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For the second time today I have to chime in with Rainer ;-)) One example is the saxophone. Just the other week I lurked at a sax forum and learned about mouth pieces and boy are those jazz saxists anal about moth pieces! But they are right in every word. I've always been looking for a sax sound that is big, wide and still soft (not that I dislike a screaming tone, like Gato Garbieri, it just never felt apliable to the music I make), my sax playing rather following the tone attitude established by Ben Webster. Since not having any source for better knowledge I have just been buying loads of sax mouth pieces, starting in 1977, re-customized them with metal tools, ruined many on the way, and tried them with all kind of reeds and done the math to learn what creates tone on sax. Over the years I have came to settle with a metal Otto Link nine star. Now, Otto Link is only one out of fiver or six good brands on the market and the width of the tone chamber and the opening between the metal and the bamboo slice is available in 18 different variations, starting from number one, then follows one star (just a little wider opening), two, two star, three, three star etc etc. So the nine star, my favorite, actually has the widest opening and the biggest tone chamber. I've had problems playing written music with bands on that mouth pieces because it just eats air. That makes it better suited for playing more improvised music where you can sort of change the melodies to throw in some extra spaces between the notes to inhale. Despite these issues I do sincerely love this mouth piece because it gives such an extraordinary "breathy" sound. My sax is also the ultimate axe for warm and clean tone, since it is a silver Conn from 1929 - meaning it was built in some thick sort of metal. What really caught my attention last week, on this saxist forum, was that I got to learn that Ben Webster did play an Otto Link metal nine, almost the same gadget I've ended up with from simply picking one by ear and taste. I think this proves that "gear" is essential for "tone" also in sax playing. And I recently learned that it also is for flute playing, from talking to a flute service tech guy at a trade show back in October. He said that the crown (the plug at the end of the tube where no air is let out) is crucial for both sound and the playability of the flute. My reason for talking to this guy is that I want him to build me a new crown with a hole for sticking in a mic in order to amplifying the sound that lives inside the flute (that otherwise never get heard by anyone). That should be possible, but since the crown's influence on tone is so critical and delicate he warned me that the result can not safely be predicted (meaning I should not re-do my old crown but rather buy a new one for the mic modding). I can't afford that yet, but it's on the list for the grand future always waiting around the corner. ;-) Greetings from Sweden Per Boysen www.boysen.se (Swedish) www.looproom.com (international) www.ubetoo.com/Artist.taf?_ArtistId=6550 >> Electric Guitar is the only instrument where "tone" is generally held >to come from "gear". >> For all other instruments "tone" is referred to as an ability of the >player. On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 6:14 PM, Rainer Straschill <moinsound@googlemail.com> wrote: > Sorry Andy, but I believe you're wrong about that. It is > well-understood among pianists that e.g. a Bösendorfer sounds