[seerskater]

http://onehandwinds.unk.edu/

I think it would be cool to get two of these, and take the rahsaan kirk thing to a whole new level! I feel like improvising two lines at once would be really fun (albeit challenging). I also feel like the only reason playing two saxophones at once hasn't been taken seriously is because you only have command of 7 notes or so on each hand. This would open up the entire range of the sax.

thoughts?

 

[Threeleggedyoyo]

I've thought about this too. There is some speculation that Kirk had his saxophones modified in some way, but I have never been able to find any documentation as to how. I heard that Kirk had a stroke late in his life that left him without use of one hand as well, but he continued to tour, so he probably used a similar system.

Frankly I'm surprised this hasn't been done sooner. All you'd really need would be to make the entire left hand a slave to any right hand key (ala Bb) and then put extensions for the left hand keys down to the right hand next to the normal right hand keys. Looks like that's what this system does, more or less.

 

[Pete Thomas]

This has been done also by Dick Heckstall Smith. His soprano was modified by Willie Garnett so he could play soprano and tenor together with as many notes as possible on each hand.

That's the easy part, the difficult part is getting your brain around the two melodic lines, but if pain players can do it, so can we!

 

[milandro]

This has been done also by Dick Heckstall Smith. His soprano was modified by Willie Garnett so he could play soprano and tenor together with as many notes as possible on each hand.

That's the easy part, the difficult part is getting your brain around the two melodic lines, but if pain players can do it, so can we!

the same as Dick Heckstall Smith had done to his horns was done in the Netherlands by Nico Bodewes which modified the soprano and altos by Paul Stocker. I agree that the most important difficulty has to do with co-ordination and simply thinking two different lines (although people who play other instruments like the piano do it all the time!)

The Aulochrome is , of course, an instrument made of two sopranos.

 

[Agent27]

And while they're converting your saxes for you, they're not converting ones for people who really need them.

A guy went to school with just had UNK covert his Mark VII after having a stroke a few years ago.