support Tutorials CDs PPT mouthpieces

Miscellaneous Xaphoon and bamboo sax

half diminished

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,293
Locality
Buckinghamshire
Anyone using either? I'm looking for something portable I can easily take with me in the car - its not practical to take the tenor or even the sop.

Thought it would help with sight reading, timing and getting a feel for scales - maybe even learning chord progressions and new tunes. I know the fingering is slightly different.

I'd be interested in the Bb versions.
 
Don't know anything about these, but my son is going on a weeks camping to a Scottish Island with the school and is taking with him an Irish Whistle (or penny whistle if you prefer). It costs, er, pennies, well, only a few quid and the fingering is similar to the sax. I paid £12.50 from Ebay and got one complete with a CD and music book. He uses it a lot and is good for sight reading.
 
I've got one in C and one in Bb - I find the fingering very difficult. I had no problems with either the alto or tenor sax. But I'm soon off to Qatar to work for a couple of years so I'll be taking the xaphoon along - maybe I'll get the hang of it.

Dave Mac
 
Curly Sop or a Soprillo will do the trick in the car.

I recon you'd get a straight sop in their without any probs, but I guess it largely depends on the car size.
 
Curly Sop or a Soprillo will do the trick in the car.

I recon you'd get a straight sop in their without any probs, but I guess it largely depends on the car size.

I do have a R&C saxello but I'm not keen to leave such an expensive piece of kit in the car, nor can I carry it around easily. I guess I was just looking at these and hoping they were a cheap and highly portable alternative.
 
I've got one in C and one in Bb - I find the fingering very difficult. I had no problems with either the alto or tenor sax. But I'm soon off to Qatar to work for a couple of years so I'll be taking the xaphoon along - maybe I'll get the hang of it.

Dave Mac

Why do you find the fingering so difficult?
 
1/2 Dim: For all the reasons you suggest I bought a sopranini xaphoon type thing from sax.co.uk as the cheapest way to try them out. Waste of space for that, fingering different and my fingers seem too big (oh, and two left feet.....). Good as a party trick to hand it around, share spit and see who can get a sound out of it. Otherwise useless (to me). I ended up with a harmonica - cheaper, fits in your pocket, and good fun when there's nothing else to play. Not bad for chord progressions etc, but similarly useless for the rest of the stuff you mention- most of my harmonica repertoire is completely different from my sax stuff! But I do take it everywhere and like to noodle away in quiet corners/on beaches/wherever. Harp tabs music widely available foc on the www. I regularly give harmonica away to mates kids if they show an interest and have to buy another myself.
 
PS i recently bought a curly sop from ww&b for the same reason, but my sound is still too excruciating to dare to take it anywhere other than home, alone, with the doors and windows shut and hope the neighbours are out.
 
Why do you find the fingering so difficult?

I think I find the fingering difficult because the holes are so unevenly spaced. A couple of holes demand a considerable stretch and a couple are so close together that my fingers usually overlap - causing leaks. That's my experience anyway.

Dave Mac
 
I think I find the fingering difficult because the holes are so unevenly spaced. A couple of holes demand a considerable stretch and a couple are so close together that my fingers usually overlap - causing leaks. That's my experience anyway.

Dave Mac


I've got a couple Bb, C, D and Clarke. Don't have that problem on any of them, but perhaps it's cos I have big hands.. Where I do have a problem is that you need to make sure all the music's in the same key - say C, otherwise you're effectively learning new fingering for every whistle... And I can never remember the octave changes. Good for fine breath control, but way different from a sax...
 
Anyone using either? I'm looking for something portable I can easily take with me in the car - its not practical to take the tenor or even the sop.

Thought it would help with sight reading, timing and getting a feel for scales - maybe even learning chord progressions and new tunes. I know the fingering is slightly different.

I'd be interested in the Bb versions.

I too have been looking for something portable that i can practice such things at work and late in the evenings and not disturb anyone so i have just bought this http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280323986150

I is just a bit of fun but being able to just pick it up and doodle will be great.

mamos
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I would like to have a go at writing songs whilst on holiday. But i do not have a good enough ear to do it purely in my head.

Question. What small portable instrument can i put in my suitcase that I can play to hear what i have composed.

I have thought of a recorder but the compass is limited, maybe a tenor. Guitar? too big.

Any ideas would be appreciated
 
Clarinet?

You can pick them up pretty cheap and they pack down small

Or a flute

mamos
 
How about a Melodica?

Anyone used one? can I play chords on it?

I think it needs to be a non transposing instrument.
 
If you are willing to abandon musical taste completely, what is wrong (on second thoughts that should read 'right') with the Stylophone?

Please confine your answers to less than five hundred words.
 
If you are willing to abandon musical taste completely, what is wrong (on second thoughts that should read 'right') with the Stylophone?

Please confine your answers to less than five hundred words.

When you wake you should take time to reflect. Have a coffee, take the medication and THEN don't bother replying if this is all you can say! Hows the back? :w00t:

Bought the wife one of this last crimbo. Remember it fondly from Space Oddity and my youth but it's hardly going to help me now is it!

Some of you have been very helpful and others not so.

You know who you are.......... >:)
 
sorry HD, I may have hi-jack your post here. I think the old one may be replying to my post and not your original.

Thanks Old Git. I did think of that but I have this vision of me sitting on a hotel balcony with pencil in the teeth pouring over my music wondering whether to change that note up or down a semitone and then playing it, causing the sound of sweet music to waft across the sea breeze.

I cannot see this with a stylophone!!!!!
 
sorry HD, I may have hi-jack your post here. I think the old one may be replying to my post and not your original.

Thanks Old Git. I did think of that but I have this vision of me sitting on a hotel balcony with pencil in the teeth pouring over my music wondering whether to change that note up or down a semitone and then playing it, causing the sound of sweet music to waft across the sea breeze.

I cannot see this with a stylophone!!!!!

Yeh so he's no help to you either! >:)
 
He's old poor thing. He can't help it.

I think he plays the banjo as well.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom