Blowing your horn into the bathroom tiles...

[Hardbopjazz]

Maybe someone who plays sax can answer this. I saw Buster Williams and his band last night. Steve Wilson was on tenor and soprano. When Buster was introducing the band, he said this about Steve, when Steve is at home he loves to blow his horn in his bathroom up against the titles to get that big sound. Do horn players really practice in their ceramic tiled bathroom to get a larger sound?

Edited June 12, 2013 by Hardbopjazz

[JSngry]

I think Buster might have been having an inside joke. It's the same thing as singing in the shower, an illusion of grandeur.

If you want an accurate representation about what your sound is really doing, you want to practice in a dead space, like a closet full of clothes, or an actual practice module with sound-absorbent acoustic tiles. Or even into a wall, if it's not too reflective. Then, once you get those refinements down, if you want to go about getting louder/bigger/whatever, take it outside, where there's no bounceback at all. The temptation ther, though, is to be loud above all else, and then the refinements can get lost. If you can do both, though, hey, you bad!

But standing in the shower blowing into a set of ceramic tiles, geez, you'll get what sounds like a big sound by just blinking your eyes!

[sonnymax]

This reminds me of my older brother playing his clarinet. He was terrible, and so my parents encouraged him to practice in a space farthest away from the rest of the family. Unfortunately, this turned out to be the upstairs bathroom. I can still remember the screeching sound bouncing off the tile floor, tub and walls, reverberating throughout the house. Although that was nearly 50 years ago, I recently brought it up with my parents and asked them, "What the hell were you thinking!?"

[sgcim]

I remember hearing that Toots Thielmans used to like to practice harmonica in his bathroom because he liked the sound.