Needing Saxophone guidance

[humBell]

bloke "A saxophone-playing friend of mine collected up enough C saxophones to line both sides of his driveway with them, and install lighting in them."

It just occured to me that they already have holes in them, so you can make them light fixtures without damaging them if you're careful.

Spittoons, on the other hand, might be a bad idea.

[WC8KCY]

Exceptional work on those baris, bloke!

Any chance there's a bass sax in the for-sale pipeline at blokeplace?

Were there a Buescher bass - here, it would not be for sale, and I'd be busying myself mastering the playing of it...

...though I believe Rollini played a Conn.

I'd be plenty happy with a Pan American bass, or the common Wurlitzer stencil of the same.

The bass sax that lives around here is a Wurlitzer. When it comes out of hiding, it usually sits adjacent to the tuba section on stage, three chairs down from me. It's an absolutely glorious thing to hear.

There's a Selmer bass at the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. The Wurlitzer blows it away in both volume generated and tonal opulence. It's possible the mouthpiece on the Selmer is a mismatch or outright dud, however.

[WC8KCY]

It just occured to me that they already have holes in them, so you can make them light fixtures without damaging them if you're careful.

Spittoons, on the other hand, might be a bad idea.

There's a seemingly limitless supply of "French" horn-shaped mellophones out there that would make dandy spittoons. There's at least one used as wall decor at every Applebee's I've been to.

[Yorkboy]

...bass and contrabass instruments’ players’ fascination with “how high can I play on this instrument designed to play very low”...

Interesting that you mention this, and under usual (aka "tuba") circumstances I'd agree.

Rollini actually wrote a treatise on how to play the bass saxophone (it was serialized in a British magazine that escapes me at the moment), and in it he describes how he approaches the different ranges of the instrument in different ways - basically, the lower for bass lines, the upper for solos and ensemble harmony lines.

This technique is apparant in most of his recordings. Most people just think of Rollini as being a talented bass saxophone player, while I think he was really a true musical genius.

At least one of his recorded solos (in my recollection) has him going up to the high F, with great effect.

[bloke]

Which brings up another point...

Some champions of bass/contrabass instruments (such as was Harvey Phillips for the tuba) will announce - to as many who will listen - that their instruments (designed as accompanying/reinforcing instruments) are"solo" instruments, yet - when solos for those instruments are written and played - many of those solos are written well up into the baritone/tenor range, only occasionally dipping into the bass/contrabass range.

Humans (certainly, western-eared humans) really prefer to hear higher-pitched (vocal range) melodies, yes?

bloke "not argumentative...but observant, Rollini was fabulous, and we're lucky to have some pretty-good recordings of his playing"

[Mary Ann]

A community band I played in had a bass sax player for a couple years.....lady about my size even. She had a very nice sound and played the tuba parts in tune on a Beuscher (which I probably spelled wrong.) I got interested in getting either one of those or a paperclip contra-alto, found the contra on ebay, well-known seller lied about its condition (needed hundreds of $$ of work to be playable) and back it went, after a big fight through ebay. Sheesh. I'd still like a bass or contra-bass something or other that I don't have to hold up, just to bother the neighbors with.