very sore bottom lip

please don't be offended by this pirrad,

but that just upsets me.

agree they're not that good. the alto player is ok for a kid though. or is it the same kid? sounds better on alto....

this used to be my dream....... all i can say pirrad is live the dream!

Tried them all. Started with a tenor, currently playing Alto, and working on my Soprano skills. Baritone in a big band mostly. Great fun.

I think (form me) the tenor is the biggest challenge to play well.

Alto is a good balance between them all.
Soprano, hard to play in tune.
Baritone is easy and fun in the lower register.

Smaller the sax, faster the fingering, but having said that, different saxes play different music, so it's up to someone's preference in music.

All of them are fun. Go for it. It's all about the "time on the water".

basically...
the main sax used in most of the sax solos youve heard will be the alto.

Your lucky as youve chosen a woodwind inst that has the same fingering throughout the main octaves. so easy to learn compared to clarinet and others

Learning bits n bobs:

1) learn to read music (Get lessons in this)
2) scales and arpeggios will aid your learning curve
3) mouth form (embouchure) is the key to sounding like a pro
4) a **** sax can be made to play a lot better with just a good mouthpeice ($60 off ebay for a yamaha) a good option if your jaw aches after 5 mins from a dud mouthpeice.
4.5) if your getting a lot of squeaks go a harder reed.
5) if your looking at buying a cheap horn there are some AWESOME chinese rip offs around, which some pros now choose to gig with for around $350. (seriously!!)
a review of them:
www.shwoodwind.co.uk/Reviews/Saxes/Alto/Chinese_alto.htm

a good horn for a cheap price is the "LARGO" which is mentioned in the above site. Ive played this and its just as good as a basic yamaha.

I now expect you to sound like this chap in 6 weeks from now:

yeah, he hasn't developed his embouchure fully yet is the thing. probably needs to do 20 minutes of sustained note practice per day as well as scales.

you can hear it particularly with the tenor sax where he struggles to hold the notes and as a result the pitch varies. from time to time the alto does it also.

on the tenor it could be his mouth piece. i used an otto link metal mouthpiece on my alto and it doess make it a little harder at first as they are professional mouthpieces and are usually cut to reflect that.

best is to stay with the bakelite mouthpiece for the first while. start off with a softish reed and then try a few different cuts out in time.

as mentioned above both the mouthpiece and the reed have a dramatic effect on tone once you are able to play half decent.

i'm not familiar with largo, i used a yamaha. as long as the pads are good and your not loosing air you should be ok for learning.

A love supreme - John coltrane.
My all time favourite sax based record.

Kind of blue - Miles Davis and Bill Evans are great on horn and piano but having Coltrane and Cannonball Adderly on sax make that album epic! Mostly done with no rehearsal too which is sick!

@ funky - haha, dave stewart..... i can hear kenny g is in the wings.
i found a good cure for bleeding bottom lip syndrome. just pour salt straight onto it. fixes it up in a couple of days. once played 8 hours each day for 7 days and my bottom lip was a mess.


@Dr Funk - yeah!! coltrane rules. it goes to show it's in the genes though. i reckon his son ravi is one of the best players of modern times. if you close your eyes you can hear his dad's influence.



oh and one more one of the quotes on youtube was "Props to the drummer, he's really layin down" i love the jazz lingo

^ it is harder with sax as it's a whole body experience...

you should just threaten them with a tone sucking compressor.....

Pirrad , Don't do it , there's no need to inflict the sax on future generations. The Sax should disappear into the mists of time and go the same way as the horse and cart, DOS, and warts. If elected I would institute a "S.B.S". No, not the TV station , a Saxophone Buyback scheme. I think it's the only way to get these things out of the community.

I really can't separate them Funk, but here goes. Most hateful instrument 1 - Flute/ recorder, 2 - Sax, 3 - Banjo.

^^^

... errrmmm... actually.... not.

And just what's wrong with banjo?

^ do you need glasses test pilot? all the tuba players i used to know had glasses..... hehe.


another absolute classic! milt jackson on vibes

i took me a while to figure out what the plastic was doing. then i had my ahhh moment. it must be difficult to record outdoors....


hey speaking of recording outdoors and getting funky....not sure if your into 70's fusion or not but this is stuff makes me wanna drive....... story behind it was a gig miles and co did at a UK festival, when asked what songs they were going to play miles responded, "just call it anything". they then hit the satge and laid down 37 minutes non stop fusion adlib.

pt1

pt2

pt3

pt4

lol, that's so true......

i got myself in to a lot of trouble when i was young playing in school bands because i used to adlib regularly. apparently hogan's hereos theme isn't meant to be given my version of the coltrane treatment.