Musical Notes

Like all clarinets that differ from the bog-standard 17/6 Klose-Boehm clarinet, it landed in the clarinet world with a resounding “plop”. Manufactured by Selmer in their professional, intermediate (Signet) and student (Bundy) lines, Mazzeo instruments enjoyed a very brief surge of interest in the 1960s, only to largely disappear from sight.

The bass saxophone is one of the largest members of the saxophone family—larger than the more commonly encountered baritone saxophone.

In this post we hope to give musicians some ideas/exercises to improve on internal pulse. Keeping a steady pulse is a fundamental skill for any musician. Even in different charts that encourage a flexible rhythm, such as a passage marked rubato, being able to maintain a steady pulse is essential for the music to work.

While some jazz musicians have called the concept of “swing” a subjective and elusive notion, they acknowledge that the concept is well-understood by experienced jazz musicians at a practical, intuitive level.

I have always purchased soprano saxes that give a hobbyist half a chance to play in tune. My favs to date are pictured below: Eppelsheim soprillo, Yanagisawa Elimona sopranino, and the Yanagisawa S992 soprano.

Many reasons are touted for having open holed key works but for perhaps 95% of players they serve no purpose and have significant detractors. The inclination towards open holes is much stronger in some countries than others; America seems to have rather unquestioningly adopted the idea from the French. There are many superb players in the world who do indeed play on closed-hole flutes.

These are rare instruments indeed. The Conn-O-Sax is a straight-conical bore instrument in F (one step above the E♭ alto) with a slightly curved neck and spherical bell. The instrument, which combined a saxophone bore and keys with a bell shaped similar to that of a heckelphone, was intended to imitate the timbre of the English horn and was produced only in 1929 and 1930. The instrument had a key range from low A to high G. Fewer than 100 Conn-O-Saxes are in existence, and they are eagerly sought by collectors.

NAMM 2015 was held in Anaheim this year and hosted over 75,000 attendees. Opening day included a visit by the Disneyland band!

Music tempo is important to a practicing musician because although they are all relative, they give you some idea about how fast you are to play a piece. The best bands I play with hand out set lists that include meter markings.