Steve St.Laurent
01-14-2004, 01:03 AM
I posted this in the beginners forum as well but thought I might get some soprano specific advice here.
I'm hoping I can get some help here. First a little background on me. When I was a kid I was a pretty accomplished musician. I took to it naturally. By the time I was in high school I could play every wind instrument with the exception of flute, oboe, and trombone with bassoon and sax being my specialties. I solo'd with the Oklahoma City Symphony when I was 14 and made 1st chair in every honor band I ever tried out for except my first one (where I got 3rd chair) - all that was on bassoon. I picked up sax at a band camp when they needed an additional tenor for the stage band and there wasn't anyone available. I learned tenor in 4 days (length of the band camp) and received the directors award at the concert (not because I was the best OBVIOUSLY but because of how much I had learned in 4 days). I picked up soprano for kicks one day and was able to play it easily and fell in love - played it regularly in our stage band after that. I then had a falling out with my band director when I was 17 and put my horns away and never picked up again :( - stupidest thing I've done in my entire life.
Fast forward 10 years and I was missing having music in my life. I really enjoyed sax more than any other instrument I could play and wanted to get back into it. I tossed around for a while whether to get a tenor (for the versatility) or a soprano (because I enjoyed it the most). After thinking about it for a while decided to get a soprano. I found a King Marigaux (s/n 25700) which seemed to be a very good quality horn used in a local shop and bought it. Now for the hard part. My fingers still worked well, I knew all the fingerings still, could read the music no problem, my ears still worked great - but my tongue and my embouchre obviously are horrible. The sound coming out of the horn was absolutely painful to listen to. I tried for about 2 months and just couldn't take the pain and really wasn't seeing any progress.
Here we are another 6 years down the road and I still miss music. I'd love to play the soprano again but am not sure if I have it in me. Any advice on what to do? How do I get started again? Any exercises that I could do to get in shape, etc? I can get most of the notes out (up to high C #) - just poor tonal quality. I have an SML R4 mouthpiece and am using 2 1/2 reeds. I really didn't think it was going to be this hard to pick it up as it was so easy when I was a kid. Now I realize I probably made a mistake trying to jump right to soprano and should have started with a tenor but I don't have the money to purchase another horn and think I have a good quality horn that I got for a good price. Maybe part of the problem is that the horn is out of whack and I need to get it tuned?
Any help would be greatly appreciated - I would love to have music in my life again. I'm considering selling the soprano and buying an instrument that I've never played before so that it wouldn't be so frustrating but think I'd be happiest if I could play the soprano again. Thanks in advance.
I'm hoping I can get some help here. First a little background on me. When I was a kid I was a pretty accomplished musician. I took to it naturally. By the time I was in high school I could play every wind instrument with the exception of flute, oboe, and trombone with bassoon and sax being my specialties. I solo'd with the Oklahoma City Symphony when I was 14 and made 1st chair in every honor band I ever tried out for except my first one (where I got 3rd chair) - all that was on bassoon. I picked up sax at a band camp when they needed an additional tenor for the stage band and there wasn't anyone available. I learned tenor in 4 days (length of the band camp) and received the directors award at the concert (not because I was the best OBVIOUSLY but because of how much I had learned in 4 days). I picked up soprano for kicks one day and was able to play it easily and fell in love - played it regularly in our stage band after that. I then had a falling out with my band director when I was 17 and put my horns away and never picked up again :( - stupidest thing I've done in my entire life.
Fast forward 10 years and I was missing having music in my life. I really enjoyed sax more than any other instrument I could play and wanted to get back into it. I tossed around for a while whether to get a tenor (for the versatility) or a soprano (because I enjoyed it the most). After thinking about it for a while decided to get a soprano. I found a King Marigaux (s/n 25700) which seemed to be a very good quality horn used in a local shop and bought it. Now for the hard part. My fingers still worked well, I knew all the fingerings still, could read the music no problem, my ears still worked great - but my tongue and my embouchre obviously are horrible. The sound coming out of the horn was absolutely painful to listen to. I tried for about 2 months and just couldn't take the pain and really wasn't seeing any progress.
Here we are another 6 years down the road and I still miss music. I'd love to play the soprano again but am not sure if I have it in me. Any advice on what to do? How do I get started again? Any exercises that I could do to get in shape, etc? I can get most of the notes out (up to high C #) - just poor tonal quality. I have an SML R4 mouthpiece and am using 2 1/2 reeds. I really didn't think it was going to be this hard to pick it up as it was so easy when I was a kid. Now I realize I probably made a mistake trying to jump right to soprano and should have started with a tenor but I don't have the money to purchase another horn and think I have a good quality horn that I got for a good price. Maybe part of the problem is that the horn is out of whack and I need to get it tuned?
Any help would be greatly appreciated - I would love to have music in my life again. I'm considering selling the soprano and buying an instrument that I've never played before so that it wouldn't be so frustrating but think I'd be happiest if I could play the soprano again. Thanks in advance.