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382 Posts
Good afternoon everyone!
I joined SOTW back in 2005, and haven’t been active until today 2011. A little back story; I studied music education and graduated in 2004 with a BME but ended up pursuing a career in law enforcement. I haven’t played saxophone since 2004, and sold all of my horns (Big Mistake). At the time, music educator positions were being cut from schools (still are due to the poor economy) and I needed to pay the bills. Another scary thing that happened was that I became less interested in playing the saxophone (since it felt like a job) and I lost the love/Passion for the game and more importantly the music. Fast forward to today, and I’m now living on the east coast (Washington, D.C.) and I discovered a music shop by the name of Chuck Levin’s. Being so close to the University of Maryland and hearing the marching bands play, I had this overwhelming desire to pick up a horn and see if I still had any skills left. Let me tell you, the old saying of “It’s like riding a bicycle” does not apply to horn playing. My embouchure is weak, and I found myself struggling to run through basic diatonic scales. Anyways, the salesman at Chuck Levin’s was very helpful and I ended up buying a brand new horn. I have always played Selmer saxophones, but since they’re so expensive and I’m crawling back onto the “tri-cycle” I decided to go with a Yanagisawa 992. I had always played on a metal Yanagisawa mouthpiece, but never had the opportunity to try a Yanagisawa tenor. After playing through Keilwerth’s, Selmer’s, Yamaha’s and Yanagisawa’s, I ended up really loving the sound of the 992 in bronze. I just really loved the dark sound that it offered. So after cutting a zero percent 12 month check, I walked out the door with a brand new “new car smelling” Yanagisawa 992. Of course, all of that excitement occurred as I was filling out the sales slip and me day dreaming of Stan Getz that I began rambling on about mouthpieces, reeds, and neck straps but my salesman said to focus on the basics. He stated that the stock hard rubber mouthpiece is an excellent mouthpiece and to work on redeveloping my embouchure and basics. I really appreciated hearing this from a salesman whose main job is to sell horns and equipment. So as I get ready to practice long tones and scales, I just wanted to reach back out to this community. SOTW has always been a wealth of information, so I figured I would re-introduce myself as a beginner at this point. I’m extremely new to the east coast, D.C. metropolitan area, and was also hoping to find information about community bands, open mic nights, and instructors to those of you whom live out this way. As always, thank you for taking the time to read this long winded thread and I look forward to learning and relearning from everyone on here.
Respectfully,
-John
I joined SOTW back in 2005, and haven’t been active until today 2011. A little back story; I studied music education and graduated in 2004 with a BME but ended up pursuing a career in law enforcement. I haven’t played saxophone since 2004, and sold all of my horns (Big Mistake). At the time, music educator positions were being cut from schools (still are due to the poor economy) and I needed to pay the bills. Another scary thing that happened was that I became less interested in playing the saxophone (since it felt like a job) and I lost the love/Passion for the game and more importantly the music. Fast forward to today, and I’m now living on the east coast (Washington, D.C.) and I discovered a music shop by the name of Chuck Levin’s. Being so close to the University of Maryland and hearing the marching bands play, I had this overwhelming desire to pick up a horn and see if I still had any skills left. Let me tell you, the old saying of “It’s like riding a bicycle” does not apply to horn playing. My embouchure is weak, and I found myself struggling to run through basic diatonic scales. Anyways, the salesman at Chuck Levin’s was very helpful and I ended up buying a brand new horn. I have always played Selmer saxophones, but since they’re so expensive and I’m crawling back onto the “tri-cycle” I decided to go with a Yanagisawa 992. I had always played on a metal Yanagisawa mouthpiece, but never had the opportunity to try a Yanagisawa tenor. After playing through Keilwerth’s, Selmer’s, Yamaha’s and Yanagisawa’s, I ended up really loving the sound of the 992 in bronze. I just really loved the dark sound that it offered. So after cutting a zero percent 12 month check, I walked out the door with a brand new “new car smelling” Yanagisawa 992. Of course, all of that excitement occurred as I was filling out the sales slip and me day dreaming of Stan Getz that I began rambling on about mouthpieces, reeds, and neck straps but my salesman said to focus on the basics. He stated that the stock hard rubber mouthpiece is an excellent mouthpiece and to work on redeveloping my embouchure and basics. I really appreciated hearing this from a salesman whose main job is to sell horns and equipment. So as I get ready to practice long tones and scales, I just wanted to reach back out to this community. SOTW has always been a wealth of information, so I figured I would re-introduce myself as a beginner at this point. I’m extremely new to the east coast, D.C. metropolitan area, and was also hoping to find information about community bands, open mic nights, and instructors to those of you whom live out this way. As always, thank you for taking the time to read this long winded thread and I look forward to learning and relearning from everyone on here.
Respectfully,
-John
