attn: Rollini wannabes...

[bloke]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/194613353565


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKVNlQVgJvA

[KingTuba1241X]

Since I know B flat Tenor Sax fingerings, I could probably learn the Bass easily. I love the sound of them, almost more than a tuba for a jazz band.

[bloke]

Saxophone fingerings are like recorder fingerings...except sax fingerings are easier.

It takes about a couple of minutes to figure them out well enough to play a two-octave "C scale", and it takes a good wind musician a couple of days to develop an "acceptable" sound on them - the complete family of them.

When I check out people's s/a/t/b saxophones, they think I'm a sax player. I am not...not a all...but I can play a few scales, know some alternates, know how to play a high F# (and higher) without an F# key, and can play a few silly tunes - such as the "I Love Lucy" theme - a handy tune which checks the response and voicing of keys "on the side", rather than just those "down the stacks".

Were someone to offer me a repairable Conn or Buescher bass sax at a more casual price, it would extremely difficult to resist.

Bass saxophones offer the same draw - in a jazz band - as round-wound bass strings offer - in a funk band.

[LeMark]

I was a teenager the first time I heard a bass sax. It was being played in a sax ensemble roaming the streets of Disney world. Sounded amazing

My college had one. I played bari sax a little in school, so sometimes I would get a bass sax out and honk on it. It was a lot of fun.

[the elephant]

Saxophone fingerings are like recorder fingerings...except sax fingerings are easier.

This is the spiel I offered to my 8- and 9-year-old students for 20 years (as a part of my part-time, grant-funded, science-based music program)…

The oboe started out as a different double-reeded instrument that was called the shawm, which was popular about eight hundred years ago. It had finger holes and one or two keys to reach the holes that were too far away for fingers to reach.

Over hundreds of years, more holes were added to allow players to be able to do new things. Sometimes these holes were drilled in places that were also not reachable by fingers, or even by simple keys, so some sort of weird solutions were created.

These would be seen by other players and then added to their instruments. Remember that many of these were devised by different brains, so they do not always work in a system that makes a lot of sense or that is easy to use. Some players came up with systems of their own that sort of straightened parts of the mess out, but the key system is still developing.

The saxophone, however, was designed by one guy, who specifically wanted to make an instrument that made sense to the player. His name was actually "Sax" and he also created a family of brass instruments that he called the Sax Horns. When he created his woodwinds I guess his shop was all set up for working with brass anyway, so he made them from the same metal rather than wood. He called this family of brass instruments with keys and single-reeded mouthpieces his "Saxophone" family.

One day, if you join the band and decide to play one of the saxophones, you will discover how well thought out Mr. Sax's key system is, and how nicely the saxophones all play with just a little bit of practice. Later, if your band director has you switch to the oboe, if you don't remember what I taught you today about how the key system was developed over 800 years by many people, you will probably play the oboe with a fingering chart in front of you, become a little stressed that it seems to make no sense, and decide that "Whoever designed this thing must have been insane."

I still have that copyrighted syllabus from 1999 that we filed with the State Department of Education every year in a PDF file — in a floppy disc. I imported it just to copy/paste that bit of "Music History for Little Kids". I had forgotten some of what I had originally written.

The kids loved playing the alto saxophone, and after my explanation of the oboe's key system and the double reed (a whole other class and not included here), none of them were too surprised or upset when their few seconds with my oboe ended with either a squawk, a squeak, or nothing at all. Only "the few" could make a decent sound on the oboe, and only a few of them could play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" (with generous amounts of hands-on assistance from yours truly). However, *everyone* could play the alto sax on the first try. Not that I'm saying anything about all those Kenneth Gorelick-types out there…

HAHAHA!!!

I love my century+ old Beuscher alto. I can play it with a great (but not quite World Class) sound, in tune, and with a small amount of technical facility with pretty much zero practice. I would *love* that bass sax on eBay. Love. Love, love, love. Did I say that I would love to own that Conn bass sax? Yes, I believe I did.

[KingTuba1241X]

Only problem, is the embouchure is TOTALLY different than buzzing in a tuba mouthpiece, this is where the crossover..effectively gets lost beyond "knowing scales" and tuning and true mastry of the reed instruments.

I'll leave this here, for those who haven't heard of Vince Giordano..great tone and stylistic interpretation of the bass sax. (And switches between upright bass, which is super cool).
https://youtu.be/XgsBrhEsCAg

[donn]

My bass sax is scheduled for a little skilled repair attention in couple weeks, and I'm looking forward to putting in a little time on it.

Haven't played it for years, though. For me, the baritone saxophone has been a whole lot better instrument. Granted that it isn't a contrabass instrument in any sense, and the low end is thin compared to the bass sax on the same low Db (I don't have a low A), but ... that's why I took up playing the tuba. The bass sax as a contrabass is kind of a comic novelty next to the tuba. But a baritone sax can get some significant low end, and can also run with the melody instruments (Crickett Jumps, Ernie Caceres with Eddie Condon All-Stars.) And you can carry it around in a hard case, hang it from an ordinary neck strap, etc.

[bloke]

Here is someone (me) talking about stuff at which I'm not an expert...so here goes...

When I play CONTRABASS woodwind instruments, I find that ALL of these are EXTREMELY important:

- no leaks whatsoever (far more critical than with tenor/alto/or even contra-alto)...and flexing of L-O-N-G mechanisms must be part of the equation
- a REMARKABLY GOOD mouthpiece...example/analogy: a "real" Leblanc BB-flat contra-BASS clarinet mouthpiece - in superb condition - on a "paperclip" BB-flat contrabass clarinet, and not some Bundy (etc.) mouthpiece
- SOFT/THIN (but GOOD) reeds. I just have never had luck with anything harder than a 2-1/2 on such instruments...but 1's work better (for me). BIG instruments need reeds that are completely ready to vibrate...and to vibrate freely and SLOWLY.

bloke "I don't know what I'm talking about, but I'm posting anyway"

[donn]

Yes, that's more reasons why the bass sax isn't as much fun as you'd think.

Choice of reed is related to choice of mouthpiece; modern mouthpieces tend to be more "open" at the tip and would be exceedingly hard to play with a hard reed. And there isn't a clear standard for the mouthpiece shank bore. Often they're little if any larger than bari, but sometimes quite a bit larger, so it's like each mouthpiece takes a custom shank corking.

The problem with the Vito BBb mouthpiece I played was that it took a ginormous reed that as far as I know was removed from the Van Doren line. It belonged to the local university, and at the time came with a reed hand-whittled by the clarinet professor (and stained with a previous player's lipstick), though at the time ('80s) the correct reed was still available. Noticeably larger than the Rico et al. contrabass clarinet reed.

[bloke]

Really resonant ("round"-sounding - vs. [simply] "loud") and old-school-designed mouthpieces (for all saxophones) have become unicorns...and yes, the "commercial" (very wide) tips seem to have completely crept into the "concert" realm, defining even two alto saxophones as (perhaps...??) obnoxious in a concert band.
As an example of "old school", we had an AMAZINGLY easy-to-play-and-VERY-resonant old (OLD !) Vandoren baritone sax mouthpiece that (foolishly) we sold, decades ago. Almost as good is a "horseshoe" Selmer, Paris baritone saxophone mouthpiece (which we will not sell).
A factory-silver Buescher bass saxophone "belonged/(s?)" (was/is assigned to) an inner-city school that was very close to our former brick-and-mortar shop location. I don't believe anyone played it, and that was/(is?) a shame. A same-make/same-vintage instrument was in our shop for servicing (also: decades ago). That instrument was easy/fun to play, as there was a wonderful old mouthpiece with it. After that, one of those German "Couf" bass saxophones came through the shop, but it didn't play like the Buescher, and its mouthpiece also wasn't as (by my personal defined parameters) "good". We actually bought that one, but - due to previous comments - I decided to sell it, rather than work on mastering the bass saxophone as a double. Even now - were I to stumble across a stupid-low priced Buescher or Conn - and with one of "those" mouthpieces (as previously described), I would pull out some flute/oboe books (etc.) and start working.

Yes, that's more reasons why the bass sax isn't as much fun as you'd think.

Choice of reed is related to choice of mouthpiece; modern mouthpieces tend to be more "open" at the tip and would be exceedingly hard to play with a hard reed. And there isn't a clear standard for the mouthpiece shank bore. Often they're little if any larger than bari, but sometimes quite a bit larger, so it's like each mouthpiece takes a custom shank corking.

The problem with the Vito BBb mouthpiece I played was that it took a ginormous reed that as far as I know was removed from the Van Doren line. It belonged to the local university, and at the time came with a reed hand-whittled by the clarinet professor (and stained with a previous player's lipstick), though at the time ('80s) the correct reed was still available. Noticeably larger than the Rico et al. contrabass clarinet reed.

[humBell]

Sorry if i am naive...

What is a rollini?

And how can i tell if i wannabe one?

[humBell]

[bloke]

I’ll probably never on a bass saxophone, but would be quite satisfied to look like Rollini.