"I remember once, when I started writing for the alto saxophone, a saxophonist told me to think of it as being like a cross between an oboe and a viola, but louder"
About this Quote
Bryars slips a whole compositional philosophy into what sounds like a casual studio anecdote: treat the alto sax not as a brassy jazz mascot, but as a hybrid creature with borrowed DNA. “A cross between an oboe and a viola” is a deliberately off-label metaphor. It drags the saxophone out of its default cultural script (smoke, swagger, solos) and into the more “legit” world of reed delicacy and string warmth. That’s the subtext: orchestration is as much about reimagining an instrument’s identity as it is about notes on a page.
The joke lands on the last word: “but louder.” It’s funny because it’s true, and because it admits the one thing you can’t aestheticize away. You can ask for oboe-like focus and viola-like grain, but the sax’s physical reality is amplitude, projection, an unavoidable presence. The line is also a quiet warning to young composers: conceptual metaphors help, but they don’t override acoustics. A saxophone will announce itself, even when you’re trying to make it behave.
Context matters here. Bryars comes out of a postwar British scene that treated genre boundaries as optional and timbre as a primary compositional material. His work often thrives on restraint, long lines, and forensic attention to sound-color. The remark reads like a field note from that world: a practical tip from a player, reframed as a miniature aesthetic manifesto. It’s orchestration as cultural negotiation - borrowing the oboe’s austerity and the viola’s interiority to “civilize” an instrument that, by design, refuses to be background.
The joke lands on the last word: “but louder.” It’s funny because it’s true, and because it admits the one thing you can’t aestheticize away. You can ask for oboe-like focus and viola-like grain, but the sax’s physical reality is amplitude, projection, an unavoidable presence. The line is also a quiet warning to young composers: conceptual metaphors help, but they don’t override acoustics. A saxophone will announce itself, even when you’re trying to make it behave.
Context matters here. Bryars comes out of a postwar British scene that treated genre boundaries as optional and timbre as a primary compositional material. His work often thrives on restraint, long lines, and forensic attention to sound-color. The remark reads like a field note from that world: a practical tip from a player, reframed as a miniature aesthetic manifesto. It’s orchestration as cultural negotiation - borrowing the oboe’s austerity and the viola’s interiority to “civilize” an instrument that, by design, refuses to be background.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|
More Quotes by Gavin
Add to List
