Klarinet Archive - Posting 000910.txt from 1998/04

From: "Jason Hsien" <jasonavhs@-----.com>
Subj: Re: The Ab Clarinet, Bass Sax, Sopranissimo, and a bunch of other stuff...
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1998 06:05:31 -0400

-----Original Message-----
From: Emerald1 <emerald1@-----.net>

|The bass saxophone; well I'd never classify it as a novelty instrument.
|There's a lot of them out there; and they're still fairly popular; and
|they've made a giant comeback in the past ten years. To my knowledge
|they're manufactured by Selmer, Keilwerth, and L.A. Sax (in decreasing
order
|of price.) the cheapest being about $7,500 (L.A.) the most expensive about
|$9,900 (Selmer) ((Those are street values, not retail!). The sopranissimo
|is a piccolo saxophone pitched in Bb one octave above the soprano; I have
no
|knowledge of any company who still makes it!!!

With the low sax subject back again, I was wondering if anyone on klarinet
knows if any true octocontrabass sax was ever made and made playable. I am
aware of the Conn one that could only play 2 or 3 notes and the other fake
one.

And, now back to the sopranissimo sax. I can probably guess that the reason
they aren't made anymore (except by ORSI, who makes everything and anything
you want, wind instrument wise) is because of the difficulty playing. I've
heard enough horror stories about the soprano sax being difficult to play,
and the spranino sax even harder. I can't imagine many people being able to
play a sopranissimo in the begining without lots of hard work and traning,
let alone get a decent sound out of one. (But, these are JMHO. I'm sure any
soprano saxes or sopranino saxes out there would disagree, maybe)

-Jason

   
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