Every Instrument has its own Personality

I was wondering about the significance of the instrument that musicians use in order to express their music. The instrument represents great potential for expression, but also constrains the musician, due to its physical mechanics. Any given instrument is both clunky and cumbersome in one set of hands, and lithe and harmoniously responsive in another. So what brings an instrument to life?

I think an appreciation for the instrument's personality is central to discovering its voice. This may seem an obvious observation. We all know the old proverb 'A bad workman blames his tools'. But I think this respect for the instrument can be easily neglected.

We are perhaps willing to accept, for example, that the alto saxophone is more suitable to an attacking style of play than the tenor sax. But what happens when we pick up an alto saxophone that feels quite 'sluggish'. Do we dismiss it as a bad instrument, undeserving of the alto sax pedigree? If the instrument has obvious manufacture faults then this might be an acceptable appraisal. What about another possibility: that this instrument is of good enough quality, but merely has a slightly different personality than the generic, mass produced, sharp-attack alto sax? This instrument seems to refuse to be defined by the rest, yet at the same time does not relinquish its identity as an alto saxophone.

The reason I think it is important to bear this in mind, is that the relationship between the musician and her instrument, requires loyalty. She must not allow herself to doubt the instrument's ability to communicate her musical ideas. It can be easy to slip into the mindset that says, for example, 'the tenor sax isn't designed to play fast', or, 'the alto sax plays the fast licks, so why am I not sounding like Charlie Parker?' This mentality is negative and limiting. It detracts from the enjoyment of playing, and, for fear of not reaching a certain arbitrary standard of the saxophone, the instrumentalist diminishes her chances of developing as a musician.