So.... Why did you choose the sax?

[Torachan]

G'day all

My question is why did you (assuming you have) choose the sax as your instrument of choice?

I mean there is a mydrid of instruments out there. You could have played the oboe, bashed the drums, played a few mean riff's on the GI - TAR, busted out a few ..... well you get the picture. Sax is hardly the flavour of the month/year/decade.


.................................................. .

If there was a problem, Yo, I'll solve it
Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it

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[Kareeser]

Hey, it was all the rage when Jazz was popular, :P

I chose the sax simply because my brother did. I don't exactly know why he chose it, :P

[Torachan]

Kareeser - if you had your time again would you choose another instrument?

The sax is certainly not the cheap option for someone to just "give it a go" although that is what I am doing. Lucky you can hire them (not cheap though)

Torachan

.............................................
Me sittin round cool with my jiggy jiggy girl
Police knock my door, lick up my pal
Rough me up and I cant do a thing
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[xuanvu]

Because I love the sound of it, and whenever I hold the sax, I feel "special"... Can't describe the exact feeling...

[pknight]

I was 10 years old. I thought all of the rods and "stuff" hanging on the outside of a sax looked cool.

(I was right. A. Sax must have been related to Rube Goldberg!)

[Kareeser]

Maybe I'd play a trumpet or clarinet, but that's only because I've never played either of them.

Sax all the way, :P

[Sigmund451]

I cant sing and it, IMHO, is among the most expressive solo instrument. Also, I enjoy jazz so it was not a difficult call...even if it did take till I was pretty old to start.

[T-MAN]

Because my band teacher in the 5th grade told me that I should. I said OK. Never looked back at that clarinet. Sax just has one of the nicest, sexiest sounds of any instrument.

[twowheels]

Started in fifth grade (a loooooong time ago for me). Chose sax because (a) I heard my band director demonstrate a sax solo during a jazz-band rehearsal at the local high school, and (b) because the sax soloists in the local high school jazz band were really good. That band director was a terrific musician, educator and human being.

The most inspirational teacher I've ever had, one of the reasons I've kept music in my life.

[Super 20 Player]

Because my parents nixed the flute.

[pat_27]

I saw Bill Clinton play his sax at his inauguration ball in 1993. I have copntinuously been re-inspired when i saw Arturn Sandoval's sax player, the guys with Maynard Ferguson's band, and old verious Recordings (i.e. John Coletrane) It was people who played the saxophone who makde me want to play one, not the horn itself. Lately, I've had an itching to try a 'bone or flute.

[bruce bailey]

I had a choice of Art, Choir, Band or Business in 7th grade. My father played Clarinet and Sax when he was a kid and ordered me to play clarinet. After one year, I noticed that there were 22 clarinet players and no sax players.... no brainer as I could play first rather than 19th.

[rsclosson]

All the COOLEST people I knew in school played the Sax.

[Randall]

Ididn't choose sax because my cheapskate father nipped the trombone idea in the bud since we had a klunker alto in the attic.

I later learned trombone in spite of this, but sax turned into the love of my life.
It also helped inprove my love life...but that is not the question at hand... :wink:

[larry]

7th Grade: I wanted to learn trombone (after listening to my Dad's JJ Johnson & Warren Covington records), but the music teacher had me stretch out my right arm and then suggested alto. I was a little kid then and not much bigger now. After a year of alto, I switched to bari, schlepping this big, honking case that was as large as me and twice as heavy onto the school bus for a couple of years. Always got a seat to myself and never looked back!

[sax_appeal]

I got the oppurtunity to try one at the very beginning of seventh grade and it just felt right- it was meant to be. I pleaded with my parents to let me learn it and eventually they caved in, and I lived happily ever after (my parents have a few issues with cost, altissimo, take five, etc.)

[Vortex]

I have a feeling that it chose me, not the other way around.

[sopsax]

At 10 I wanted to play drums but didn't have the patience to start out on a practice pad -- wanted to make music right away. I could get a sound out of the flute, so flute it was, along with a regimen of classical warhorse music and dorky school band parts. The flute was terrible for my image -- in the '60s, playing a flute branded a guy as effeminate -- thank heaven I acquired a hot cheerleader girlfriend.

By my late teens, inspired by Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, I had abandoned classical music and was trying to create a more emotional, crude, jazz/rock/world sound on the flute. But you can only go down that road so far. I finally realized that only the macho, demonic, and (OK, sometimes) lyrical sax could help me express what I had to say.

Three other factors influenced my switch to sax:
1. The instrument is gorgeous, like a vintage car.
2. The tenor player in the rock-&-roll band that gigged at our high school dances looked so cool when he played. I couldn't stand the cat, but man, could he blow the horn.
3. I was knocked out by the sax passages in works by Sergei Prokofiev. (Stalin, btw, regarded the sax as decadent and Western, so Prokofiev pieces got re-scored for bass clarinet.)

I've played alto and soprano sax for over 25 years now, 13 of them professionally. I have toured and recorded but still regard myself as a student of the saxophone. Love the instrument in all its variety. An endless challenge full of continual discoveries.

[gary]

I was a trumpet/french horn player who was doing a lot more writing than playing and was never the kind of player who could leave the horn in the case for several days and then just pick it up as if nothing has happened. So I wanted an instrument I could enjoy playing but that wouldn't kill me when I picked it up after a lay-off of several days.

Since it was becoming apparant I would probably be spending my musical life writing, I also decided to have a go at woodwinds to understand better how to write for them. I started with a cheap flute (which got new life from Muramatsu for an embarrasing low cost), and then lucked into a new Selmer Mark VI alto for $250.00. Picked up a Conn soprano from Jim Riggs for $100 bucks a year later.

Although I eventually got a minor in WW performance at the master's level at UNT I never really considered myself a performer. Been playing seriously only since about three and a half or four years (burned out mind...can't count).

[sopsax]

(redundant post deleted)

[francois]

As a competent piano player, I fancied learning another instrument. The sax came because it is a wind instrument, which is a change for me after strings, and it is reasonably easy to learn. Or at least, easier than many other wind instruments.

[HC]

Orginally playing piano, parents/grandma (biggest musical incluence) wanted me to join band. I saw a picture of a girl playing clarinet in this handwriting book in 3rd or 4th grade. So for a year or two, I wanted to play clarinet. While going for registration for band, I saw a saxophone and wanted to play ath instead. So well... ended up playing it. Regrets... wanted to play Clarinet. So my freshman year, I taught myself. Now... my regrets... shoulda played piccolo. My instruments got bigger throughout my highschool days. Freshman... Alto Sax, Sophomore... Bass Clarinet, next year... Marching on Bari and playing Contra alto Clarinet in regular band. Need something small. But everyone says to learn Flute first. :x

[Ol Danl]

I originally started on flute at 10, because...., okay, I'll admit it --- I went with my parents to this event at the Jr. High where they were selling horns and actually told the guy I wanted to play the PICCOLO, because you could fit it in your pocket. There, I've said it. Well, I was 10 yrs. old, and a bonehead. Mercifully, the guy said piccolo players start on the flute first. And I was just finishing my one and only ever attempt at playing little league, where I batted "0" for the season. I did pretty well at summer band on the flute, so I kinda got into it, I guess. At 15, in high school, I had become aware that the saxophone fingering was similar, and was wanting to play something larger and louder,anyway, and had lived through all the "The flute's a girl's instrument" remarks from all the truly uninformed goofuses. So I wanted a saxophone. I knew my folks didn't have much money, but about that time I saw ( on the inside cover of a Herbie Mann album, yet) a picture of an album cover with J. Coltrane playing the soprano. Being a selfish kid, I talked my parents into buying me a new soprano. I don't think I actually told them they didn't write for sop. much in high school band parts. They didn't have any locally, or in the nearest big town (Atlanta), so my mother's sister-in-law living in Philadelphia found one in a store and they got it for $385, I think --still it was quite a bit of money in 1967. I got it for Christmas, and didn't realize it was a Mark VI until I got it. I don't think there were many companies making them right then anyway. I think my awareness of my parents' generosity was in small part a reason for my sticking with the instruments through a college music degree. Okay, I liked playing and couldn't do much else, also.

[sax_appeal]

I don't think (in hindsight) that there was anything wrong with your selfishness. Just think, if you weren't 'selfish' enough to talk your parents into getting you a sax you might never have learnt to play.

[WriterMom]

I played violin in my grade school's orchestra, but really wanted to play something in the band. Originally, my parents and I brought a flute home from the music store, but I traded it in for a clarinet a week later because my best friend was going to be playing clarinet. (Funny how something as simple as that can alter your life so much, isn't it? Playing reed instruments at that point in my life gave me so much more than playing a flute would have.) I became pretty good on the clarinet after a couple of years (as good as a sixth grader can be, LOL), and my friend quit playing. Then, the summer before junior high, I enrolled in a summer jazz band class, but they didn't use clarinets. Mom and I went down to the music store, and came away with a Yani alto that had seen better days (but still sounded good when the music store guy demo'd it for us). I jumped right in with both feet, and switched to alto for my private lessons.

Besides, there were these two brothers who played the sax in band, and I had always wanted to sound like them. :)

After that, I played both clarinet and alto sax. I quit playing after college, but came back to those instruments again a few years ago.

[Nudnik++]

I was ten years old, so I basically just chose it because it LOOKED COOL, and because saxophones have a sort of level of respect automatically achieved just by OWNING one.

I mean, if you tell someone that you play the piano, or even guitar, they'll be like, "oh, that's nice." or "cool".

But a sax is a more unusual and novel instrument, so when you tell people about it, they get very excited/interested (in my experience).


Now, these were the reasons I had when I was ten, but now I have learned to love the saxophone musically as well as aesthetically. I'm glad I chose it over anything else.

[wrb]

In the late '50s & early 60s, before the Beatles became popular, almost every rock band had a sax player. The sound was just so neat, plus the girls liked it! When I did research in the World Book Encyclopedia, I discovered there were over 500 moving parts! I had just taken apart the kitchen clock and rebuilt it to work better, so just what could I do with over 500 moving parts? When I first got the horn, I picked out the theme to Peter Gunn, and then took it apart! Do you realize that to an 11 year old kid, most of those things look the same? Anyway, I got it back together, and played it from 7th grade to well past my college years.

[Krieg]

Honestly I didn't want to take gym in middle school, so I said "stick me in band!" My band director said "here play this" and I said okay. Well, needless to say I sucked my first year. Last chair. Never won a challenge (I should have stopped but didn't want to). I practiced 10 minutes a day the whole year and half an hour each day over summer. Came back 7th grade and got first chair, but I told my director I didn't want it because I wanted to play bari instead of alto. He looked at me like he wanted to kill me, but said okay because we didn't have a bari. Since then, I could've taken first chair each year, but I've always asked to return to bari. Until this year. Now I'm lead alto.

[dolphyo]

as fate would have it i was a drummer since age eight and got my first paid gig on latin percussion at ten. played in a lot of combos with old men who use to slap me on mistakes and still get paid. around the same time two things happened and that was i developed serious asthma and a friend of my dads left a clarinet home along with other band and p.a. gear. i kinda worked around the clarinet as therapy for my asthma and later joining the school symphony. i always heard jazz on records from dads records but didn't figure on saxes till 9th grade where i bought my own conn tenor in a king case at a pawn shop and its been an affair ever since.

[GordonGekko]

My brother played it and when he quit we still owned it. When it was time for me to join band, I played the saxophone.

Thank God my brother didn't play the Tuba! :lol:

GG

[Mark5047]

When I was a kid my parents bought all of us a plastic instrument one christmas. I got a trumpet, my older brother got a clarinet my sister got a recorder and my younger brother got a saxophone. We called it a 'down-boy' because of the way it bent down. We all agreed it was the coolest thing. When it came time for 5th grade band, I told the director I wanted to play a down-boy (still didnt know what it was actually called) and he showed me one and I said "yeah, thats what I want to play"

Been playin the down-boy off and on for 35 years now.......

[DePurpereWolf]

It's gold and Shiny

......My precious....

[Mike W]

Ditto what Votex said.

[rini]

Started on violin at 6 or 7. Hated it and hated music until 14-15, then tried oboe and found it too difficult although interesting. The local music conservatory had an old Albert-system clarinet available. I started on it. Got a clarinet of my own and upgraded to a very good Selmer, started my own school band, became enormously succesful. Played also in other dance bands, clarinet and a borrowed silver plated selmer (Balanced Action?) alto.

Had a dream of having a sax of my own, my parents didn't like the idea at all.
Got my first sax, after having earned enough own money, sometimes in 1960-61, a very good Selmer Mk6 alto. And that was it.

Instead of running away from home and going to sea, I moved away and started a professional career - as a sax player.

Later found out I was a better writer than a sax player, but have been true to the sax and kept on playing. Like it, really, very much.

rini

[Brendan Muse]

My dad, who was the one who dragged me around more often, listened, back in the day. to the smooth jazz radio station and talk radio. That was it. When the time came to picking an instrument in 4th grade, I chose the sax, because it sounded the coolest on all of the smooth jazz songs and suchlike stuff. The next year, I sat next to the bari player in summer band, and got hooked. After a two week stint as 1st alto player at the beginning of the year, I got put on bari, and I never looked back.

[Deacon Blues]

Mine was fate. I was destined to play sax. :wink:

8th grade I think, I couldn't choose what instrument to play for band and by that time, all the instruments were taken except one alto. In grade 8, the band teacher rented instruments for $80 for the whole year! Nobody in my small village was dedicated to music or owned an instrument.

Funny enough, I hated the thought of playing the sax. I brought it home in disgust :shock: . The only music I really listened to in those days was R&R and I thought the sax hadn't anything to do with :oops: . When I listened to R&R then, I was strangely deaf to the sax parts.

But as I strarted learning it and finding it in R&R(and boy was there alot of it!) I became very attached to it. Playing it opened me up to new music, such as jazz(which I used to think was boring :shock: ) and my love grew! I even bought one 3 years later!

Since then, playing sax has been the greatest feeling of all. Listening to a great sax solo really moves me inside!

Life without the sax is an empty one!

[R2D2]

My daughter fell in love with the sax after she heard one during a concert we attended. During the next two years I got to love the sound of the sax just by listening her playing.

Some time back I bought her, her own sax, Yani A901 with an extra mouth piece, so we have our own and I started having a go. At first I was a source of amusement to her, but now I can get a decent sound. Got a long way to go, but I am enjoying it so far.

I'm more a late witherer than a late bloomer, but better late than never.

Like the optimist said when asked, "can you play sax" he replied, "I don't know, never tried"

Arto S

[Tharruff]

When I was 10 years old, my grandfather gave me his old Clarinet for Christmas. Later, I would find out that it was a late 1920's Selmer 'K' model Clarinet. (I still have it and is is still in good playing condition)

By the time I was 15, I was playing first Clarinet in the high school band but was beginning to think that the Clarinet was a 'nerdy' kind of a musical instrment.

About that time, the local university's jazz ensemble gave a concert at our high school and I saw the lead Alto player up on the bandstand, playing his a** off and soloing his a** off and dancing the 'Funky Chicken' while he soloed. and this guy was only 4 years older than me !!! He was an incredible musician for his age.

I asked my parents if I could get a Sax and they took me to the local music store the very next Friday night and they bought me a 1920's Martin stencil Alto (William Frank Co) for $ 65. (I still have it and is is still in good playing condition)

A couple of years later, as I started playing more, I met and became friends with the guy from the university who had inspired me to switch to Sax. I am still friends with him today. He has gone on to be a professional musician, traveling all over America and the world playing live music, recording, even appearing in movies.

I studied Engineering in college and make my living as a Mechanical Engineer though I have played in weekend bands my whole life.

After an 18 year break from the Clarinet, I got a gig in a German polka band that was SUPPOSED to be an Alto Sax book that DOUBLED Clarinet. They lied...I think that 70 % of the songs in that book were Clarinet parts. I passed the audition and spent 3 years polishing up my horribly rusty Clarinet chops.

Now after moving far away from my long time residence I am down to only playing once a week in a community band...mostly playing Tenor Sax. I'll hook up with another band again, I'm sure...just haven't met the right people yet.

I have upgraded all of my horns over the years and normally play a Mark VI Alto, a Balanced Action Tenor, and a Series 9 Clarinet.

I once owned a Low A Baritone Sax AND A BASS Sax though I sold them when I had a serious illness. I wish that I could have kept them...oh well...

[IBSmiester]

Late in grade 8 I asked my band teacher at the time if I could ever get into the jazz band with clarinet, and he said no, but offered me the chance to play tenor. I only did it originally to get into the jazz band, but now, I can't imagine my world without it.

[michaelbaird]

I have no idea. I just wanted to be in the band and picked out a tenor

[Bernards20040]

I have always loved the sound :)
and now im learining to make it
In the right hands it is the most emotive of instuments. :( :) :cry: :)
One day i hope to make mine sing

[tubbycub]

HA! As expected, nobody dares to admit that he/she picked the sax because of Kenny G :D :D :D

[Razzy]

My brother gave it up. It was there. So, yes :) Then he picked up drums and now we play in a quartet together.

[Brendan Muse]

HA! As expected, nobody dares to admit that he/she picked the sax because of Kenny G :D :D :D

Hello, my name is Brendan Muse, and I took up the sax because of Kenny G.

...

Please don't kill me. :)

[pknight]

Before starting band at age 10, too many years ago to count, I thought the sax looked cool. All the keys and rods hanging all over it just appealed to me. I don't even know if I knew what a sax sounded like at the time.

[Grey]

I started playing alto in grade 5, I think? Anyways, it was just sort of there, and so I started playing it... Funny, because it's only a few years ago for me and I can't remember much and for you guys its 30 or 40 years ago and you guys remember it perfectly.

For tenor, a few things propelled me to try it out. First, my sax idol (just graduated from grade 12 this year) played a screaming tenor, and I thought it looked really cool. I also wanted to be just like him. Second, my alto sound didn't really fit with my rock band, they really wanted me to switch to tenor. Third, our school jazz band needed a lead tenor player, as the lead tenor player (my idol) was leaving. So the school had a really nice SML tenor sax and I tried it out. I don't even think the school knew how good this sax was! My music teacher said it was a donation to the school. It was the best vintage tenor I've ever tried. I practiced every day for hours, and only a few months later I got a brand new Selmer Series III tenor! This is the best horn I've ever tried, hands down. Unfortunately, soon after I got the Selmer, the SML mysteriously went missing from the school :( so I couldn't compare them. Now I play tenor in jazz band, jazz combo and my rock band, and alto in the concert band.

[Crazyeyes11]

my grandpa gave me his 40 year old sax so i started playing it and ive been playing for 3 years

i knew the sound of the sax and i wanted to play it so i took band and learnt now band here is useless

[Keith Ridenhour]

I got kicked in the lip and couldn't play a Community College concert on Trpt which was the straw that broke this camels back. Years and years of trying and not getting better on Trpt so after 2 years of college that was it. After 3 days I was going crazy. I had practiced every day (almost) for 12 years on trpt and I missed playing an instrument. Rented an alto, took some lessons and within two years was lead alto in the college jazz band. I found that playing alto for 3 hours was easiser than trpt for 30 minutes and it was fun to actually get better. I do have regrets leaving music full time in 1980. What iffff??? K

[Tim Price]

Got an alto..in 8th grade. Never put it down.
As I got into it more, I never knew, how MUCH the intoxicating and outstanding cinematic view, this piece of metal would take me to.
A journey that never ends....
An act of mercy at times, with sound pictures on Bird Wings and Blue Tranes.
A lifetime of secret disciplines/cool revelations.
A mist of sound from the 8th grade on....a love affair still raging with dreams.

[TenTenTooter]

Back in 6th grade I wanted to play Tuba, but the director told me he didn't have one. My grandpa played alto, so I figured Sax was the next best thing. 2 years later while exploring the instrument room I found a Tuba and started complaining to the director. The get me to shut up, he handed me a Bari and told me it was better than Tuba. Been playing it ever since (might I add, I did play Tuba for several months in H/S, Bari is much better IMO).

[Ralph Grant]

In my 5th grade mentality about 25 years ago I wanted the sax because it was cool looking and I loved the sound.

However, because of the price, this was the sale that I put on my dad.

1. In my hands, the trumpet sounds like a dying goose.
2. My sister plays the clarinet and we could do duets together. (To this day we have never played together).
3. Dad, do you really want me beating the drums all night?
4. Flutes are for girls.
5. If I quit you could hang it on the wall with a plant in it!
6. I promised to stop my damn incessant whistling around the house!
7. I played saxophone music on our stero for 3 weeks until I got it.

Unfortunately for mom and dad, it took 2 years of honking out London Bridge and scales before I played anything worth listening too. It took another 5 years before I could sound like that music I played on my stereo for 3 weeks to get the thing.

After all of that, they are either saints or deaf.

However, to this day it is the only elective class in public school that I use every single day other than typing! Woodworking is a close 3rd.

[Crazyeyes11]

flutes are for girls ahaha it is so tru

yet ive seen guys who play the flute

[BlueNote]

I honestly don't remember why I chose to play the saxophone, but am I sure happy I chose it :). I guess I liked the sound of it and most importantly it looked cool. I first started playing music in the middle of 8th grade when I joined my middle school's Beginning Band. Now that I think about it, we played the same 2 songs the entire semester. I was sooo sick of those songs by the end. Then we performed it in concert where of course we were all super nervous. The house lights weren't even off!

Anyways, about how I got the saxophone. I just remember going to the local music (which I still go to every once in a while if I need reeds) store with my parents to look for a beginner saxophone. They took the advice of the guy who helped us look for one, and we ended up renting a Vito alto. It had that airbrush look to it, but the unadjustable thumb rest got to be a nuissance after a while. The guy helping us fortunately played saxophone so he played it some in one of the empty practice rooms. I just remember having this fear of it being really loud. It wasn't that bad once he started playing.

So I was on that for another year or so before I found myself a private teacher who recommended a different brand, Antigua Winds (he was an Antigua Winds player). We ended up renting that until maybe 2 years ago when we just decided to buy it. It was one of those rent-to-own deals. I continued to play it through freshman year of high school in the beginning jazz band (the first year it started) and the concert/pep band. Sophomore year I played it strictly in band.

The summer before sophomore year started I tried out a TENOR sax because I wanted to play it after listening to a couple inspiring recordings. One of them was a CD with Frank Wess and the Count Basie Orchestra and another CD was Stan Getz which included his rendition of the Billy Strayhorn ballad, "Blood Count".

Anyways, I could go on and on about this, but you get the picture. I skyrocketed sophomore year and ever since then I have been moving quickly.

[StepOnIt]

Allow me to bore you all with my instrumental history.

I've been playing piano since I was 5 years old. When I hit middle school I thought "hmm, band, why not!?" So my mom told the teacher she wanted me on flute, but my first choices were trombone, tenor sax, or drums ( yes, in that order ). My mom said the only wind instrument I have is a little tribal flute you play holding downward.

So naturally they gave me a clarinet.
I didn't even know what a clarinet was before then.

Two years of playing the clarinet... AND NEVER GETTING ANY BETTER AT IT.
UGH.

So high school came along, and I was informed that they didn't have any more school clarinets ( i didn't have one of my own ). Oh darn. So I agreed to learn the bassoon.
Over the summer a senior at the school taught me bassoon. But he couldn't squeeze enough lessons into the summer break coz he had stuff to do, and the bassoon was getting REALLY difficult for me.

So the first day of school, my mom said, "What are we going to do, you can't play that bassoon!" She looks around and hands me my sister's alto sax ( she was playing it the previous year in 4th grade but ended up not-wanting to play it anymore ) and says, "Hear, maybe you can use this temporarily..."

I've been playing it for 3 years ever since :D

Hurrah for sax histories!

[Razzy]

Bluenote, similar to you, I began playing tenor in my sophomore year of high school, since I auditioned for my high school's jazz band on bari but was asked to play the 2nd tenor chair for 10th grade. Since the summer before my junior year (or 3 years ago), my abilities have increased a great deal. Prior to that though, I had been playing since 5th grade, on alto for three years, and on bari for two. Now I play lots of bari and alto, very little tenor, but do it when I'm called to do so, and soprano when needed. I picked up soprano in my senior year of high school to start my school's saxophone quartet, which I'm happy to hear is thriving in my absence :)

[BlueNote]

Oh and sophomore year is when I started listening to jazz seriously. Now it's all I listen to pretty much.

I wrote up a list when I was bored a while back of all the ensembles I have been in since freshman year of high school. It ended up being 24. Jazz band 1, jazz band 2, symphonic band (sophomore year), wind ensemble (junior/senior year), marching band, vocal jazz ensemble, jazz quartet, and jazz duo were the only ones that I had in school. Everything else I found myself. :D

[StepOnIt]

I haven't played any other sax other than alto...
Tenor was my very first choice, there is a school bari that gets passed around our section alot ( they love it too much to share :( ), and I've just... never tried out a soprano.

My entire section describes the soprano sax as the "member of the family you don't want to talk about" XD!!

[BlueNote]

I also forgot to mention I also picked up on jazz piano, clarinet, and a little on soprano sax.

[jazaddict]

I didn't choose sax. I chose trombone.

In 4th grade I told my Mom I liked the curvy gold one; couldnt remember what it was called. When she brought the case containing the rented instrument home I remember thinking "Hmmmm....doesn't look like a big enough case."
When I opened it I saw a brand new,VERY shiny bundy; the pearl keys won me over.

[SamL01]

I chose the sax because Bill Clinton played one.

[Harri Rautiainen]

I started with a single-reed instrument because it was there.
As a 14 year old school kid I got a summer job for a couple of weeks. My buddy had bought a clarinet but could not teach himself to play it. I used my earnings to buy it from him. I still have it, but it is no more playable (if it ever was). Yes, I played harmonica and Melodica earlier, but my clarinet was a real instrument.

Two years later we wanted to start a jazz band in the school. So, there was peer pressure for me to get a sax. I bought an Amati tenor sax which I still have, but not playable.

[Saxmusiclover]

I play clarinet in the church choir but can't be heard over the ampliified guitars and keyboard so I got myself a sax. Now no problemo (being heard).

[Mick Scott]

When I made the transition from primary school to middle school (grade 6), the trend was for a lot of students to pick an instrument to learn. Saxophones were kinda cool at the time given that the Simpsons (ala Bleeding Gums and Lisa) had just come into mass popularity. So I chose sax.

I got given a BundyII (hired) alto and was shoved into the band, unable to play or read music. I remember just memorising how to play parts from other students, and pretending to read my music while playing. Luckily the most complex tune we did was 'C Jam Blues' :D .

I was hooked up with this really cool old teacher, now deceased, and he soon had me playing tenor (BundyII :)), claiming it was the king of the saxophones. This guy was a complete jazz cat, so I was introduced to Rollins, Coltrane etc really early, and put onto improv through Aebersolds really early. Bought my first tenor, a Century in '96, which is still my only horn. They cop a lot of sh**, but are pretty much Selmer knock-offs and blow excellent I think (I don't know about the newer ones).

Played in school bands, did the whole 'solo performance' subject thing in senior year in order to study jazz at university. Had a really bad year with a new music teacher at school who hated jazz. On my first assessed performance, when my piece came to the solo section, she yell out from the judges panel "what are you playing now? where's this on the music you've given us?" ...total moron. I got so depressed I quit sax and threw away all plans to study it at uni. I've just picked it up again 5 years later and feel so refreshed, matured and motivated to really study improvisation on a deeper level than ever.

[SaxPlayer1004]

In 4th grade, my cousins had a clarinet and an alto sax, so when the band signup thing came out, I knew I wanted to do it, so I wrote down Bassoon, alto sax, clarinet. The school had sold their bassoon a couple years back, and the alto section wasn't full yet so there I was. Then when the horn needed a couple pads replaced a few years later, I got my tenor. I was hooked, and here I am, a sax junky. Amazing our lives or picked out by chance. Just imagine if I was a bassoonist, "Thinks that make you go, gluuhhhh"

[Doremifaman]

Came back home from school one day when I was 9 (I am now 27) and I heard one of the best musical sound coming out from a TV commercial. Found out that same day that it was the saxophone. Never wanted anything else after that.

Cheers!

[arsenic87]

When I was in 6th grade, after our mandatory 3 months on tonettes, we had to pick an instrument. I wanted a sax, like Ace Cannon(had him on an 8track). Well, to play sax you had to buy it at the school instrument ripoff night. My parents did not want to spend the money they didn't have, so I ended up playing bass clarinet, the only thing we had to buy were reeds. Well I drug that thing back and forth to school all through jr high. When I was freshmen, my Dad bought me a Conn tenor. I got me the Rubank elementary method and learned how to play. When it came time for tryouts for next years bands,(our school had three) I was allowed to try out on tenor, and made first chair in the last band, jr year was in the 2nd band and sr year in the top band. Probabaly would have been 1st chair, but due to politics, the 1st chair went to the student council president.
So I think my Dad and Ace Cannon were my inspirations to play the saxophone.

[Billyfish]

In the 4th grade I entered band. I guess the decision to play sax was somewhat guided by my uncle playing. In public school, I got the worst musical education that the overburdened tax payers could provide. In May of 1968, I closed the case on my 1958 Alto Connestellation and said never again. A few years later, I sold the horn and the proceedes went towards a motorcycle purchase.

About 3 1/2 years ago, I started dating a wonderful woman who loved music. She sings soprano (yes, she's a diva), plays piano and has a degree in music.
I bought a cheap recorder. My previous musical experiance came back, and so did the itch to play sax again. My girl, now my wife, said yeah, I should go for it. So, in church, I made the decision to call the local music shop. I did'nt even know it existed. I walked in, saw a Selmer-Bundy II tenor, haggled a bit and $350.00 later, I walked out with it, a buncha beginers music and 2 mpcs (one of which was a Rascher) and all the other usual goodies. I went to conquer the sax-o-phoning world.

So. now, I'm making a really decent sound with a Conn 10M (Otto Link 7*) and Amati 73PQ alto (Refaced Geo. M. Bundy #4), and having a ton of fun. I must adnmit that I have a really great sax teacher who flushed out all the crap outa my head that I previously learned and replaced it with solid musicianship and methodology.