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Re: OT: bamboo tenor saxophone?
>Paolo!
>I dont play saxophone, but I am fascinated by bamboo and once
>recorded such an instrument.
>Where did you get it? A series product?
>Is it "professional" in its use (perfectly tuned...)?
Hi Matthias,
I got my bamboo saxophone from Angel Sampedro Del Rio in Argentina:
http://usuarios.arnet.com.ar/bambu/Esaxos.htm
My tenor sax looks like almost like the one featured on Angel's website,
except that it's tuned to Bb (like a brass-body tenor sax), has a gourd
bell, and has by my request a wooden attachment to facilitate supporting
the
instrument on my right thumb when playing standing up.
I actually don't have much of a background playing saxophone either. What
happened was that after I picked up a Maui Xaphoon (a cheap bamboo
clarinet-like instrument) and inquired about it on the oddmusic list, I
was
referred by folks there to Angel. They basically said I should have
gotten
an instrument from Angel instead of the Xaphoon. Having had a couple of
days to play my new sax, I can attest to the superior quality of Angel's
workmanship.
Angel tunes his saxes to equal temperament unless there is a special
request. Playing each note in tune is a matter of maintaining the right
amount of lip pressure on the reed, but you have to do this on any
saxophone. You can also bend pitches by using fingers to vary the
openings
of holes. Angel's saxes use recorder fingering (supposedly the easiest
fingering scheme to learn in the world of wind instruments), with one more
hole added so that the left hand covers five holes instead of four as on
recorder. The extra hole facilitates the playing of certain accidentals
without resorting to cross-fingering. Based on the fingering chart
supplied
by Angel (he kindly labeled it in the key of Bb), the entire chromatic
scale
is accessible across the pitch range of the instrument. The fingering
chart
shows a 2-octave range, but I've found I can occasionally hit higher notes
-
I'm still getting the hang of changing the register of a note by adjusting
how I "grip" the reed with my lips (i.e. embouchure).
Paolo
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