Sax on the Web Forum banner

What did you learn on?

11K views 54 replies 50 participants last post by  RLAALA  
#1 ·
This has probably been a thread already, but it's a fun topic none-the-less.

What horn did you learn to play saxophone on?

I broke in on a Bundy II Alto that leaked like a colander. Came with an S80 C* that I still have though. What about you guys?
 
#3 ·
Well if I go all the way back to fifth grade, it was a Beaugnier Vito tenor. In my home-town of Kenosha, WI (Leblanc headquarters) that was the school rental horn at that time. When I returned to saxophone many years later, it was on a Yamaha YTS-23 tenor. I have several tenors now, and one of them (for sentimental reasons) is a Beaugnier Vito!
 
#7 ·
When I was in about 7th or 8th grade my dad got me a Buescher True Tone alto. Silver with gold wash bell and the keywork was newly lacquered with gold colored lacquer. It was a really nice looking horn but being a kid I was kind of embarrassed by it because everyone else had a brass colored horn. No one wants to be the odd man out when you're 13 years old. I have no idea what kind of mouthpiece it had. Back then you played whatever came with your horn.:) I wish I still owned it but sadly I hadn't played it in 20 years and sold it cheap in a yard sale.
 
#9 ·
I started playing saxophone when I retired at age 66. Bought a Martin Indiana alto that I still play. I was new to the sax and hadn’t played anything since high school 50 years ago. The title of this thread is “what did you learn on”. Well, I’m learning. Just a little late, that’s all.
 
#28 ·
I started playing saxophone when I retired at age 66. Bought a Martin Indiana alto that I still play. I was new to the sax and hadn't played anything since high school 50 years ago. The title of this thread is "what did you learn on". Well, I'm learning. Just a little late, that's all.
Same except that I started 7 years younger. The Martin leaked like a sieve and I got a Shooting star in a yard sale that was light years better and I played it for about 8-9 months while I restored a '34 Aristocrat. The Martin got a complete overhaul but is nowhere near the Crat so it's in storage, and the Conn found its way to a single mom scrounging to come up with the rental fees for her alto (hey, she was a bartender and I got 2 free beer - and then they closed the place and I never saw her again :mrgreen: )
 
#13 ·
I started on an Artley flute in 6th grade, then it sat in a closet until a friend turned me on to Jethro Tull in high school. My folks got me a Gemeinhardt a year later, and I kept playing into my late 20's when career and family took over. A few years ago I got an old True Tone tenor shortly after I discovered and joined SOTW.

Bright Moments!
 
#14 ·
I started in the 7th grade. My earliest recollection is of a 50s Conn school alto and a rented Buescher TT at home. I also had a dual 8va key C melody that I think was French. New York's public schools had some pretty good horns. I was playing a Chu baritone in HS.
 
#15 ·
Initially, Buffet BC20 Bb clarinet. Later on, a Dolnet soprano sax (heavy like hell) and a 1977 Amati tenor. The first time I blew a modern Yamaha soprano, it was like a revelation.... To a lesser extent, same feeling with a “modern” Grassi tenor. Until now, I feel happier and more at home on modern horns.
 
#17 ·
Started on a Claritone clarinet in grade school (I still use it for outdoor gigs). Several years later, started tenor sax on a 1920's Pan American, no front F (cumbersome). The stickers from the 1930's on the case were interesting. The case even had a locking latch made by the long-defunct Eagle Lock Company made in my then hometown. (Useless trivia).
 
#19 ·
Some leaky Conn alto my parents picked up from a neighbor for $25. My dad bartered God knows what for some repair work from a local tech and it lasted me through middle school. I only know it was a Conn because I remember the neck tuner thingy. Wish I had held onto it, but it got lost or more likely intentionally thrown out when I moved out of my parent's house. In high school I played the school's new Yamaha tenor, and bought my own tenor after graduation.
 
#20 ·
In 5th grade my parents bought a heavily used Conn tenor for $100. This was in 1964, and it was ancient then. The neck had about the most severe pull-down damage that I had ever seen, and it would not play a note until you had blown into it for about 15 minutes, and then it would start to sound. I don't know what model it was, and years later when I wanted to check it out, I found that my parents had donated it to an instrument drive for my old school. As far as learning, I started using a school-owned Conn Shooting Star in 6th grade, which played very well through high school.
 
#23 ·
I started sax - coming from flute - on Yanagisawa S-800 Soprano, that I love to play until now. Must have been late eighties/ early nineties when Branford played out of every radio. First sax lesson last year ....
 
#26 ·
I started in '67 in 3rd grade on a rented Bundy Alto.

Switched to tenor in 7th grade on really, really, horrible ancient Buescher that made me hate tenor.

Back to alto in high school on a Mk VI that was much better (obviously) than the Buescher, but I never really bonded with it.

Got a Mk VII after the VI was stolen from my first apartment in '77 (yay insurance) which I actually liked much better.

Still have that VII as a backup alto.
 
#30 ·
My first alto saxophone in 4th grade was a "Sears Silvertone" purchased from the Sears and Roebuck catalog---probably a Buescher stencil. In 7th grade I got a Selmer Mark VI because in a private lesson Fred Hemke at the Gunnison Music Camp I attended suggested I get one.