curved soprano: better playing position for left wrist??

[sax0nerd]

hi all:

for 10+ years i have owned a yamaha yss-675 soprano saxophone. up until july of 2003, it might have gotten 10-15 hours of use. in july i was asked to join a saxophone quartet, and play soprano.

i july, i began to do most of my practicing on the soprano. i was averaging 12-15 hours a week, which i know really isn't that much, but with a high school band gig, a family and a private studio of 13 students, i was feeling pretty good about the amount of time and the progress i was making.

in september, i began to noticed a nagging pain in my wrist that seemdd to intensify on days after i played a lot of saxophone. in december the pain became pretty intense, complete with radiating pain to my elbow, and some night tingling. in mid december i saw a hand specialist who recommended that i quit playing saxophone for a while, quit tennis for a while and scale back my computer use and evaluate the ergonomics of my seating postition at the 'puter. with the holidays and such, this was not so much of a problem to stop all of these activities....

....by early january, i was feeling better! i resumed tennis and moderate computer use with no problems. on about jan 5 i resumed practicing, but mostly alto and tenor for an upcoming gig. and voila!! no problems....

.....until we started to gear the quartet up again, and i resumed my soprano playing. i am now convinced that the left hand playing position for the straight soprano for me, with the left wrist cocked slightly back towards my chest is the source of my pain. fyi, i use the curved neck for my 675....

so i am wondering...

1. has anyone here switched to a curvy, solely for wrist/hand position/ergonomics??

2. if so did the curvy playing postition alleviate any of your discomfort? if no-one has experience here, feel free to jump in and conjecture...

3. how do the yana 991, 992 curvies stack up playing-wise with the cannonball and the antigua curvies. i know i've seen some comparos on other threads... the 993 curvy looks so cool, but it's out of the price range.
and buscher and conn afficianados... well i'm not exactly a vintage horn guy.... :wink:

4. i know the 675 is not a favorite of most soprano players, but i really love mine! i am used to the tuning eccentricites (there really aren't too many, actually) and i love the homogenaeity of the sound. how do the yanas compare in this regard? and while i really haven't had much time with this horn even though i've owned it for 10+ years, i am a prototypical old dog who has difficulty with new tricks...how do the yanas stack up with the 675 in the area of tone and intonation?

5. i was thinking about ordering a yana from wwbw with their 45 day return policy and trying it out. any of you had any experience with wwbw and returning a horn to them... is it a hassle?? anybody know any other dealers with such a liberal trial return policy?

6. if i could find a used 901 how does it compare to the 991/992?? favorably??

thanks for reading!

and thanks in advance for your responses!

steve in ny

[RS]

My problem with straight sopranos is mostly with the right wrist having to support the weight of the instrument. I can play a straight sop for maybe five minutes before my right wrist and thumb tire. So I much prefer the curved sops (using a neckstrap). I have a couple of curved Yanis that I find very comfortable. No problems in either wrist. Left palm keys are positioned like on an alto. Very comfortable. If you don't have any problems with alto you shouldn't have any problems with the curved Yani sops.

[sax0nerd]

thanks rs!

which yani soprano(s) do you have??

thanks,

steve

[Dave Dolson]

Steve: I have a curved SC902 Yana soprano, and several straight sopranos including an S992 Yana, a new Antigua, and three vintage straight sops. I use straight necks on all my sops (even the SC902) and no strap. I've played soprano for 48 years and never experienced wrist pain. I don't mean your pain is not there- surely it is. My point is that we are all different so if you need to use a strap or a curved neck, that's okay.

My Yanas are better players than the Selmer Serie III and the YSS62S Yamaha sopranos I once owned. The new Antigua may be the best of the bunch - certainly for the money it is the best.

I've tried other Yamaha sops but I don't hear the character in the tone that I hear in my Yanas, the Antigua, and my vintage sops.

I played a new SC991 at Kessler's in Las Vegas last November and came away impressed, but not enough to buy one. My SC902 is a screamer and every bit as good in my hands.

I've tried Cannonball and Unison curved sops and had my SC902 there when I did so. The SC902 was superior to either the other two I tried. I've owned and played vintage curved sops and don't care to go that route now.

I've ordered many instruments from WW&BW over the years and never returned one, so I can't comment on their return policies. They DID deliver nice, playable horns when I ordered from them.

If you experience pain after playing your straight sop with a curved neck, I doubt if a curved sop will be any better. True, Yanagisawa changed the neck curvature in their new SC99x series sops, but we're talking SLIGHTLY, and not enough to change anything drastically, in my opinion. It may be just a matter of muscle training. Good luck! DAVE

[SuiZen]

5. i was thinking about ordering a yana from wwbw with their 45 day return policy and trying it out. any of you had any experience with wwbw and returning a horn to them... is it a hassle?? anybody know any other dealers with such a liberal trial return policy?
steve in ny

Steve,
I've trialed, more than I'll admit, instruments from wwbw, and there was no hassle with returning. I've also purchased several instruments.
Bill

[Morry]

I've found WW&BW a pleasure to deal with. My SX90II soprano arrived setup perfectly, and I kept it.

I have trialed and returned other horns from them, as well as too many mouthpieces to count.

[3saxes]

Saxonerd, I agree with RS. My experience was with my right wrist and I developed a severe case of tendonitis called De Quervain's disease. I just started playing a curvy, Yanagisawa SC9937. Two weeks so far and no pain at all.

Do you play your soprano with a neck strap? Without a strap you would be supporting more weight of the soprano on both thumbs. That is the only way I could see it causing a severe case of tendonitis in the left wrist although anything is possible. It is more typical in the right wrist however since many players use a strap and the right thumb is likely to support more weight than the left with or without a strap.

[Sandi]

I have always had some discomfort with the straight soprano and I agree that it may be a lack of muscle training. With my curved Big Bell Sop. I can practice as long as my wife will allow and experience no pain or discomfort.
Last weekend I attended the IAJE conference here in NY and tried the Rampone and Cazzani Saxello. I was so impressed with the sound and feel of this horn that I ordered one the following day. IMHO the saxello offers a compromise worth considering. I expect to have it in just over one month so I'll keep you posted.
Sandi

[RS]

saxOnerd--I have an SC-901 (brass) and an SC-992 (bronze). The 992 has the updated keywork which I prefer over the older style that's on the 901. And I think the bronze tube produces a little prettier tone than the brass tube. So the 992 is my "baby" while the 901 serves as backup.

[sax0nerd]

well..

thanks all for the insight... it sounds like the yana's are great horns!

i have a friend with an old conn curvy. i'm gonna borrow it for a week or two and see if the pain in the wrist subsides. if it does, it sounds like the money i have put away, destined for my new bari, will have to go towards a new (new to me, anyway) curved soprano.

thanks again!

steve in ny

[RS]

Be aware that the palm key position on vintage horns is quite a bit different than on the Yanis and similar horns.

[Hardy]

I also got tendonitis on the right wrist from playing straight soprano. That's why I'm considering changing to a curvie. Meanwhile I help myself with a little trick - at least when practising at home:

I play the straight sop sitting on a chair. I place my right leg horizontally over my left knee, thus forming a kind of "table" on which I can put the bell of the instrument. That takes all the weight from my right hand - plus I use a neckstrap.

Don't know if that works for everyone, but for me it helps a lot.

[Riff]

The only soprano I have experience with is a Mark VI (they only come straight). After a while of playing my right hand does tire but that's when I use a neckstrap. It helps tremendously.

The Mark VI has a lyre holder on the underside of the tube that is usable as a neck strap hook. Why Selmer put a lyre holder on the underside of the horn is still a complete mystery to me, but there it is!

More to the point, I recently tried several new sopranos and I found the Keilwerth straight to be the most comfortable keyboard and nicest sounding soprano of them all. I played the curved Cannonball and LA Sax, both had nice tone but the sound comes right up into your face due to the curved bell. I found this really distracting; probably because I'm used to the straight soprano. For that reason I don't think I'd enjoy playing a curvy. Your mileage may vary.

[gege]

saxOnerd: sounds like you v got a tendovaginitis on your left wrist. playing tennis and soprano could be much stress for a wrist, are you a left hander, are you playing tennis with your left?
gege

[VegasChris]

...tendovaginitis... :shock:

[MJ]

If memory serves me right, that's a disease the Red Cross lady warned us about in boot camp back in the 80's.

[Dave Dolson]

It goes back further than that! I heard about it in the 1950's, but never saw an example of it. DAVE

[gege]

sorry, i am not a native (english) speaker.
a muscle is connected to a bone by a tendon, the tendon runs in a sheat of tendon, for a better movement. if there is to much stress on this sheat it becomes inflamed, this is called a tendovaginitis. piano or violin players suffer from it more often than woodwind players...
gege

[MJ]

Gege,

Thanks for the definition of this medical term. I learned something today! My earlier comment came from having some fun with the term, which lends itself to all kinds of speculation.
Thank you again for clearing this up. I apologise for any offense caused by my comment.

[sax0nerd]

hey all!

thanks for the comments... but it seems if any of you have had problems, it has been with your RIGHT wrist, which i have never suffered from.

yes... i do play tennis with my left hand.

playing my friends conn old conn curvy for a week... and voila no pain. i am pretty sure however, that i cannot deal with the sound in my face like that. it was very distracting to me. also at this point, my quartet has a number of gigs coming up, and we're just stating to really develop a blend and a sound... a horn change right now would not be a good thing i think. and if i were to change horns right now , it would probably be to an antigua straight. i played one last weekend and was very impressed.

i have gotten some warm up exercises for my wrist, (some online, some from the mauk warm-ups book) have gotten the lightest tennis racket i can find and am going to see if i can just work through this. right now the pain is actually quite low and sometimes non-existant.

so thanks for the advice. i'll keep ya posted,

steve in ny

[Mark_vi]

I would suggest oredering from http://www.matthewsmuziek.nl/index10.htm They are waaayyyyy cheaper than http://www.wwbw.com I mean you save hundreds or more, even after the $50-60 shipping charge

[Greg_Ace]

A bit of advice I once heard about "just working through this" - work through discomfort, but NOT through pain! Ignoring pain is how serious injuries happen. If you continue to have problems using the straight soprano, getting used to the sound of a curved is far less of an issue than long-term (or permanent) physical damage. Just be careful, and listen to your body.

[Dave Dolson]

The last post in this thread (before Mark vi's post) was TWO AND A HALF years ago!!! DAVE

[Dave Dolson]

The last post in this thread (before Mark vi's post) was TWO AND A HALF years ago!!! DAVE

[Hardy]

Only the good (posts) die young...

[Dave Dolson]

Looks like I gave this one TWO lives. Please excuse the double-post. Must've been my twitchy trigger finger, eh? DAVE

[bobisk]

I used to play a straight conn 1914 before I changed to a new Taiwan Curvy Sop (brand is not important since it's a clone one, but nice playing). When I played straight I was having a little tired on both hands specialy on right, you know that Conn does not have for neck strap, then my right hand had a little pain. Curvy has a little different sound, a little bit sax like, first it made me strange for the sound, but after months I feel more comfortable and everybody like this 'mini alto model'. I can use neck strap, the sound more focus when I use my clip on mic (the sound guy told me). Well, it depend on yourself . Good luck for you.
Bob

[stevesklar]

I had the same type of problem. Pain could be in left or right wrist. I shift the horn to the right to eliminate the LH pain. But i can't use a neckstrap becz it interferes with my LH thumb.

I've played some curvies and they are magnificant for elimination of my pain. I also use a neckstrap on soprano clarinet which eliminates my RH thumb and wrist pain.

I still have to buy myself a curvy and basically haven't played my sop in 6+ mths due to this problem .. which is another cure in a way.