An Outbreak of Pseudo-Science!

I was talking with an executive of one of the big mouthpiece makers yesterday and we both had a good laugh about the recent outbreak of pseudo-science in various saxophone newsgroups lately.

In the last couple of months, a couple of guys have popped up out of nowhere espousing themselves as experts in acoustics and saxophone and mouthpiece design. They quote Benade, Ferron, and others like they understand it, and draw some conclusions that are erroneous at best, and generally comical to those of us who actually design our own horns and mouthpieces.

A very significant and noteable exception are the posts of Toby Marshall. Toby is an American who lives in Japan, and is an enthusiastic and knowlegable amateur player and acoustician. He doesn't hold himself out as anything more than an informed hobbyist, but you should listen to what he says: he's almost always spot on in his observations and comments.

Back to our new found experts: if you Google them or use any other method of looking into their backgrounds, experience, or history, you'll easily find that they are strictly self appointed experts. They're not published (except by themselves on the internet) and actually manufacture no products. That's right, these guys have never made a saxophone or mouthpiece in their life! One of them actually believes that if you put a thin colored stone on the neck of your saxophone it will change the way it plays! You should try this colored stone business yourself. Maybe the red ones play better than the blue ones. I don't know.

The design of instruments and their related accessories is an art, not a science. You need to experiment, and try different things. It's just as important to find out what doesn't work as it is to find out what works. There is absolutely no substitute for building one and seeing how it plays. Then build another one that is different and compare the two.

These pseudo-scientists are just wanking off on the internet. Those of us who actually do this for a living have this thought for them: Guys, we're not laughing with you, we're laughing AT you!