Hawkes & Son: What's That Key?

pete

pete

Brassica Oleracea
Staff member
Administrator
I'm taking a break from cataloging all things Yanagisawa and going back to my roots: getting interesting pictures from eBay into my picture gallery. One of the many interesting horns I found was a Hawkes & Son -- that's the "Hawkes" of "Boosey and Hawkes" -- curved Bb soprano. The horn looks pretty much like an Evette - Schaeffer from around the same age, so fairly normal. Until I saw something interesting under the thumbrest. Here's the linky to the big pic.

Thoughts? Opinions? It's obviously missing the key touchpiece to make the mechanism work, but it looks like it was an alternate Eb.
 
You could suss this out by looking at these two pictures. The RH thumb key would, if still there, actuate the RH pinkie C key. Follow the metal rods, and that should make sense.


LowC2.JPGLowC.JPG

Cheers.
 
I have an old Couesnon with just the posts under the thumb hook and no rods or levers, so I had been looking out to see what should have been there.

Before I came across the answer my mind was running wild with possibilities - my best one was a thought that it connected to a clip that attached the sax to an army uniform!!

The actual answer was quite mundane...
 
Gandalfe said:
Ever consider recreating the original lever touch?
Click to expand...

Well I am tempted. The sax was / is a junker and I got it (for about £20) to practice some repair work on - dents, soldering, re-springing and the like. Making some keys would be a great thing to do, canabalising spare metalwork. My wife does some silversmithing, so we have plenty of kit. It is low on my list of things to do, though!

Pete. That Adler is interesting. It seems to have two keys below the thumb hook: a B trill and a C trill. The C trill looks like it is almost a palm key or maybe it looks further round than it actually is.

Chris
 
I start to wonder if the extra keys are there to solve a problem that doesn't exist. I had at least five horns that had G# trill keys, for instance. I don't remember using it that often.
 
I for one love my G# key, and don't know why more saxophone makers didn't use it, and why those that did, stopped incorporating it into saxophone design. It, like all trill keys, does make things much easier.

I suspect "back in the day" when saxophones were produced with there was still the thought that they'd be used more in classical musical, (mostly) European manufacturers added these features, but as time went on, and the instrument never did gain a strong foothold in the classical world, the costly features were dropped.

Just my pet theory, and it could be wrong, but it makes as much sense as anything else.
 
Much of the literature for the saxophone in the 1920's was intended for a display of "virtuosity" on the instrument similar to the pieces played by Rudy Weidoeft and as such included a good deal of trills and other ornaments. At that time the instrument makers seemed intent upon making every trill accessible, including those that involved the little fingers of either hand. It is no wonder the G# and Eb trill mechanisms have gone by the wayside.
 
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