To add an alto...?

[frankb]

Well a nice new YAS275 arrived on Thursday, it played beautifully out of the box and I'm besotted with it!

First impressions - It's tiny! (I confess to checking the model number to check it wasn't a curvy sop!) I'm used to a tenor and this thing is so much smaller! It takes less air than the tenor, but doesn't feel stuffy or resistant. It plays much faster and note-bending is easier too.

I think some tunes will be better on the tenor and others on the alto. Worthwhile purchase? Oh, just definitely!

This is the second sax I've bought from NetMusicalInstruments and both transactions have been flawless. Both saxes arrived when they were supposed to, were well packed, came at the lowest price around, played well straight out of the box and came with about ?50 of extras.

I'm a happy man (and many thanks for all the help and advice!).

 

[phil_edwards]

A good day all round, eh?. Congrats, sounds like a great purchase. Busy weekend ahead, maybe?

regards, Phil

 

[frankb]

Well, I've had the alto for almost two weeks now and here's what I reckon -

• I still can't get over how small and light it is! Much more wieldy (less unwieldy!) than the tenor.
• Not stuffy, but resistant. Takes far less air. I find I get to the end of a phrase and then have to breathe out before I can breathe in!
• Very pure sounding. I find I have to work to get even a little dirt into the tone, to get the "sax" sound I'm after. It's possible, but it's something I'm going to have to work on.
• The mpc bottoms-out on the cork! Intonation is fine all the way up and down, but Lord that 4C needs shoving on!
• Much easier than the tenor to bend notes, harder than the tenor to get a decent steady tone. Long tone practice very much the order of the day.
• Much easier to play fast and jump octaves in either direction.

Bottom line - it's a very different animal! I'm really glad I've got one and I'm looking forward to learning to play it well (well, I'm looking forward to learning to play it! 😉 ), but I'm really glad I've got my tenor too.

 

[Bobby G]

Bullet point 2, Frank - the other side of that is that you can play much longer phrases, or hold reeeeeaaaaaalllllly long notes on an alto far more easily. Which is nice.

 

[jools]

The only thing I might add from my own experience is that when you intend to play more than one sax you need to practice them all on a regular basis.

Being an awkward so-and-so I've swapped and changed from soprano down to baritone over the years, and usually to the detriment of the others. I.E. when I've been playing tenor for months then go and pick up the alto, it all feels different for a while, then going to baritone it's like starting over. I guess building some time in to each weeks practice schedule to develop technique to adapt to the differences is essential. As you rightly point out, they are quite separate animals... in handling, sound, personality and expression. Is a violin like a cello? nope but they look the same.

 

[sandeha_lynch]

"Much easier to play fast and jump octaves in either direction."

Yeah, I don't think I could learn to play like Jerry Garcia on a tenor.

 

[dooce]

I have had a niggling to try an alto for a few weeks - trouble is I really don't know to what extent I would use it, given that my only outlet for playing (publicly) is my band doing predominantly R&B/soul - music which seems to lend itself far more to the sound of my Conn 10M tenor.

However, on Saturday I wandered naively into the music shop in Banbury and asked what alto's they had that I could have a blow on. Less than 15 minutes later, I walked out clutching a shiny new Jupiter......

However, the deal is that it is on 24 months finance with an option to take it back after 3 months. So if I find I really can't justify its existence, back it goes - at a cost of 23 quid a month. If I do like it, it may still go back and I will look for a better instrument - although since I got the Jupiter home I haven't stopped playing it - lovely little sax, and it feels so easy, slick and playable after the Conn. Jupiters don't seem to get too many people heaping praises on them but until I play another make, it seems superb to me. I'll probably want a bit more "bite" from it, so any suggestions for suitable mouthpieces would be welcome.