support Tutorials CDs PPT mouthpieces

Saxophones Hawkes & Son Excelsior Sonorous

confusedhere said:
More time gives better results! There is a flat mark.View attachment 22043View attachment 22044
Click to expand...
My Buescher c-mel is 24" in that dimension. The shift from high pitch to low pitch did not "just occur" but they co-existed for quite some time. I know Uwe Steinmetz has a ~ 1860 Adolphe Sax that is low pitch and I have also never seen a c-mel in high pitch flavor (that doesn't mean they don't exist).
 
I don't really trust that # stamp, I mean it appears to have the exact same dimensions as my Buescher and also the curved neck. The TT c-mel is 24-1/2" long including the bow guard so I'm thinking it should be pretty much identical to OP's horn and it is a low pitch for sure.
 
confusedhere said:
Hello.. 610 millimetres [or maybe 611]. I make that 24.016 inches.View attachment 22042
Click to expand...
I trust your measuring it accurately. I would say it is low pitch. Normally a C melody would measure 24-1/4-25 inches. I just measured a Martin and Conn C @ 24-1/2.
Another clue that it is a C is the swan neck.
Do be careful handling it without the plug in the end. That little prong poking up out of the end is prone to being damaged. There’s a safety plug that goes into the end of the saxophone to prevent this damage.
 
Last edited:
@confusedhere i’m curious as a inherited item if any of the history of ownership was passed along. It’s always really nice to see pictures of people playing them from back in the day. Or at least some knowledge of the person who owned it and its journey.
 
PigSquealer said:
I would say it is low pitch.
Click to expand...
I don't think so.
I refer you to my earlier post (18): I have a HP XXC C-melody (marked #) Side by side it stands the same as my Buescher, Martin and Conn. Look closer though and you'd see that the bell (and therefore the total length) is shorter. Examine the toneholes, and whereas the upper ones match pretty well, as you go down the body they diverge more, most obviously at the bell keys.
Pete Thomas said:
So I wonder in that case what the #P means?
Click to expand...
High Pitch.
:(
 
stitch said:
I don't think so.
I refer you to my earlier post (18): I have a HP XXC C-melody (marked #) Side by side it stands the same as my Buescher, Martin and Conn. Look closer though and you'd see that the bell (and therefore the total length) is shorter. Examine the toneholes, and whereas the upper ones match pretty well, as you go down the body they diverge more, most obviously at the bell keys.

High Pitch.
:(
Click to expand...
Now that you mention it the bell length looks considerably shorter. Tone holes look much lower on the bell area also. Interesting this has LH bell keys like a Selmer model 22. I wonder if measuring your HP tone hole spacing is relative to the sax in question. The chart in post #4 is lacking a C melody.
@confusedhere can your granddaughter or anyone test play this sax? Playing with a Digital tuner should answer the question.
 
Last edited:
stitch said:
I don't think so.
I refer you to my earlier post (18): I have a HP XXC C-melody (marked #) Side by side it stands the same as my Buescher, Martin and Conn. Look closer though and you'd see that the bell (and therefore the total length) is shorter. Examine the toneholes, and whereas the upper ones match pretty well, as you go down the body they diverge more, most obviously at the bell keys.

High Pitch.
:(
Click to expand...
Very interesting! Don't judge a horn by its size!
 
Strangely enough I had an email a couple of day ago from a woman whose father used to play a high-pitched Hawkes XX Century alto...in a band!
I queried this, thinking that they just assumed it was high pitch because of its age - but no, she sent me a photo showing the # symbol stamped into the body...along with some charming photos of her father playing the alto in the band circa 1930 or so.
There was also a photo showing him playing the alto...and you could see that he had the mouthpiece set right at the very end of the crook. I guess he must have had one hell of an embouchure!
 
Stephen Howard said:
and you could see that he had the mouthpiece set right at the very end of the crook. I guess he must have had one hell of an embouchure!
Click to expand...
When I was at college I had a high pitch soprano. I'd play it in the big band but nobody there seemed to know about high pitch and low pitch so I just got a lot of dirty looks sometimes.
 
Pete Thomas said:
When I was at college I had a high pitch soprano. I'd play it in the big band but nobody there seemed to know about high pitch and low pitch so I just got a lot of dirty looks sometimes.
Click to expand...
I had a similar situation, just it wasn't a big band when I took out my 1898 Conn alto unaware of the fact that the horn is high pitch (there is no stamp indicating that).
 
Pete Thomas said:
I guess back then maybe it was before low pitch so they wouldn’t have. Or may Nostradamus predicted pitch wars
Click to expand...
Low pitch was definitely around, many of the early Adolphe Sax altos and tenors were LP but I believe Low Pitch was more a European thing whereas High Pitch was more common with the early American manufacturers. At least I think I read something like that but it was on the internet.
 
LostCircuits said:
Low pitch was definitely around, many of the early Adolphe Sax altos and tenors were LP but I believe Low Pitch was more a European thing whereas High Pitch was more common with the early American manufacturers. At least I think I read something like that but it was on the internet.
Click to expand...
You're probably right but I think back then there may have been so many different pitches anyway, not necessarily due to era but also geographically, that nobody bothers marking.
 
LostCircuits said:
Low pitch was definitely around, many of the early Adolphe Sax altos and tenors were LP but I believe Low Pitch was more a European thing whereas High Pitch was more common with the early American manufacturers. At least I think I read something like that but it was on the internet.
Click to expand...
Pitch everything was around until ISO 16…..in 1955 :w00t:
medium.com

Music and the Treaty of Versailles.

Every cool thing I know I learned from Roman Mars.
medium.com medium.com
Although the treaty of Versailles in 1919 inked it as low pitch A-440
en.wikipedia.org

Concert pitch - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
PigSquealer said:
Pitch everything was around until ISO 16…..in 1955 :w00t:
medium.com

Music and the Treaty of Versailles.

Every cool thing I know I learned from Roman Mars.
medium.com medium.com
Although the treaty of Versailles in 1919 inked it as low pitch A-440
en.wikipedia.org

Concert pitch - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
Click to expand...
"Before I go, let me point out that the difference between 435 Hertz and 440 Hertz is barely perceptible. Note that the second of my links is a tone generator. I opened it and started it going. It defaults to 440 Hertz because they have that kind of stranglehold on the world. I opened again it in another tab and got it going at 435 and I could not honestly say whether I actually heard the difference or just seemed to hear it because I expected to hear it."

Tone deaf people should play saxophone and not try to write articles like that ...

I know that I can hear the difference between 440 Hz and 440.5 Hz. If you practice tuning guitars, just as one example, then 5 Hz are a world of a difference.
 

Similar threads

New Posts

Latest: Members' Recordings

Share this page

Support Cafesaxophone

Tutorials CDs PPT mouthpieces
Back
Top Bottom