Why in your sixty's did you start to learn the Saxophone?
Well I have always loved Jazz and Spanish Flamenco. I played a few chords on a nylon strung classical guitar at Night School almost 20 years ago.
Ulf Goran ran a very good series on Television on playing the guitar.
His book was one of the best for beginners.
This book introduced me to tablature notation.
After about 6 months I could play all the music by Ulf Goran without learning to read music. Soon I memorised Malugana and still play this today from memory.
One cold November day last year In Criccieth in North Wales I was visiting the Jazz night at Cadwalader Ice Cream parlour.
Every Thursday evening from 7.00pm they have a Jazz night.
The musicians are the very best and some of the finest in the country.
http://www.cadwaladersicecream.co.uk/
I was quite blown away by the sounds of the music and the awesome Tenor Sax player.
The sax looks so complicated with all the buttons. It's quite a beautiful instrument and synonymous with Jazz. From that moment I wanted to learn more. Those mysterious buttons buttons. Those fabulous sounds.
Back home I searched for information on the Saxophone.
The question is it hard to play. Am I too old to be able to play the instrument?
Do I need to learn music? Should I rent or buy. Tenor or Alto.
The forums and the video's on youtube soon answered my questions.
Yes I could learn to play but would need at half an hours practice per day.
My best option seemed to buy a good second hand Alto Saxophone.
My budget was no more than £135.
After several bids on eBay (buyer collection only). I was fortunate to win an almost new Alto Saxophone sold by Dawson's with the name Mirage for £130.
Some of the keys were slightly bent and the octave lever was bent this was pretty obvious. Very careful adjustment formed these back into shape.
Then trying to play a note almost nothing.
Youtube tutorials suggested fitting the reed to the mothpiece and if you can get a duck calling sound you are almost there. Then fit the mouthpiece and try again.
No luck could it be a problem with the mouthpiece.
I bought a new unbranded mouthpiece with reed and ligature for £7 free postage from EBay this arrived next day.
Tried this. At last I could play notes A to G.
Another search on forums suggested buying a Yamaha 4C mouthpiece.
Again on Youtube bought one for £24.
The improvements continued I tried Vendoran reeds.
But could not improve on the cheap Chinese unbranded reed.
I went back to the supplier and said they were number 2 Flying Goose.
I bought a few boxes of grades 2.0, 2.5 and 3.
The quality control is very spasmodic some boxes are brilliant others not so good.
The good ones I love so much easier to play than both hard Vendoran and Rico standard.
The Flying goose reeds are so cheap a box of ten costs no more than one single reed from our local music shop.
I have graded the best 8 reeds and labelled the with the days of the week these are rotated daily, the best reed kept for special occasions.
Visit our new website
learnsax.co.uk
http://learnsax.co.ukThe new SMF Sax forum
learnsax.co.uk/talk
http://learnsax.co.uk/talk
