wood sax
ray...@comcast.net
Anyone heard of any sax made of wood?
rhysonsax
I've got a leaflet about a 1985 book on "The Buffet Crampon Collection:
The story of the saxophones and the woodwinds preserved in a musical
instrument factory through the period from 1850 to the present day" by
William McBride (ISBN 2-905252-0104).
The leaflet has a picture of "A Wooden soprano saxophone circa 1890".
It's a good picture and definitely not a Tarogato but a soprano with
rather old fashioned keywork. It seems to be of dark wood and have
fairly thick walls as you can tell from the neck area where it is
turned down to receive the mouthpiece.
I would imagine that a soprano and sopranino would the only sizes that
it is feasible to make in wood, but if Paraschos can make wooden tenor
and alto necks (http://www.paraschos.gr/pwsite/necks.htm), then maybe
anything is possible !
A friend of mine wants to make a wooden tenor, purely for show rather
than playing, but I just can't see him doing it.
Rhys
rhysonsax
I've got a one-page leaflet to a 1985 book "The Buffet Crampon
Collection: The story of the saxophones and woodwinds preserved in a
musical instrument factory through the period from 1850 to the present
day". It's by William McBride on Prestige Books and is ISBN
2-905252-01-4.
The leaflet has a large photo of a "Wooden soprano saxophone circa
1890". It's definitely NOT a tarogato and has old fashioned saxophone
keywork (metal instead of pearls on finger buttons, keyed possibly to
high E). It looks like it is made of dark wood with a metal rim to the
bell and a fairly thick wall. The top narrows down to fit a saxophone
(not a clarinet-type) mouthpiece.
I would imagine that only soprano and sopranino (straight-bodied) saxes
would be possible to produce in wood, but anything may be possible when
Paraschos can produce curved sax necks (see
http://www.paraschos.gr/pwsite/necks.htm ).
A friend of mine has talked about making a wooden tenor sax, for show
rather than for playing, but I doubt that he will ever get round to
trying.
If you could make/find a wooden sax, the perfect way to top it off
would be with a wooden mouthpiece (and ligature) like the excellent
Lebayle ones that I have on soprano, alto and tenor.
All the best
Rhys
ray...@comcast.net
last night and realized there is no reason to make a whole tenor out of
wood. The main body can be wood but attach a standard neck and bell and I'm
sure the sound would be "woody". In fact, we could use a wooden mouthpiece
as well.
Ray
"rhysonsax" <rhys...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1135692563.1...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
ray...@comcast.net
about the wood necks. They look beautiful and certainly the folks playing
them lend credibility. The Tarogato is an instrument I was unfamiliar with.
I would love to hear it played but this sound bite by Peter Brotzman is a
bit dense: http://www.shef.ac.uk/misc/rec/ps/efi/labels/fmp/afmp2401.aiff
I'm continuing the search for your wooden soprano.
Ray
"rhysonsax" <rhys...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:1135701759....@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
rhysonsax
rhysonsax
left a reply it didn't post for hours and the same happened second time
too !
If you would like, I could scan and email you the leaflet with the
photo of the wooden soprano sax.
Would there be any problems with differential expansion if you tried
fitting a wooden body to a metal bell ?
One other thought is that the tube of a saxophone is supposed not to be
perfectly round or perfectly conical , but rather squashed. I don't
know by how much and whether someone could machine this. I've got an
interesting video by Selmer on making saxophones and it describes the
"parabolic" curve. I think that you can see by looking down the bore
of a sax that it isn't a simple cone at all.
All the best - and if you do make a wooden sax I would love to hear
more about it.
Rhys
Afoklala
> Well, your info has led me on a very interesting journey. I didn't know
> about the wood necks. They look beautiful and certainly the folks playing
> them lend credibility. The Tarogato is an instrument I was unfamiliar with.
> I would love to hear it played but this sound bite by Peter Brotzman is a
> bit dense: http://www.shef.ac.uk/misc/rec/ps/efi/labels/fmp/afmp2401.aiff
> I'm continuing the search for your wooden soprano.
> Ray
>
If you're interested in the tárogáto then Peter Brotzman is a bit off the
wall - he's an experimental improvisor who also plays all saxes, bagpipe
and whatever he can find to make noise.
The tárogáto is, however, an instrument that belongs to the Hungarian and
Roumanian folk tradition (in Roumania, it's called taragot). So google on
that and I'm sure you'll find some nice sound samples, e.g. on
http://www.passiondiscs.co.uk/e_pages/romanian_e/dumi_ecd-160.htm
--
Jan Willem from Odijk, Netherlands
e-mail in From-field is wrong, real e-mail is:
jw point van point dormolen on hccnet point nl
(change point into dot, on into at)
And then there's this:
at least I thought I was dancing, 'til somebody stepped on my hand.
Toby
<ray...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:BpWdnb2RRad...@comcast.com...
> Thanks for the info, I'll take a look. I was thinking about it some more
> last night and realized there is no reason to make a whole tenor out of
> wood. The main body can be wood but attach a standard neck and bell and
> I'm sure the sound would be "woody". In fact, we could use a wooden
> mouthpiece as well.
> Ray
The sound will not be any more "woody" than a wooden clarinet sounds more
woody than a good metal clarinet. The main reason that saxes are not made of
wood is that it would be next to impossible to find wood good enough and
with enough girth to make such a large bore. It would certainly crack, and
weigh a ton due to the necessary wall thickness. The only wooden instrument
of a commensurate bore size was the serpent, which was fashioned from two
carved halves secured by leather. It didn't have to support all that
keywork, among other things.
Toby
Toby
The only two bore shapes that make sense musically are the cone and the
cylinder--only they will allow true octaves. There are some deviations due
to inevitable problems when you try to convert these shapes to musical
instruments (such as cutting of the top of the cone so that you have a place
for the mouthpiece and the extra compliance introduced by the necessity for
tone holes). These are compensated for by slightly changing the semi-angle
of the cone in various places, but overall the sax is quite definitely a
cone and not a parabola.
Toby
rhysonsax
I went back to watch my video again "Selmer Saxophones - the Tradition
Continues" - I had mis-remembered the exact words, so here are some
highlights from the commentary:
"Adolphe Sax's original patent referred to a "parabolic cone"." the
video then illustrates how a parabola can be formed by cutting into a
cone parallel to the axis.
"On the interior walls of original Adolphe saxophones the side
containing the tone holes and the side directly opposite are not
straight lines but gradually expand outwards into a parabolic curve:
the other two sides are straight lines forming a cone."
"If you cut an original Adolphe saxophone at the top it would be a
perfect circle, but a more eliptical shape further down the bore. At
the C natural, A natural and E natural tone holes the wall protrudes
slightly, providing yet another parabolic curve."
"Today's saxophones no longer have a parabolic curve, but are a cone."
Presumably in Adolphe's day all the main tone hole were in a straight
line, but the complexity of his bore design is hard to believe if a
basic cone shape works better. I wonder when the more straightforward
design took over and how much of a difference there is.
All the best
Rhys
Toby
Thanks Rhys, for taking the time to transcribe that.
It makes me wonder, since there is no obvious reason to change the cross
section of the bore--making it more elliptical as you progress down.
Essentially there is no reason that a bore has to be circular, except that
it is structurally best, especially with thin walls like that of the sax.
Deviations from the circular would weaken the horn, and lower the natural
resonances of the metal so that it might couple with and vibrate at playing
frequencies--not something desirable generally.
It shouldn't make much difference acoustically--essentially it is the volume
at any given point in the bore and how it relates to the volumes to either
side of it that determine the response and tuning--not the shape. There are,
for instance, square organ pipes, which sound suspiciously like round organ
pipes...
Another puzzling line is that about the wall protruding slightly at the A, C
and E tone holes. Local bore irregularities like this could hardly be
referred to as "another parabolic curve". All manufacturers adjust the bore
locally to compensate for deviations introduced into the ideal cone by the
addition of tone holes, the effects of end corrections due to the smaller
size and placement of tone holes at right angles to the cone, the truncation
of the cone at the apex, the curve of the bow and other factors. Perhaps
Sax's "parabolic curve" was his way of dealing with these factors. It could
be done the same by local changes in the bore diameter in circular
cross-section, which is what everyone does these days.
I have a number of shakuhachi flutes, in which the bore is handformed. Some
of them have very elliptical bore shapes, or shapes that change from
circular to elliptical. It doesn't seem to make much difference practically
at all.
Toby