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Low Eb and C keys.

mpjbiker

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Hastings, East Sussex
Is it just me, or are these keys always wrongly placed? They seem to need to be higher and flatter, if that makes sense? The lacquer wear on all my horns show that I only really touch the upper portion of the keys. The closing of the lower D only allows a certain amount of movement, but they still seem hinged in the wrong axis. It would be difficult to experiment without major technical alterations-anybody done it, and if so, how did it work out?
 
Some saxophones are designed for larger hands and longer fingers. Hence they require an uncomfortable stretch of the little fingers of both hands. The obvious solution is to select a make and model that better fits the size of your hand and fingers. My saxophone instructor has come up with the solution of completely removing the RH thumb hook in order to give the right hand more flexibility and freedom of movement when playing.

I suppose the equivalent on bassoon would be to play without a RH "crutch" or hand support which I have done both ways, and strongly prefer the hand support. In spite of the fact that I played bassoon for a couple of quarters in college, it is not one of my stronger "doubles".

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To answer OP: there probably isn't a saxophone on earth that couldn't, with an hour of hands-on-adjustments with the player present, be more comfy and "ergonomic" for that player. The exceptions would be people who have already been through a visit where alterations like that were already made. The same is true for spring tension. If spring tension on one key is off for a player, it will alter how the whole horn feels to play.

Of course, over time, no matter what the flaws of your horn are, you will eventually make adjustments to them, and that will become your reference point for comfort.

I do a lot of sales of new saxophones by mail, and part of setting up is -- before I ever play one and get into things like venting and spring tension -- moving some keys around is done on almost all of them prior to playing. I move Eb and C on almost every saxophone I sell new by mail, so there is usually some correspondence about hand size, past experiences, etc.. The thumbhook and its position are also involved in tailoring feel to that player.

IMO every player that has not had these kinds of changes made can probably benefit from them, and in my own mail order case the changes I make could (would) be enhanced by having the player present when I'm making them.

Spring tension is in play when making these kinds of "tweaks" because how spring tension feels will change when you change the positions of the keys (this goes for changing venting as well).
 
The instrument is the instrument. The keys are where they are. Hand position makes a great difference. Dropping the elbow helps to position yhe rh pinky. No need to have fingertips on the pearls. I think I've heard it called finger overshoot.

The wear pattern in the plating on my alto tells a story. To get the rh pinky comfortable my 2nd and 3rd rh fingers are way past the pearls. A bit like a bagpiper.

Having said that some horns are more ergonomic than others. I played a Corton for years with no problems. After playing a Yani copy for a few years when I pick it up now, my lh pinky completely misses the table.
 
I move Eb and C on almost every saxophone I sell new by mail, so there is usually some correspondence about hand size, past experiences, etc.. The thumbhook and its position are also involved in tailoring feel to that player.
Are you talking about the "touch pieces" for these two note with the rollers? How do you move them if you don't mind my asking?
 
Are you talking about the "touch pieces" for these two note with the rollers? How do you move them if you don't mind my asking?

I think so. Low C and low Eb were the OP's question, as I understood. The answer is it depends on what kind of bending (I know: GASP! lol) I'm doing. If I'm changing the angle of the touches themselves, I'll likely use a soft (plastic) jawed pliers. If I'm changing the touches' position, I'll likely use finger pressure. At this point, I am more accurate with my fingers than with tools, unless I'm looking for very small changes in which case I'll likely use a very small, lightweight, plastic tipped crafts hammer (dunno the name for it, I bought it at a crafts store) or a lightweight ballpeen with something to protect the surface. At other times, on work like the modernizations a vise will be involved.

With something like the Crescent line usually it will be a combination of pliers, fingers and taps. Keys are moved on almost every single one of those, especially baris, although I think there have occasionally been some exceptions when the customer is a man with average sized hands (L sized in most nitrile gloves). As with all things, the tool depends on the use.

After I made the previous post, something occurred to me that might interest you in particular, jbt. Years ago, one of the two notorious rip-off artists whose "fails" are legendary in internet sax lore put forward the claim -- prior to his grand fall -- that the spines of all saxophones should be even and parallel to each other. That had some influence on me years ago (more than 15 years ago, but it took some time for that influence to wear off), and I think it influenced a lot of people for years. Now, I think it is total boo***t. I don't think there is a single horn on earth that, with all the keys set that way, wouldn't be better for *any player with some changes. And there are horns such as Dorfler and Jorka, some Italian makes -- and nowadays almost every PRC horn -- that was specifically not designed with that in mind.

There are a lot of largely circulated, unproblematized beliefs like that. It's a useful idea as a starting point for some makes (e.g. Mark VI), much like Emilio Lyons' saying that he starts with an unsharpened pencil tip as a beginning point for setting up keyheights (source: SAXOPHONE JOURNAL article, 20 years or so ago, I think), or the current (which I think is valid) theoretical idea that 1/3 the diameter of the tonehole could be a starting point, are useful reference points. But, those two reference points for venting are completely different; Emilio's is much more closed, overall, than the 1/3 diameter idea. Neither is particularly correct as a definitive final goal.

Feel is the ultimate measure, how the horn feels for one player in particular. How many great players of any instrument have you ever met whose instruments did not have some unusual, inventive but also downright weird, changes made to them either by the player her/himself or their favorite tech? The best player in Santa Cruz (I'll skip his name to avoid causing any problems for him) doesn't have an octave key (of any kind), and the last time I saw him we took the thumbrest for the left hand off his tenor and replaced it with a lower hand thumbhhook. So that he could look fancy playing with one hand lol. He likes it that way. He plays better than I ever will, and he wanted it, so we did it.
 
In fairness to everybody else, that player plays better than most people ever will.
 
Thank you for that thoughtful and detailed answer. You've given me a lot to think over. My inquiry was based upon the common low Eb/C touches with rollers found on alto and tenor saxes as shown in the picture below. If I understood it correctly, the question raised in the thread was in reference to the difficulty of reaching these keys for players with smaller hands and shorter fingers. The OP said for him they need to be "higher and flatter". To make these types of keys "higher" and closer to the player's hand on an alto in my view would require some major modification of the keys. Perhaps on bari saxes the key arms are long enough to permit a degree of bending. Pardon my ignorance, but I am not familiar with the term "spine". Can you define that for me?

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Key arm for spine. :) I think I understand your question/curiosity. Either key can be altered in several different directions. For example, if you bend either key upward it has a natural way it will want to bend (e.g. in a sort of clockhand arc, rather than just being "raised," if the goal was to bring the key higher vertically from the body, and in a way closer to the raised hand). If you change that (the vertical orientation), then you probably have to make a second bend to the plane of the keytouch relative to the arm it's mounted on, or equally relative to the (curved) surface of the body. For me, if I was doing that I'd probably bend vertically with fingers and then change the plane with plastic jawed pliers, and the entire time I would be concerned about accidentally offsetting the screw/roller/screw-threads relationship. There would be two hazards re the roller: causing it to bind and damaging the screw's ability to be removed (if already in. Breaking the roller would be somewhat lesser danger for me. I don't think any non-tech or new tech should play around with that on an important horn. I'm not tooting my own horn but the reason that I'm not too nervous or hesitant to do this kind of thing is largely the full replacements and "modernizations" -- things like this are in play on every single key.

The more you change the vertical position of the keytouch relative to the hand, the more likely it'll be that changing the plane of the keytouch surface will be necessary. This is kind of particularly a concern with low Eb and C because the finger sometimes goes straight downward and other times slides.

For bigger changes I might think about risers, probably marine epoxy, but I haven't done any of those in quite a while.

As far as tools and techs, eventually I think a lot of these choices become sort of rote and unconscious. It must be that way for you, with saxophones, too. I rarely think much about what tool I need to use. Habit mostly determines it. But I do think about fingers vs pliers vs tapping with a hammer of some kind, still. Sometimes I kind of force myself to because sometimes instinct is to be lazy and just use fingers (where a small hammer might be wiser, because a hammer would involve finding the right one, reaching for it, etc., and the fingers...are already on your hand lol). Small changes are definitely less likely to be overshot with the right hammer.

Surfboard making is a good alternate/similar example: at any time while working on a surfboard blank I have an option of 4 or 5 different tools, several different grades of abrasive action with each tool. I've only made 80-something boards, but it's already pretty mechanical, which tool instinct/habit will tell me to grab, and not a lot of thought goes into it.

It's neato to watch someone else work. That's a tradition in surfboard making. Part of ordering a board (in normal times) is that you get to watch the "shaper" (board maker) work. That is how I learned to make surfboards, some lessons from a friend and then paying guys to make boards so I could watch them work. I love watching masters work. There's no lost motion, they're like machines. I think watching a factory worker would be like that, because production is where technique becomes efficient and mechanical in that way.

For some reason working on saxophones is less like that, at least for me. Something to think about for me, personally, why that is, because I've got a much better mastery of working on saxophones, but I don't see myself working on saxes ever looking like what I might look like working on boards 100 more boards from now. Weird and interesting. Probably someone that worked production lines, assembling saxophones, would look more like that when working (efficient, no lost motion, a machine).
 
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Thanks for all replies-I actually have quite large hands, so to actually get a pad (of my finger) onto these keys would require a certain amount of contortion. It's not a big deal, but I'm conscious that I don't play as fluidly in keys that utilise the Eb key, despite lots of practise.
 
Thanks for all replies-I actually have quite large hands, so to actually get a pad (of my finger) onto these keys would require a certain amount of contortion. It's not a big deal, but I'm conscious that I don't play as fluidly in keys that utilise the Eb key, despite lots of practise.

You may find that a change in your Eb's spring tension will help you as well. Because the Eb staying closed on its own is important to your low notes voicing well, you can basically go as light as the setting can be without the Eb blowing open when you're playing below it (i.e. lower notes than Eb1).

If your Eb is unnecessarily stiff, it will cause your whole right hand to stumble, in part because you will find you position the whole hand differently to compensate for it (perhaps unconsciously).

But the Eb's position will also greatly influence how your whole right hand feels, for the same reasons (as will the low C, on both counts, position and spring tension).

Positionally, there are at once, in play, with both touches: (1) longitudinal and latitudinal position, (2) vertical position, (3) orientation of the surface of the keytouch itself (e.g. how canted or flat, relate to the plane of the body's surface), (4) hand position/thumbhook orientation, (5) spring tension.

Not trying to be fancy, just breaking down the elements involved.
 
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