kevgermany
ex Landrover Nut
- Messages
- 21,369
- Locality
- Just north of Munich
Have been struggling with the bari since I got it. Sounds wonderful, but a big stretch to the RH keys, resulting in great difficulty getting the angle of the mouthpiece right. Net result was many octave jumps/squeaks, sore neck/jaw, much frustration.
Although I'm 6' 2", I couldn't get the mouthpiece in my mouth properly without major contortions when the strap was adjusted so I could reach the RH keys. Mouthpiece was too high. Looked as if a previous owner had pulled the neck down to compensate. Net result was that to get much out of it, I had to transform myself into a contorted Quasimodo...
Mentioned this to JonF and he kindly measured his baris for me. We found that mine's a lot longer (about half a hand) in the mouthpiece tip to low F key dimension.... He suggested it muight have been designed to be played sitting.
I was sceptical, cos my bari has LH bell keys and I thought they'd be interfering with my leg. These were stoppping it from swinging properly back when I play standing. But I tried it anyway. What a difference. The bell keys sit below my leg, top of the bell rests nicely against my thigh and suddenly everything lines up and it's a pleasure to play. Tried standing from there and it back to being a tall Quasimodo again.
Is this a fiendish french plot to turn all would be bari players into standby companologists for a well know Parisian cathedral? Who knows, but without JonF's help, I'd have been queueing up for the post.
So a big thanks to JonF and remember - when life's bad in the sax world, ask yourself - is mine a sitter?
Although I'm 6' 2", I couldn't get the mouthpiece in my mouth properly without major contortions when the strap was adjusted so I could reach the RH keys. Mouthpiece was too high. Looked as if a previous owner had pulled the neck down to compensate. Net result was that to get much out of it, I had to transform myself into a contorted Quasimodo...
Mentioned this to JonF and he kindly measured his baris for me. We found that mine's a lot longer (about half a hand) in the mouthpiece tip to low F key dimension.... He suggested it muight have been designed to be played sitting.
I was sceptical, cos my bari has LH bell keys and I thought they'd be interfering with my leg. These were stoppping it from swinging properly back when I play standing. But I tried it anyway. What a difference. The bell keys sit below my leg, top of the bell rests nicely against my thigh and suddenly everything lines up and it's a pleasure to play. Tried standing from there and it back to being a tall Quasimodo again.
Is this a fiendish french plot to turn all would be bari players into standby companologists for a well know Parisian cathedral? Who knows, but without JonF's help, I'd have been queueing up for the post.
So a big thanks to JonF and remember - when life's bad in the sax world, ask yourself - is mine a sitter?