A Friend of Mine
My girlfriend, Leslie Becker, who lives in Winter Park, Fla. has a middle schooler, Max, who plays the sax. He’s currently playing a student Bundy and he’s committed to playing instrumental music through high school but will most likely not play in college. So, Les dropped me an e-mail the other day to say Max says he needs a new sax and what should she get.
So, here’s the deal with saxes – they’re not cheap because they have all those keys so they’re far more complicated to make than, say, a trumpet. Trumpets only requir twisting one or two sheets of metal into a pretzel, adding three valves and a mouthpiece. Well, my manufacturers might suggest it’s not quite that easy, but you get my drift. Anyway, saxes are more complex to make and to balance because they have so many moving parts.
So this is what I suggested to Leslie, who is a super busy working mom of three: a better-quality sax, even just one step up to an intermediate level, will give him much better sound with much less effort. Student horns are made for durability, not sound. I mean, they make sound – and a good sound at that – but they aren’t necessarily made for sound. They are made for 11-year-old boys who ride the bus to school. A better-quality sax is made of better materials, which resonate more completely within the instrument and therefore produce a better sound quality.
And, guess what? If Max starts getting better sound with less effort, he might decide sax is more fun than, say, soccer – at which he is very good-and decide to go on and play the sax in college. This, of course, is my hope!