Bassoonist Switching to Saxophone

ChickenMonkeyCow

New member
I am a middle school higher level (intermediate) Bassoonist. I am thinking about joining the jazz band in my high school and am going to switch to Saxophone. Which saxophone would you recommend switching to? The Bari Sax or the Tenor Sax?

--1 Chicken 2 Monkeys 3 Cows 4ever
 

Corno Dolce

Admiral Honkenwheezenpooferspieler
I am a middle school higher level (intermediate) Bassoonist. I am thinking about joining the jazz band in my high school and am going to switch to Saxophone. Which saxophone would you recommend switching to? The Bari Sax or the Tenor Sax?

--1 Chicken 2 Monkeys 3 Cows 4ever

So, forsaking the Bassoon for Sax, eh? Let the bassoon be a part of your instrument collection instead of ebaying it.............You never know when you might need it again.............
 

musicteach

New member
It really depends on your natural embouchure. Some players are naturally more adapt at bari as opposed to tenor and vice-versa. Either way, however, you will have to get used to a new tuning. As you know, bassoons are in C whereas the tenor sax is in Bb and bari is in Eb. That's the biggest change. And as CD mentioned...please for the love of all things musical don't drop bassoon! If you're thinking about majouring in music when you get to college, colleges will pay big money to get more bassoons in their programs. And most high school band directors would do flips to get more bassoons in their programs too. The fact of the matter is...it's the most common band director dilemma. Two many percussion and saxophones. Not enough french horns, bassoons, and oboes.
 

Corno Dolce

Admiral Honkenwheezenpooferspieler
So eloquently said by musicteach:"Too many percussions and saxophones"...What a droll band if its all percussion and sax - Oh how excruciating - barisax, tenorsax, percussion...Yechhhh...

And a good jazz band has also trombones, trumpets, flugelhorns, cornets etc.............
 
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musicteach

New member
So eloquently said by musicteach:"Too many percussions and saxophones"...What a droll band if its all percussion and sax - Oh how excruciating - barisax, tenorsax, percussion...Yechhhh...

And a good jazz band has also trombones, trumpets, flugelhorns, cornets etc.............

You don't understand! I ask for brass and I get percussion! I beg for oboes and I get percussion! Saxophone players tell me they want to switch instruments and I ask to what instrument and it's always percussion! This is why band directors go into our offices and cry and try to avoid getting our lunch wet. Swoop there it is..

Anyways, I mean seriously, don't just throw away bassoon!

Speaking of which I have an 8th grader coming up next year who plays bassoon! I'm so excited I almost peed myself like an over-excited dog. He's going to end up hating me, I think, though. The last time I actually had a bassoon player was ~9 years ago. And he only lasted one year because he switched instruments...to...wait for it...SAXOPHONE!
 

Corno Dolce

Admiral Honkenwheezenpooferspieler
Hi musicteach - Please do share your take on why the Sax is so popular - I have an idea why but I need to hear from the pro in the trenches, ok?
 

musicteach

New member
Hi musicteach - Please do share your take on why the Sax is so popular - I have an idea why but I need to hear from the pro in the trenches, ok?

Well first of all, it's a fairly easy to learn instrument, much like most of the woodwind family. It's a very simple design (again like most woodwinds) where it's one solid instrument plus the mouth piece. The only bit of tuning yay or nay would be moving the mouthpiece back and forth on the head joint. Again, that's for most woodwinds. Basically, once you learn one saxophone, you can switch between the other saxophones fairly easily without too much "growing pains". Plus it's considered a "cool" instrument. Not only that saxophone is one of the most versatile instruments. You can have them in classical arrangements, marching bands, jazz bands, rock bands, blues arrangements, it's really easy to have stand alone sax quartets. And really that goes for all of your woodwind family instruments. The clarinet is a little bit more picky in that it takes a bit more of a precise touch to get a good sound out of the clarinet then the sax family. The exception to this is the flute family. Flutes and piccolos (and bass flutes, alto flutes, and contra-bass flutes..) are a little bit more tricky because of the way the embouchure works. It's more of a whistle then putting your mouth on a mouthpiece.

But with all of your woodwind instruments, it's roughly 35% embouchure and 65% keys. Whereas on your brass instruments it's the reverse of that and more so. For your brass instruments, it's something like 70% embouchure and 30% valves. On a tuba, with three valves, you can still achieve the range of the entire saxophone family (provided you've got the embouchure). That's of course because of the harmonic series which is what allows us to play an entire series of notes without changing valve combinations, it's all embouchure. There's a harmonic series for each of the valve combinations (and slide positions on trombone) for your brass family.

And of course, I think we all know why percussion is so popular... Do I really have to comment on that? Your strings family are the most difficult instruments to learn, and thusly and the least popular.
 

John Watt

Member
ChickenMonkeyCow could be male or female, about all I can add to musicteach's wonderful exposition.
One of my favorite girlfriends was a bassoonist for the Ottawa Symphony,
and I found out how hard it was to play.
It develops wonderful clenching muscles for sitting and maintaining instrument posture,
a symphonic feeling I never got over.
Bassoons are a rare instrument, and often buying the available one gets you the symphonic or orchestra seat.
She's the only girlfriend I ever had that I liked to listen to rehearse. Sigh.
 

musicteach

New member
ChickenMonkeyCow could be male or female, about all I can add to musicteach's wonderful exposition.
One of my favorite girlfriends was a bassoonist for the Ottawa Symphony,
and I found out how hard it was to play.
It develops wonderful clenching muscles for sitting and maintaining instrument posture,
a symphonic feeling I never got over.
Bassoons are a rare instrument, and often buying the available one gets you the symphonic or orchestra seat.
She's the only girlfriend I ever had that I liked to listen to rehearse. Sigh.

It is a very difficult instrument to learn how to play...one of the main reasons bassoon players are like diamonds. The higher you go, the more likely you are to find a bassoon player. I'm talking professionals. But then again, there's professional orchestras that recruit year round, go around the world to find players. At the middle school/high school level it's much harder to do. Which is the reason when we finally DO get a bassoon player, we tend to abuse them ;)
 

John Watt

Member
Bassoons are expensive too.
My girlfriend's stage instrument cost over $18,000 in the early seventies,
and her rehearsal instrument was over $6,000.
Both were hand-made beauties, something I always got off on looking at.
 

musicteach

New member
Bassoons are expensive too.
My girlfriend's stage instrument cost over $18,000 in the early seventies,
and her rehearsal instrument was over $6,000.
Both were hand-made beauties, something I always got off on looking at.

You got that right! Not only are they expensive to purchase, they're expensive to maintain as well.
 

John Watt

Member
That surprised me, the maintenance.
My girlfriend's family was in the construction business,
and as Mennonites it seemed they could build a new schoolroom or barn over the weekend,
tossing tools and materials around like play toys.
And even though they weren't the kind of Mennonites who taped off the chrome on their cars,
this bassoon was off limits most of the time, brought out for concert performances and repairs.
 

John Watt

Member
Hey! Having two reeds! I forgot about that!
I'm going back to the late seventies, but how many times did I sit beside that glass of water?
Looking back now, I can see I wasn't musical enough, too romantic.
And it wasn't the romantic era, so I can only blame myself.
Okay, okay, it was a really good-looking bassoon.
 
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