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Greetings Café-lers (if that is a word),
Have been a silent member for a while & gotten useful info both from this forum & Pete's website. Had the opportunity to acquire a PPT tenor mouthpiece recently and couldn't be happier with it, more about that in the mp thread.
I'm currently based in North London. Played alto for 6-7 years during school, then didn't play sax for 29 years (but played lots of music, mostly bass).
In 2023 somehow thought I'd give it another go, and also decided this time I'd try a tenor. After looking into rentals, which are surprisingly sparse even in North London, I realised that it'd be more cost-efficient to just get a cheap horn from the bay to see if I'd stick with it. Bought a cheap vintage Orsi tenor from someone who seemed to know what he was talking about, put a few more pounds into getting it checked over locally, and played it happily for a few months. (It worked reasonably well and sounded great btw, a real rock blaster, bright and loud, really what I wanted it for. Sold it on without a loss once the next horn came along.)
This was the first time playing a tenor, back in school I never thought about switching gear, didn't even realise there was such an option. I just played whatever was given to me. Which first was a rental from our village music school, a vintage Conn alto in frosted silver which looked great, and then my own alto sax which was a 1980s Yamaha YAS-32 (that I sold terribly underpriced some years later, along with an 80s-or-earlier Meyer mp that was gifted to me ... much to my regret and somebody else's benefit).
Was thrilled to discover this new world of online resources, things are very different now from the 90s! Back then I knew noone who played professionally, and the only name I was aware of was somebody called Michael Brecker whose name was on my brother's Dire Straits records. Every time I thought, oh, that sounds quite good, and checked the record sleeve to see who the player was, it said Michael Brecker. So until 'Lily was here' became a hit, that was the only saxophonist I knew by name, and I'd say he's the reason it occurred to me that the saxophone was a fine instrument to learn.
Been practicing relatively regularly for these last 1 1/2 years and enjoying it.
Have been a silent member for a while & gotten useful info both from this forum & Pete's website. Had the opportunity to acquire a PPT tenor mouthpiece recently and couldn't be happier with it, more about that in the mp thread.
I'm currently based in North London. Played alto for 6-7 years during school, then didn't play sax for 29 years (but played lots of music, mostly bass).
In 2023 somehow thought I'd give it another go, and also decided this time I'd try a tenor. After looking into rentals, which are surprisingly sparse even in North London, I realised that it'd be more cost-efficient to just get a cheap horn from the bay to see if I'd stick with it. Bought a cheap vintage Orsi tenor from someone who seemed to know what he was talking about, put a few more pounds into getting it checked over locally, and played it happily for a few months. (It worked reasonably well and sounded great btw, a real rock blaster, bright and loud, really what I wanted it for. Sold it on without a loss once the next horn came along.)
This was the first time playing a tenor, back in school I never thought about switching gear, didn't even realise there was such an option. I just played whatever was given to me. Which first was a rental from our village music school, a vintage Conn alto in frosted silver which looked great, and then my own alto sax which was a 1980s Yamaha YAS-32 (that I sold terribly underpriced some years later, along with an 80s-or-earlier Meyer mp that was gifted to me ... much to my regret and somebody else's benefit).
Was thrilled to discover this new world of online resources, things are very different now from the 90s! Back then I knew noone who played professionally, and the only name I was aware of was somebody called Michael Brecker whose name was on my brother's Dire Straits records. Every time I thought, oh, that sounds quite good, and checked the record sleeve to see who the player was, it said Michael Brecker. So until 'Lily was here' became a hit, that was the only saxophonist I knew by name, and I'd say he's the reason it occurred to me that the saxophone was a fine instrument to learn.
Been practicing relatively regularly for these last 1 1/2 years and enjoying it.
