have these been around for years?

[Anonymous]

The American Cut

[saxomonica]

Hi James,

Guys,

i’ve read about the American Cut over last few years. Some rave about them. Some say that they split very easy and become unplayable. I do not know and cannot say. What ya reckon?

Certainly, there is a perplexing array of choices in reed strength! My experience with Legere is only with the Classsic series reed on my tenor. Size 2. It has lasted 6 mths and still going strong. My Bari synthetic M and MS lasted this long but then started warping on the ends.

So. There is nothing like the joy of finding a subtle tone on cane. Can you remember the day when you finally got that breathy resonance and gorgeous timbre with your own tone in your airs?? Happy days.

Wow. it is a milestone ya. I can vividly remember the day when i finally found my voice on sax. It took a while geez … oft i think i shoulda stuck with my guitar or learnt piano being for the time i wasted on saxophone as i would be so more progressed and with a large rep by now too. Hmm. The day i found my voice, say, i was really giving it a good go to learn to play softly. Now i work on my dynamics a lot more ie low and soft totes increasing in volume. Particurally with my long tone excercises. I think this helps with my overall playing on that damned but joyous brass contraption we all cherish and love lol 🙂

The other day i got my alto back from Erin the repair lady. And, a friend of mine from California living here now in West Oz got keen to get an alto sax too. We found a nice Armstrong at the pawnbrokers for 400 bucks for him. He has been practicing and getting really good.

He plays flute and used to have a soprano sax before it got stolen, he never had any lessons on it, doesnt know how to play Gb, F#, side D etc. When he put his alto together the other day he had the octaver mechanism post jammed outside the ring. This fella is all raw talent in any event. Itz astounding. Mainly he plays slide guitar and banjo. Anywayz he plays that alto with no understandin’ of any of the keys or note names. He does these crazee wild fingerings and his sound is astonishing. Ya never seen heard anything like it! Unbelevable. When he plays he finds the safe notes by ear and runs up and down the keys is this bizzare freraky way and it is gorgeous. I really gotta get a Youtube channel happening soon to share this with you soon! His sound is tight and in tune and easy to listen to because he has these self taught embellishments and he plays tight on the back beat leaving space between his runs, any off colour notes blend in well because his timing is so tight and he remembers the safe notes for various measures.

We jam along to jam trax from Youtube together, we probably played for about 4 hrs on and off last night. We rent a sea container in South Beach so we can jam out without disturbing the neighbours. I dunno what all the stray cats in the neighbourhood think …

Its amazing how well he can play. He says to me it is because he has a really well trained ear after yonks playing open tunings viz slide on his guitar. He does weird stuff like tuning his banjo to the wind too .. He is so good i gonna hit him up with a tenor reed on his alto tonight. Was it Earl Bostik used to do that? Also i found a BEECHLER B11 DIAMOND INLAY ALTO SAX MOUTHPIECE, MEDIUM BORE, M6S SHORT FACING on Ebay for $90- so i got that to get him on when it arrives in the mails soon enuff.

I tell youse, am lovin’ the alto at the mo.

Heya in closing here’s a tune by Jimmy Z, a fave harp player sax dude, plays with the Euryhmics. i read all about him recently when i woke up and found the riff for, “Thorn in my side” running through my brain. He’s way cool, check him out.

Any one got some more feedback on the American Cut too? cheers

SEE ~

Home – Jimmy Z and the ZTribe – Gr8 Blues Music!

—– / —–

[Anonymous]

thanks saxomonica

my local music shop, just started stocking the ‘American cut legere’ reeds for the first time, and the way they advertised it, made it sound like these were a brand new product, and i was sure the reeds have been around for many years.

i only play on an alto sax, and i personally don’t use fibre reeds, i’ve wasted lots of money on various fibre brands and i couldn’t find a single fibre reed that would play up and down the sax and sound properly in all the keys. Mainly parts of the lower and middle register sounded ok, but the reed wouldn’t respond properly in other keys.
I felt higher up the sax, the fibre was too stiff, and wasn’t as flexible as a cane reed.

The range of an alto is higher than the range of a tenor, and the higher pitches on a fibre reed just don’t sound as good as a cane reed, but thats only my opinion, that’s the problem when you have good pitch hearing.

[saxomonica]

Cool sx poet. From the Latin, everthing unknown is taken to be magnificent.

We tried the tenor reed trick on the alto mp earlier tonight but couldn’t get anythink to resonate.

Tried a new Bari alto sythetic on alto mp too and no joy.

Java green 2 pretty sweet.

Play along jam trax youtune in B min work good for noodling, d – c – e runs, a, f#, Bb fit; hit c# to harmonize

Cheers mark

[Author]

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