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Bass clarinet vs tenor sax

The ease with which violin playing (and guitar playing and the like) comes back after an extended absence is probably due to the fact that your hands and arms are in constant use whether playing or not...
Not true with upright string bass. I find that none of the several instruments I play can sustain an extended layoff without giving pain and regret.
...while the facial muscles associated with woodwind embouchures...are not called upon to contort on a day-to-day basis in the same fashion as they are when playing.
Bass players make faces, too.
 
Not true with upright string bass. I find that none of the several instruments I play can sustain an extended layoff without giving pain and regret.

Bass players make faces, too.


I agree. Last year at this time I had completed playing The Messiah on bass and was in the early part of a run of My Fair Lady also on the bass. It takes serious time to get up to speed on bass due to the physical demands of the instrument.

Violin I could pick up tomorrow and play without pain, but I have had years of conditioning on that instrument and can't help running scales and other licks whenever I get bored. I pity a casual player picking it up and trying to jump in at full speed on any instrument.
 
I have played tenor in a concert band, and did not enjoy it -- but it was interesting when a lazy arranger doubled tenor and bass clarinet, including low E through A on the tenor part. I much prefer soprano clarinet or bari sax, except John Williams' The Cowboy, which we sight read last week. On a couple of passages the bari doubles the 1st clarinets in 16th note arpeggios. Measure after measure, no rests or breathing opportunities. First, and hopefully the last, time I've tried to play clarinet on bari.
 
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Read a tune tonight with the classical ensemble. Nice little run that did eight notes G# G and then a sixteenth note run F# E D# C#. Great fun coming off G# only to have to end up back on the C#. Not hard just an odd passage that I doubt I have ever played. The fingers and the mind took a couple of run throughs to get it right.
 
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