Lesson 02/25/2004

Andrew and I have decided that I can get a new horn with my tax return, so when Fred bitched again about how out of tune my high A is, I told him that I can get a new sax. Since Rudy wasn’t coming in, we decided to try a couple of the horns the store had in stock.

Yamaha has two models between the student version and the professional line — sort of a step-up and step-up-step-up. After playing both, Fred didn’t really think that the step-up-step-up was actually worth $400 more than the step-up. On the other hand, he wasn’t quite happy with the step-up one, either. So, the store is going to order another step-up to see if it’s better (or at least different). The store is also going to try to order a Jupiter sax, though Jupiter went out of business a while ago, so we don’t know if they can get one.

The benefits of the step-up horns over the student versions is that they are usually made of higher quality brass, and some of the openings are adjustable.