Hi:
I played alto sax not seriously in junior high. I regret not taking it seriously, because even then, and profoundly so now, I appreciated music. Now I wish I could put the constant melodies that my mind cranks out into real airborne notes.
I also have a 3.5 year old daughter, and have become convinced that music should be as serious a component of her education as the 3 R's. We plan to send her to piano school. My research about this inspired me to consider playing again myself. So I bought the whole family recorders. Mine is alto. I opted against tenor since I didn't know how serious I'd be and wanted to minimize the expense until I was sure. I had to weigh that against fingering issues, since I would have preferred to have a tenor so it would finger the same as my wife and kid's descants. But I opted to save $27 and get an alto.
When I began playing I discovered that the fingering is much harder than I recall about the sax, mainly because my 42 year old hands get achy trying to reach the left 3 hole to play C, and the instrument is extremely fussy about having the holes covered fully. Now I know why they invented padded keyes. I find myself struggling with physical constraints along with getting the right notes. But I am having loads of fun playing music again, and I love nitty-gritty technical stuff like practicing getting the notes real clear and sharp.
This immediately made me consider getting a sax again and playing that. Of course, a sax is a bit more $$$ than a plastic recorder, so I don't want to do this unless I have some confidence I'll stick with it.
But another consideration is to avoid wasting time. I noticed the fingering for alto sax is more like the descant than the also recorder. Thus, my main longer-term concern is not $$$, since I can afford a sax if I really want one, but that I don't want to invest a year learning to finger the alto recorder, then decide to get a sax and find that the recorder fingering memory trips up my sax re-learning process.
Should I just move to the sax for this reason?
My other reasons for the sax are that I consider it to be a relatively easy instrument to play basically. I don't recall struggling much to play it in school--I mean-- just to hit the notes that weren't at the extremes of the range. Compared to clarinet or brasses, I think it's a better choice for someone who doesn't want to be too restrained by technique issues when they'd rather focus on music theory and basics. There is also the piano, but I feel I'd like to play a horn more. Though I am somewhat drawn to the piano's polyphony.
My favorite sounding instrument is actually the oboe. But I just don't think that a busy dad with 15-30 minutes a day to play should do an oboe.
Thank you for your comments.
Good day!
I played alto sax not seriously in junior high. I regret not taking it seriously, because even then, and profoundly so now, I appreciated music. Now I wish I could put the constant melodies that my mind cranks out into real airborne notes.
I also have a 3.5 year old daughter, and have become convinced that music should be as serious a component of her education as the 3 R's. We plan to send her to piano school. My research about this inspired me to consider playing again myself. So I bought the whole family recorders. Mine is alto. I opted against tenor since I didn't know how serious I'd be and wanted to minimize the expense until I was sure. I had to weigh that against fingering issues, since I would have preferred to have a tenor so it would finger the same as my wife and kid's descants. But I opted to save $27 and get an alto.
When I began playing I discovered that the fingering is much harder than I recall about the sax, mainly because my 42 year old hands get achy trying to reach the left 3 hole to play C, and the instrument is extremely fussy about having the holes covered fully. Now I know why they invented padded keyes. I find myself struggling with physical constraints along with getting the right notes. But I am having loads of fun playing music again, and I love nitty-gritty technical stuff like practicing getting the notes real clear and sharp.
This immediately made me consider getting a sax again and playing that. Of course, a sax is a bit more $$$ than a plastic recorder, so I don't want to do this unless I have some confidence I'll stick with it.
But another consideration is to avoid wasting time. I noticed the fingering for alto sax is more like the descant than the also recorder. Thus, my main longer-term concern is not $$$, since I can afford a sax if I really want one, but that I don't want to invest a year learning to finger the alto recorder, then decide to get a sax and find that the recorder fingering memory trips up my sax re-learning process.
Should I just move to the sax for this reason?
My other reasons for the sax are that I consider it to be a relatively easy instrument to play basically. I don't recall struggling much to play it in school--I mean-- just to hit the notes that weren't at the extremes of the range. Compared to clarinet or brasses, I think it's a better choice for someone who doesn't want to be too restrained by technique issues when they'd rather focus on music theory and basics. There is also the piano, but I feel I'd like to play a horn more. Though I am somewhat drawn to the piano's polyphony.
My favorite sounding instrument is actually the oboe. But I just don't think that a busy dad with 15-30 minutes a day to play should do an oboe.
Thank you for your comments.
Good day!