C Melody/Tenor definition please...

[Tenorsaxer]

ok, this has been bugging me. What is a C-Melody Saxophone? IS lit like a tenor or an alto? is it big or small low or high? I know absolutely nothing about this instrument!

[Stacey]

There is really more than one sort of horn that can be called a "C-melody sax". There is the C-soprano, which is fairly rare, and is pitched 1 step higher than a "traditional" Bb soprano sax. There is supposedly a C-bass sax, pitched one step higher than a Bb bass sax, but no one seems to have ever seen one of these rumored beasts.

What you are hearing about 95% of the time is what is often called the "C-tenor" sax. When people say "C-melody", that's almost always what they mean. This type of sax is pitched one step higher than a normal Bb tenor sax. These horns, being higher than a tenor sax and lower than an alto sax, were actually made with curved necks (making them look like tenors) or with straight necks (making them look like altos). They are, as you might imagine, slightly bigger than an alto and slightly smaller than a tenor.

I own a 1919 Conn curved-neck C-melody sax, which looks like a smallish tenor.

The appeal of these saxes, which flourished in the 1920s and died out soon afterwards, was that you could pick up your sax, stand by a piano player and or singer, and play from the same sheet music, without having to transpose anything - if an F# is written, by golly you play an F#!

Many of these horns were also built like TANKS, and have held up very well over the years.

For reasons that have been much debated, these horns fell out of favor, and were pretty much out of production by about 1930, and totally out of production by about 1940. Fortunately for those of us who like them, there were about a bazillion (to use the technical term) of them produced in the 1920s, so they are in abundant supply, and not at all expensive (especially when you consider that they have been out of production since before most active sax players were born). To give you an example, I paid $350 for my 1919 horn, and I am certain that if I'd been more patient, I could have found something similar for $75 less. It was the horn I wanted, though, and I bought it.

If you should decide you want to buy a C-melody sax, though, there are two things you'll need to be aware of:
- Most ensembles won't know quite what to do with you, despite the flexibility of the instrument.
- Your horn will probably be in need of some work, even if it is mechanically sound. After 75 years or so, the thing will need an overhaul, unless you are buying one that has already been overhauled. Be aware that you will probably pay more for a good overhaul than you will pay for the horn itself.

Hope this was a helpful intro... there are a lot of much more knowledgeable people on this forum who can no doubt expand on things I've said (and correct me where I've misspoken).