I spent most of the first 20-some years of my life hanging out with more of my fellow string players than wind or brass players or singers. So I never really picked up on a lot of the lingo and day-to-day challenges that are part of their world.

But in the last 10-15 years, as I’ve had more conversations with wind and brass musicians and singers, there’s a particular phrase that has often come up which I don’t remember hearing quite as often amongst my string friends (though memory is of course a very unreliable thing, and this could very well have just been a personal blind spot in those days).

And what phrase is that exactly?

“Concept of sound.”

The idea, I think, is a bit like the classic Yogi Berra line - “You’ve got to be very careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there.” In that it’s hard to have a really awesome and compelling sound, if you don’t know what you’re aiming for, or have a clear concept of that sound in your head in the first place.

I think this is a point that’s completely relevant to all musicians, and not just wind/brass/vocal musicians, of course. But cultivating a concept of sound can be much easier said than done.

So…how does one do it? And why, exactly, is it so totally worth the time and effort to do so?