Sexy six of the best for soprano sax

Published on August 12, 2007 in sexiest sax tunes, sexiest sop sax tunes and sexiest soprano saxophone tunes. 0 Comments

At a pub session at the Wessex Folk Festival, a rather attractive young woman said that she thought that the soprano sax was the sexiest instrument ever (until she heard the tunes I played!).

I was wondering if anybody could recommend six of the best tunes (preferably folk tunes) that they thought were really sexy on the soprano saxophone.

My list would be:

  1. Dark Island
  2. Fanny Power
  3. Sweet Nancy
  4. King of the Fairies
  5. The Rope Waltz
  6. Danny Boy (hey, the punters like it!)

With your help, maybe I’ll have more success pleasing the lovely ladies next time :-)

Your comments gratefully received …

Rob

My new soprano saxophone and my early public playing and performing experiences.

Published on May 23, 2007 in soprano saxophone. 0 Comments

Buying my soprano saxophone

Whilst at the Sidmouth Folk Festival, I spoke to a veteran soprano saxophone player and asked the best place to buy a soprano sax. He said wherever I bought the sax, the most important consideration was the quality of the sax and it was better to go for the best because they were the easiest to play.

When my mother died, she left me some money and I wanted something to remember her by so I decided to take the plunge with no expense spared.

So off to my local wind instrument shop i went and tried a few soprano saxophones.

I tried several and they were ok but not in a heart stopping way. Then I tried the Yanagisawa soprano saxophone! It was like honey melting through my fingers and sent shivers up and down my spine. I couldn’t believe the difference. The price tag was pretty high but I didn’t care and now I am the proud owner of a Yanagisawa soprano saxophone.

Starting to play my Yanagisawa Soprano Saxophone

If my first experiences of hearing my Yanagisawa Soprano Saxophone turned my spine to jelly, my early experiences with playing the instrument certainly turned my lips to jelly. Even with the softest of reeds, I found the embouchure to be very hard and I had to start with very short practice sessions, lengthening them only slowly as my lip muscles started to be able to cope.

I also found that my lungs practically seized up after only a short time of playing. It seemed that the strength of my diaphragm was also rather wanting even though I was a regular flute player.

Early feedback from playing in public
Being a long standing flute player (Yamaha 211 with A W D Oxley solid silver head), I was already actively playing in my local folk music pub sessions.

I found a tune that I quite liked to play called the Rope Waltz. It’s a lovely lilting tune that lends itself to the saxophone and I found that my lip and lungs could just about last out if I played it three times through which is the standard folk musician session system.

The feedback from complete strangers in the pubs was more than I could have possibly dreamed. In the past, occasionally nice things have been said about my playing, but not really often. Where praise has been made it’s usually for the overall sound of the session.

Things were different with the Yanagisawa Soprano Saxophone. After I’d played, people stopped me wherever I went (even the men’s room) and said how wonderful they thought the sound was. I just couldn’t believe the response I was getting and all this from only knowing one tune.

The other benefit was that, at long last, I had less chance of being overrun by other musicians. However hard I blew the flute, there was always the possibility that a squeeze box player would join in and set their own speed irrespective of mine.

With the sax, the sound was strong enough to rise above such problems. Even at the Bideford Folk Festival, during the Irish session which attracted about fifty musicians and many more drinkers and listeners, when I stood up and led my tunes, the sound of this wonderful soprano sax soared above the others, giving them all a reference point to follow.

On the other hand, the soprano sax can be wonderfully gentle too. One of my favourite tunes is ‘Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy’ which is also a really great traditional folk song. If I’m lucky and, as I play the tune, I might see someone is joining in with the words and I can lower the sound of the soprano sax to a whisper so their words can be heard over the soft sounds of the sax. It sounds really great!

The ability to play quietly is also useful to provide contrast between tune repeats. Even if nobody knows the words to ‘Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy’, I usually play the second repeat really quietly and then swell the volume up when I get to the bit about ‘And now the war is over’. The audience love it :-) and , therefore, so do I!

Overall, my experiences with my Yanagisawa soprano saxophone have been great but I’m sure it’s just a start.
I’ll record some more of my experiences with my new Yanagisawa soprano saxophone soon. If you set your RSS aggregator to this site, you will get automatic notification and I hope you will enjoy my journey as much as I am.

Bye for now

Rob

Welcome to my new saxophone weblog

Published on November 8, 2006 in Saxophones. 1 Comment

Welcome to my new saxophone blog. After playing flute and clarinet for many years on the folk music circuit, I recently bought a Yanagisawa soprano saxophone.

The occasion of me purchasing the Yanagisawa soprano sax was the sad death of my mother. She left me some money and I wanted to have something permanent to remember her by.

I’d heard the haunting tones of soprano saxophones and was also interested in a single reed instrument that might be a bit less cumbersome than the clarinet.

This web log records my journey with this wonderful new instrument.

I hope you will come back when I add updates. The easiest way of doing this is through the wonderful RSS technology which enables you to know when a site has been updated without having to hand over any email addresses or other contact means.

See you soon :-)

Rob