Author: DrewSorensenMusic
Date: 2011-12-04 22:12
I second yamaha for both. My first flute was an intermediate yamaha, and I got a lot of use out of it, practice and paid performance. Now I play a Miyazawa 602 with Drelinger headjoint, but I wouldn't go that far yet. Get a solid silver headjoint and silver plated body on ebay, take it to your repair guy for pads, and you got yourself a great horn for cheap.
You have two options for sax, new or vintage. For new, yamaha again is good, although I haven't played their intermediate or beginner models, but I've heard good things. I play a Yamaha Custom 82Z and it plays like a dream.
Vintage saxes are a horse of a different color, but a horn that has amazing tone that is way underpriced is the Conn 6m (alto) or Conn 10m (tenor). There is lots of info on these horns on the internet, they are frequently called "naked lady" or "lady face" because of the engraving of a woman's head and neck line on the bell. I would suggest going new until you know what you want to sound like, but these horns are amazing. I owned a 10m for a while, and I miss it sometimes.
Be prepared to try lots of reeds and mouthpieces to find what suits you, but a good start for mouthpieces is a meyer size 5 or vandoren v5 size a15 for alto or T15 for tenor. I play a vandoren v5 a17 for alto, and will play a t27 next tenor call.
Reeds, well, you probably know a bunch from playing clarinet. I don't like vandoren reeds at all. Lots of people like vandoren blue box, so you could start there. I think they're too inconsistent. I play hemke 2.5, and I love them. I can't stress enough how much I like their tonal spectrum. Other good ones are Rico Lavoz or Rico jazz select.
A side not, I'm a doubler, so I don't play classical sax. I've never had a call for it, and truthfully, there's not a real need for it.
(Sorry if I offend any classical sax guys, but truthfully, many classical instrumentalists of the other instruments cringe at the sight of a sax in the orchestra, and it sounds so great as a jazz instrument. Plus, I'm pretty sure any musicals use the sax as a jazz voice, so that's my two sense)
I play an R13 greenline clarinet, Fobes Cicero 13, Fobes barrel, Rico think blank 4.5, and on all my instruments I play Rovner dark ligatures, I think they're great.
Don't take my word as gospel, it just works for me. Good luck
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