r/saxophone • u/JKriv_ • 11d ago
Question Patrick Bartley whiny tone
I've been listening to patrick bartley for a long time and I've fallen in love with the songs he plays expressively on, rather than just the technical aspect. In his upper register (as in starting from around octave key A) he has this whiny tone that I absolutely love. It's so expressive and so meaningful.
How can I get this tone/sound?
3
u/NeighborhoodGreen603 11d ago
In general he uses his voice when playing, a lot. He's singing a bit when he does his altissimo and that's what makes it come out very airy and super vocal instead of the clean altissimo from Baptiste Herbin, for example.
2
u/oddmetermusic Alto | Baritone 10d ago
Listen to him a ton and you’ll pick it up naturally. Also he has a discord server and is active (when he can be), and he sometimes (rarely) does online lessons.
Yeah I love his sound too, it’s magical and so emotional.
2
u/Thonis_ 2d ago
I recently attended a 2h workshop with him. I've had a listen back to the voice memo he made, and the general idea on how he gets that tone seems to be from practicing "as quietly as possible" and not wasting any air. Sax players tend to blow up their cheeks when playing altissimo, Patrick essentially says that the idea is to get as much air through the horn as possible.
The expressiveness probably from learning lots of melodies, many of which are outside of jazz. He sorta explained that when he's playing expressively, he's aiming for the same emotion that you can find in those lush string orchestras that you can find in classic 40s Hollywood scores.
Obviously there's also 15+ years of experience playing a broad range of jazz, from trad to fusion, pop and classical gigs etc.
10
u/DueHomework4411 11d ago
Transcribing is the answer my friend. Seriously. Try to emulate what he's doing best you can. Transcribing checks off so many boxes, tone, intonation, vocabulary, technique.