The middle school my grandson, Nicky, is going to this year is lending him a bari sax. He will be the only 7th grader in the jazz band and in trade he'll continue to play bass clarinet in the concert band (he started on soprano clarinet). This is the good part.
The bad part is that the loaner is a student model Conn with horrible intonation, nasty keyworks, and a lot of damage. After a trip to the tech, we got everything working. But the intonation continues to be problem. I had him on a Rico mouthpiece that I like and we had to pull the mouthpiece out too far to get the instrument in tune!
So I tried four more mouthpiece until we got to an Otto Link metal that works really well both with loudness and somewhat in tune. Nicky's intonation was improving on the alto sax and was not really a problem, except for the throat notes (I know a breath support issue) on the clarinets.
Until my grandson gets to high school we are NOT buying him another instrument (he has three from us so far). But this is a very frustrating situation. If Nicky practiced more and was making more progress, I'd probably spring for the bari, but he almost never practices other than the two hours of lessons a week (Wed, Sun) he has with me.
Suggestions, or have I pretty much done everything I can do at this point. I don't ever remember intonation being a challenge as I was growing up but then I only played alto sax.
The bad part is that the loaner is a student model Conn with horrible intonation, nasty keyworks, and a lot of damage. After a trip to the tech, we got everything working. But the intonation continues to be problem. I had him on a Rico mouthpiece that I like and we had to pull the mouthpiece out too far to get the instrument in tune!
So I tried four more mouthpiece until we got to an Otto Link metal that works really well both with loudness and somewhat in tune. Nicky's intonation was improving on the alto sax and was not really a problem, except for the throat notes (I know a breath support issue) on the clarinets.
Until my grandson gets to high school we are NOT buying him another instrument (he has three from us so far). But this is a very frustrating situation. If Nicky practiced more and was making more progress, I'd probably spring for the bari, but he almost never practices other than the two hours of lessons a week (Wed, Sun) he has with me.
Suggestions, or have I pretty much done everything I can do at this point. I don't ever remember intonation being a challenge as I was growing up but then I only played alto sax.