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godzillaviolist
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saxophile and saxophobe ( today's saxophone concert )

hello,
  Today I went to a saxophone concert! For some reason I didn't sleep at all last night ( total insomnia, very rare for me ), so perhaps I was feeling a bit sensitive... Anyway, three amazing revelations:

1.Saxophones sound great!
2.Saxophones sound horrible!
3.Saxophones are very large!

An explaination:

3. I've never seen a saxophone in real life, only pictures of them. For some reason I thought saxophones were much smaller than they are... soprano saxophones are twice the size I thought they were!
2. The bari and tenor players were awfull. The bari especially. They sounded like hippos with laryngitus playing kazoos. The soprano player was kind of weird, not a bad player, but her jazz style playing was realy not appropriate for some of the peices. Her imitation of a bagpipe was perfect and kind of funny though.
1. However, the alto player, was absolutely superb! He had a smooth, pure and rich sound that was so so beautifull... I mean it was just great! Really great! Sorry I better stop or else I'll drift towards hyperbole. Interestingly... he's the new saxophone teacher at the conservatory.

 So here is my dillema... I love the saxophone played well, but I hate it played badly. Is the saxophone really really hard to get even a resonable sound out of? I have to wonder. Those hippos are haunting me, but the alto is in a good way.
 If someone asked me, "do you like saxophones?" The answer would be "maybe"
 
3/19/2005, 2:18 pm Send Email to godzillaviolist   Send PM to godzillaviolist
 
Wildband
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Re: saxophile and saxophobe ( today's saxophone concert )

You have to remember (sorry if you already know, you probably do) that each sax has a different tone. In general (I won't go into all 36,000,000 kinds of saxes)

In general, all saxes can be jazzy and pretty or concert like or whatever, mexican... any kind of music a sax can proabably adapt to. THats one of the reasons I love sax. Clarinets, while pretty, aren't the jazziest (and usualy not loud, at least here)instruments. Trumpets just blair with one monotone, never changing... and so on. Just to be fair though i've heard some real good jazz clarinet

A sax.. a sax can be beautiful, jazzy, both, clarinet like... and saxes have this soul to them... it can play slow, fast, altisimo, low, you can growl into the sax (for that nasty sound everyone loves). saxes can be quite or loud, and sound good both ways. Hope you get the point, i rather not continue, the good things go on and on...

On the other side, saxes are tough to tune with eachother. (not a hard as an oboe corinne!) And, while a sax may be easy to blow on, it takes years to develop a good tone. Usually, a beginner sax player will have very good technical abitlities but bad tone, most of my sax section plays like that. It took me four years to develop a real pretty tone. Then, once you develop a good tone, you can figure out how to change to be jazzy or whatever you want.

So... I don't know. I can play every type of sax, but im the best at alto, then im decent to good at the others. You could obviously learn sax, and I am still selling one...

---
"Speak softly and carry a big stick" -- Teddy Roosevelt
3/20/2005, 7:09 am Send Email to Wildband   Send PM to Wildband
 
godzillaviolist
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Re: saxophile and saxophobe ( today's saxophone concert )

Maybe all of us should learn to play saxophone... I can see it now;

Image

3/20/2005, 2:08 pm Send Email to godzillaviolist   Send PM to godzillaviolist
 
godzillaviolist
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Re: saxophile and saxophobe ( today's saxophone concert )

Anyway, on a more serious note, I'd have to wait a little while before learning any wind. My front tooth's been chipped and I'm having it fixed by a dentist. Then if I'd like to learn I'll rent one for a month ( is an alto a good starter instrument? ) And see if I like it.
3/20/2005, 2:11 pm Send Email to godzillaviolist   Send PM to godzillaviolist
 
Wildband
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Re: saxophile and saxophobe ( today's saxophone concert )

I'd say start on an alto or tenor, the others are a little extreme to start on. Im best at alto sax cause I started on it. Tenor works to though, and i'd recomend keeping it for over a month. You may not like it at first, but if you keep at it...you still may not like it. So, whatever you decide.

---
"Speak softly and carry a big stick" -- Teddy Roosevelt
3/21/2005, 4:11 am Send Email to Wildband   Send PM to Wildband
 
Wildband
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Re: saxophile and saxophobe ( today's saxophone concert )

Who are those guys up there?? ^^^^

---
"Speak softly and carry a big stick" -- Teddy Roosevelt
3/21/2005, 4:12 am Send Email to Wildband   Send PM to Wildband
 
godzillaviolist
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Re: saxophile and saxophobe ( today's saxophone concert )

I found them on this page;

http://lachesis.caltech.edu/jayeaston/galleries/sax_family/sax_history/Historical_sax_page.html
3/21/2005, 7:28 am Send Email to godzillaviolist   Send PM to godzillaviolist
 
Wildband
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Re: saxophile and saxophobe ( today's saxophone concert )

Wow. Funny thing is just about everybody seems to have that site. I have it, people posted it at that site, and so on. My problem is navigating the site, I find new sections all the time heh.
Thanks

---
"Speak softly and carry a big stick" -- Teddy Roosevelt
3/21/2005, 1:12 pm Send Email to Wildband   Send PM to Wildband
 
godzillaviolist
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Re: saxophile and saxophobe ( today's saxophone concert )

I Found this just now;

http://www.contrabass.com/pages/subsax.html

The strange history of giant saxophones emoticon

3/21/2005, 8:20 pm Send Email to godzillaviolist   Send PM to godzillaviolist
 
musical lottie
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Re: saxophile and saxophobe ( today's saxophone concert )

Yay - contrabass.com is a brilliant site! emoticon

As for saxes - my friend plays tenor and thinks he has a good tone. Which he has, if you like the breathy kind of tone. But I hate it myself, and nobody's told him because he'd probably not accept that he can't do something musical as well as other people. Either that or he'd get depressed about it. But anyway. Another of my fiends is less technically able but has a lovely tone - one of the best sax tones I've heard, and that's not just because I'm biased! I think saxes can be brilliant, although bari sax sounds like a bassoon to me emoticon

---
The difference between an amateur and a professional: the amateur practises until it's right; the professional practises until it never goes wrong.
9/5/2005, 11:28 pm Send Email to musical lottie   Send PM to musical lottie MSN
 


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