the whole time and I changed it quite drastically. The sound becomes clearer and has much more core. A euphonist practising in the room next to me, however, was surprised when I told him during a break around 30 min. later that I changed the mpc. He said, as the thread name says, “You sounded like you”. Even though he is a euphonist, he has some credibility since he always sat in front of me in the band.

So, there must be some things in “the tone” that are unique to someone, that you can identify the sound to the player, and then other things that are changeable with equipments. What are they? Is the style of tonguing, phrasing, slur etc. enough to identify the sound with the player? Which tone quality makes “you sound like you”?

I would compare the recognition of a player by his playing to how you can identify people based on their speech. In that case it comes down to patterns people use while speaking, aswell as articulation and accents on certain points in a sentence etc. Humans have evolved to be excellent at that kind of identification.

Speaking from my personal experience, i have a hard time to differentiate voice recordings of myself and my brother. Growing up in the same household, with the same speech around, we developed very similar speech patterns and even though he has a deeper voice than me (although i already have a very deep voice), i find it hard to correlate a recording to him or myself (unless i know for sure it was me who said what was recorded of course). But i can clearly identify the brothers of my mother by their muffled and often hard to understand (my brother and me have the same problem due to our very low voices) speech, but i can't differentiate between the two of them easily..

So, i think it's less about sound primarily, and more about how that sound is encorporated and surrounded in a musical phrase.
I once heard about a study, finding that people had a hard time to assign recordings of long tones on different instruments, where the beginnings and ends of the long tones have been chopped off, so only the "middle" parts remained, without the characteristic starts and ends.. People seem to need these to clearly identify the instrument playing the notes.

I have notice (among many other players) that when you use a new mothpiece you do sound different. Until you really get used to the new mpc. Then you sound more or less the same as before.

The player's approach to sound production plays the bigger part...I think. Sure, there are physical issues(oral cavity, etc) and sometimes we just might be playing the wrong size for our face and/or situation.

However...

How may times have we switched mouthpieces and it solved all of our problems? ...for about a week and a half. Then, we start getting the same old issues creeping back into our playing. It's because the approach is the same.

Just a few rambling thoughts..use at your own risk!

"You sound like you" could be good or bad.

In improvisations I think I can identify a lot of the great players such as JJ, Kai Winding, Frank Rosolino, Tommy Dorsay, Urbie Green and Jack Tegarden just after a couple of minutes. Classical players are more difficult because they sound more alike and that is also one of the goals with classical playing. It is not a goal in jazz.

"Sound" is then used in a very wide concept because it includes not only the actual "tone" it also includes a players taste, a players flaws, a players special talent for special techniques and so on. If we are just discussing a certain "tone" as if we asked all those players to play a long tone. Let's choose middle Bb then I'm sure they will be hard to identify and separate. I believe we are therefore identified by our taste, our flaws and our special talents more than "tone". If we change the mouthpiece but keep characterisics unchanged then no major thing has changed and to the world we will then sound the same.

I have also recorded myself with different horns and different mouthpieces. There are differences in sound but no major difference. All mouthpieces sound like me.

When I have asked friends to listen for changes some like me with a larger mouthpiece and some with a smaller mouthpiece. Some think my sound is bigger on the smaller mouthpiece. Some can not decide what to think.

What I'm certain of is all my friends can identify me on my characteristics, that is on my flaws as long as I have any, and after that on my special talents if they are exceptional to me.

/Tom