Load of stuff to improve your sax (and lighten your wallet)

[jak Swift]

There is a guy makes a good $$$ promoting all this stuff. Everything from ” magic stones “, Klangs, embouchure tools.
Every single one he gives a rave review.
I asked him ” surely ALL of this stuff can’t be for real ”
Starting players right now must have a hard enough time these days choosing a horn. This Tai secrecy, who makes what for who is a ridiculous and guarded secret. No wonder when companies was want $2500 for a $500 ( at source ) horn.
Go back to the old school. Get your horn in good playing order, use a structured practice routine, try to stick to one mpc and work hard. ( amazing sax tune by John Handy…” Hard Work ” )
IMO….These gimmicks are just that , gimmicks, nothing more. As I say, if they work for you…
Later….

[Anonymous]

Hi Jak, you’ll be happy to know I play my YAS-26 with a std metal band ligature, Vandoren Java reed on a Selmer S80 MP – which is my idea of luuuxury!

I can’t wait to be great! – Only few thousand hours of practice to go – LOL

Cheers

[Anonymous]

What you have remember, is back in the dark ages, when the sax appeared on the scene, a lot of machinery technology was in its infancy or didn’t exist, so sax’s weren’t mass produced and reeds probably weren’t as well cut as they are now-a-days, so i guess a lot of the oldies had no choice, but to work on their reeds. I would assume the reeds cut now-a-days are much better produced than in so-and-so’s day, so there’s less work or hardly any work to do on them. It’s more of a case of looking after them properly.

Top of the range sax’s do have different neck styles to buy, and you’ll find, with some sax manufacturers, they all sell an alternative neck for their top range models, for the less experienced player, or the pro player who wants a different output. So i guess that’s their alternative to the klangbogen?

People have been shaving their reeds for centuries, and tools to shave them have improved, so you can’t really say the reed geek is a gimmick. It’s like gardening, i’ve got some shears that are 30 years old, they weigh a ton, it makes your arms ache after 10 mins. I bought some modern shears, light weight, tireless to use. you could argue the new shears i bought are just a gimmick and i could make do with the old shears. Fact of the matter, after feeling how much easier my new shears does the job, my old shears have been melted down and are now being recyled in china.

To me the definition of a gimmick, is a shoddy piece of material, that won’t do the job properly or will fall appart after using it several times (ipod charging cables spring to mind, the amount of i money i’ve spent in buying replacement charging cables, i could have bought a brand iphone). Another definition of a gimmick, is something that you don’t need at all as it’s only something else to waste your time on (like chatting endlessly on facebook, when you should be cleaning the ecoli out of your sax).

Gimicks are the equivalent of placebo’s, and are well known to work in the medical field.

[brother cavefish]

well if i had a lyre hole i might try it, but i don’t, most high end do not , weird i guess

[jak Swift]

Yeah, its pretty much ” horses for courses “, whatever suits. I like the a analogy of the placebo effect. If you are into fitting up your horn with Klangs, mysterious stones etc; I can imagine a much younger self, thinking ” yeah, this really works “.
The W W W has a !of to answer to.
Give a poor, lazy player the best horn out there, he’s still gonna sound awful.
On the flip side, give a great player, a leaky old rust bucket; he’s gonna make it sing.
There are no shortcuts; hard work on your weakest points is IMO the only answer.
If I could see a class player using a Klang, ( and not for endorsement )… I’d be surprised.

[Anonymous]

He He…
Well if someone comes up with gimmick, that i can attach to my sax,
that will make my sax play in time with backing tracks, or better still,
adjust it to play the keys in tune (apparently the VE-20 can do this).
please contact me on sxpoet@notinterestedingimmick.com.. enough said

[jak Swift]

☺☺😉 !!

[Anonymous]

Here’s some cool sax attachments and the music isn’t bad either with some awesome flute playing.

[brother cavefish]

HMMMM

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