..Ya know Jess, it’s only a matter of time until you start thinking about picking up the UP’s…“..it can’t be THAT hard can it?” You think whistle whoa is bad? Heh.. 
by the way… www.greenwoodpipes.com …(hint hint, wink wink…you KNOW I’m right!)
SORRY! I shouldn know better than to toy with a pregnant woman..if it makes you feel any better I just had the big “V” and DARN was it pure TORTURE…
Trisha sure knows how to raise llamas, and beat whatchamaycallit post-parturial(?) as well as multi-instrumental syndromes… :roll: Hey, cool new avatar, Trisha!
I thought those who were formally taught the sax did not to press the reed with the teeth, but the lower lip. However, many glued leather or rubber to the top of the mouthpiece, so they could “bite” it in need.
Which one? The one I’ve been offering for sale/swap, down there? 
Btw, I heard Hervieux & Glet, the famed breton bombardes/biniou/flute makers have a wooden sax, too. I understand it’s simple system plus a couple bombarde-like (or Tenor rec***) keys for the foot.
To me the sound of the bent one seems to be mellower in comparison with the straight one.
Ok…has anyone played a straight ALTO sax? I’ve never seen one in person but it does look massive in pics…and Soprano sax is way heavier than a standard low D whistle.
Jessie
Of the maker of sax; I found that the tonal quality of Yamahas to be much similar to that of Copeland Low D. I.e. great for fast tunes, bright tone, responsive, can be made to “bark” or “hiss”. Yamahas cost relatively low in the market, and they do offer beginners’ set…ranging from around $1600. a On the other hand there’s Selmer whos instruments cost around 130-150% of Yamaha. Take everything you throw at…I mean they don’t hiss. On Selmers, the harder the wind, the greater the volume becomes, and still there will be no hiss. Much similar to Overton (I guess..); deep & dark tone, takes awhile to be waken up, great for slow airs (I think…).
So…are you still thinking of getting a sax? I think Soprano (Bb) will be a great idea. Not too heavy / loud like Tenors 
To me the sound of the bent one seems to be mellower in comparison with the straight one.
Ok…has anyone played a straight ALTO sax? I’ve never seen one in person but it does look massive in pics…and Soprano sax is way heavier than a standard low D whistle.
Jessie
Of the maker of sax; I found that the tonal quality of Yamahas to be much similar to that of Copeland Low D. I.e. great for fast tunes, bright tone, responsive, can be made to “bark” or “hiss”. Yamahas cost relatively low in the market, and they do offer beginners’ set…ranging from around $1600. a On the other hand there’s Selmer whos instruments cost around 130-150% of Yamaha. Take everything you throw at…I mean they don’t hiss. On Selmers, the harder the wind, the greater the volume becomes, and still there will be no hiss. Much similar to Overton (I guess..); deep & dark tone, takes awhile to be waken up, great for slow airs (I think…).
So…are you still thinking of getting a sax? I think Soprano (Bb) will be a great idea. Not too heavy / loud like Tenors
These are way cool, though a tad expensive. We had someone play Christmas Eve on one of these. She played a gorgeous arrangement using the cello voicing. Talk about unnerving. Watching her blow and finger, yet hearing a violincello sound.
Apparently you can choice to blow or not to blow as well.
Whatever you decide, whatever you can afford, go for it! You won’t know uintil you’ve tried it whether it’s something you want to continue. I’ve considered for some time myself, but am a bit strapped for cash right now…
-Tom
It seems like there are wind controller websites and sound samples everywhere…
http://www.leftearmusic.com/ewi.htm
http://www.leftearmusic.com/mp3/reel2.mp3
I guess I will have to stand beside you Jessie when the shootings starts. I have always loved the clarinet and methinks that in the new year I just might go a get one!
MarkB
Davey, I know it’s politically incorrect, but, as I have admitted before, I cannot stand the sound of pipes, Irish or any other. So that won’t happen. Ouch about the big V! I hope you won’t regret it someday.
Exactly. But one puts one’s teeth under the lower lip, so as to guide the lip. My teeth hurt my lip. So I put gauze between my teeth and my lip.
No, the handmade bamboo one direct from the maker.
I am totally over the idea of getting a real (metal, 20-ton) saxophone. I don’t know what I was thinking.
Pregnancy brain, Jessie… pregnancy brain. It happens to the best of us.
~Andrea
I’m contemplating the plastic one.
http://www.adirondackguitar.com/scaryM/pocket_sax.htm
Jessie… what were the results of sax mouthpiece on a metal tube?
(no time to re-read previous posts if already answered)
Did it hit the octave correctly??
I put it on a CPVC tube, not metal, and I have no idea how to play the octave. I played less than one octave (I used a whistle tube that I’d made years ago) but it sounded great. Lip vibrato is cool!
Thanks for the reply Jessie.
I want to try an oboe reed on some tube/pipe but I haven’t gotten around to making a drawing for my machinist friend to fabricate the tapered top fitting. He has Delrin rod that’s perfect for the job.
Wow! I just found a sound sample of a bamboo xaphoon… I WANT ONE!!! Those are too cool. I never would have thought that it would interest me, but they sound great. 
I’d love to get a B-flat from Maui xaphoon.
~Andrea
To play the octave on a single-reed tube instrument, you would need to add another hole correctly positioned on the upper end of the tube (the end closest to the mouthpiece). This is because single reed instruments cannot be overblown via the embouchure as flutes can be. Clarinets and saxes have such a hole on the underside of the instrument which is activated via a thumb key. My guess is that the hole needs to be considerably high up on the tube, which is why a key is needed rather than just a thumb hole as you find on recorders. Only a mutant would have thumbs long enough to make the reach otherwise!
BTW, on clarinet (which I used to play) the key which accomplishes the overblowing (or equivalent, since overblowing is probably not the right term for this) is commonly called the “octave key”, even though the clarinet overblows by a major twelfth, not an octave as does the flute. In other words, when all six finger holes are closed on the clarinet, in the low register you get a G, but when you open the so-called octave key you get a D, a twelfth above the G. This means that fingering on a clarinet is a bit more interesting than on the flute! I’m not sure what happens on sax when you open the octave key, since I’ve never played one. It may be like the flute (i.e. an octave), or like the clarinet, or something totally different.
Oh, one other thing. The keying system used on the clarinet was invented by one Theobald Boehm, in Beethoven’s day or thereabout IIRC. (Flute players may recognize this name…) Before the Boehm clarinet, there was another keying system in place for the instrument (i.e. when Mozart wrote his Clarinet Concerto, one of the earliest works for the clarinet). But I don’t think there was ever anything akin to the simple-system flute in the clarinet world (i.e. an instrument that would be playable without the keys). Since the saxophone was invented by Adolph Sax in the late 1800s, presumably he took advantage of all of Boehm’s work with keying systems when he laid the instrument out. The keys are probably integral to the whole design. So given this and the lack of overblowing capability on the single reed mouthpiece, if you were to attempt to make a keyless PVC tube sax (as I guess you’ve already done, Jessie) you’re going to be limited to one octave unless you add a key for the octave jump. And once you’ve done that, you may find that you’ll need to add other key-operated holes to get your second octave in tune, and by the time you do all that keywork it might make more sense to build a real sax…
You may have been curling in too much lip over your teeth…I found that with sax at first, you don’t need that much. Anaemia’s a drag…the liquid iron stuff’s good - doesn’t erm slow things down like tablets. I ate loads of eggs with wholemeal bread and orange juice, and peanut butter sandwiches, and Marmite - but I think that’s a British thing! Peppermint’s good for indigestion and safe too.
I agree on the music - I don’t play jazz or classical either…World music various, but my sax is still at the L-plates stage. My two year old wakes up to any session-loud whistle and the sax is a non-starter once she’s in bed.
Trisha
Is it at all possible that this is the result
of hormonal changes? Or something
you’ve been eating? I know from my own case
that if I eat mangos I’m stricken with
an overwhelming desire to master the
bassoon. I don’t really
know what a bassoon is.
Or perhaps you really want something else?
I once thought I had fallen madly in love
with a particular lady
when I was really just hungry. I ate lunch
and it was gone. The desire was real
enough, but I was badly confused
about what it was i wanted.
Perhaps you might
refrain from committing to new instruments
for a bit?
Hee hee, Jim!
Is a bamboon xaphoon the same as a bamboo saxophone? Lark in the Morning sells the latter. Bet it weighs a good bit less than the metal type. Personally, I’ve no desire to attempt any wind instruments other than whistles and flutes. But I do have occasional longings to reacquaint myself with my childhood viola. It smells so nice. But I don’t feel like dealing with the strings.
The Zaphoon was name by a guy in Maui, Hawaii.
The large bamboo saxes are made by a guy in Argentina. The ones made in argentina are supposed to be conical and will overblow on the octave. His instruments were once featured in Woodwind Quarterly and Experimental Music Instruments magazines.
You need a conical bore. Starting small at the mouthpiece and getting larger towards the bell in order for a single reed woodwind to overblow on the octave.
“Is a bamboo xaphoon the same as a bamboo saxophone?”
No… it’s totally different animal.
Lark’s saxophone is $310 and made up from a series of segments.
The Xaphoon is a single piece of bamboo and runs about $165 for the Bb model and $120 for the C model. A plastic model in C runs about $65.
