Hi!

Newbie on this site... someone that still in the saxophone line...

Regarding the purchase of instrument, there are just too many choices to go on in the market. It can range from 1500RM till ten over thousand for an alto.

BUT, I will strongly advise to try the instrument before you buy. Of course if you are beginner, get someone that can really play the instrument to test out the instrument for you. I have been playing on Selmer, Yanagisawa, china or taiwan brands... but now I'm with Yamaha. Nothing special, just because I like the mechanism for the Yamaha so much.

Basically every instrument will have slight different. Selmer is claim to have a nice sound by specialising on their lacquer and also the tradition from the Aldophe Sax (creator of Sax). Yamaha used to be a copy of the famous MarkVI, but now they put in a lot effort and come up with their own line. Yamaha tends to give more mellow tone compare to selmer. The yanagisawa is the same case as Yamaha, but they keep a lot of the markVI tradition, and they put in a lot of craftmanship into it.

Most of the instrument from this region (japan and taiwan) have their original saxophone made out from markVI.

Buffet is another story as is always with the Rascher (german school) system, and it tends to give an even more mellow, dark and fat sound compare to Selmer or Yamaha.

Then, we have the choice of the mouthpiece. selmer, vandoren, yamaha, meyer, berg larssen... All with different character.

So... before you buy, think of what kind of sound you want.

Now this is the thing... a lot of time the students are ask to practice. But what to practice? Of course people will come up with long tone, technical part and so on. But no matter what you practice, the first thing is the sound, which concern a lot on your TONE. Is just like asking someone to sing a scale, without letting them know what is a scale. This is the problem for many musicians out there, where they themselves can't even tell what is the different of tone, tuning, and blending.

Is prove in many places that people should always start on aural skills, which involve singing and ear training before that really pick up an instrument. This might go for few days to few weeks. But this is what every musicians needed all the time.

and I'm so sorry to say that's not true on what you talking about selmer and yamaha. Is true that some selmer instrument is somehow have a more differ tone (this will be another issue on discussing what and how the selmer instrument made of), but yamaha is definately NOT thinner sound. If you go out there to listen, there are a lot musicians that used yamaha play incredibly big and fat tone. Is not possible to know exactly how many percentage of brass to use for each brand, as that's their top secret for producing their instrument. If we know it, there will be no 'legend' about the MarkVI.

The instrument mainly act as the 'speaker' for your voice, with mainly affected by the mouthpiece and your throat singing position. I don't mean to ask a student to get some expensive instrument to start with. What I strongly emphasize is, go listen to some good musician, ask them opinion on the brand of instrument they using, then only you decide to choose on what brand to go for.

Selmer don't have any beginner entry level instrument. But is interesting enough that Selmer do have a few different model for you to choose on (series II, III, reference), which all are different, in terms of mechanism, sound, and even the finger position. Yamaha, yanagisawa, jupiter and many other do have the student entry level instrument. Once you have certain brand in your mind, then look at your own budget. Like some of you mentioned, I won't recommend the so call intermediate level instrument, is just some small 'add' on from the student model.

What is the different for the professional level and the student model? Basically they have the same overall design. The main different is how they are made (hand or machine made, they way they put the instrument together, which affect the air flow) and what material (again, air flow and response), and then the finishing lacquer (sound reflection, which greatly affect the tone color). Selmer is famous for their body and bell joint design, yamaha for their accurate mechanism and the lacquer, yanagisawa stand up for their one piece material and so on...

Haha,

First thing, yanagisawa do produce lower model, which you might call it entry or student model.

second thing, there is no such thing as tone deaf. They can't differentiate because they are not thought what is the different, which is the aural skills I talk.

third, how can you tell a sound is the correct or proper one when you don't even have idea whether you are doing the correct thing. And I'm shame to say that many so call teachers out there are just not qualified. you may say different people have different method, but when can't solve a problem for a student, who can one person claim to be a teacher. And of course a student will not get interest to continue if the teacher have no idea how to continue it.

I do agree with you about the instrument brand making, but unfortunately that's the reality thing. when you go straight to talk to the instrument makers, their technician, their design artist, then the different of each instrument brand is clear enough.

basic note, long tone, what is it means for? what is the whole purpose of doing it? and how you call it a quality tone, that's something all the teachers should think of. Why I would want to wast numerous of hours on it when it just means to be a long tone practice.

to pick up an instrument and to play is simple to anyone. But to do it well is another matter.

Cheers!

Never mind then, I guess we are speaking on a very different view on this. You never meet at good teacher, and you think you can do it by yourself, then go ahead. Congratulations if you can made it to a professional and earn a living as a musician.

And I think you do misunderstand what I wrote about meeting the maker. Of course they can tell you what they are doing and what kind of material they will used. But is the percentage of different materials, and how you solve the problem of having the parts fix up, the temperature to do it, how to do the plating evenly... this is all the part that nobody will tell you. And I don't think a lot sales person out there understand this.

And in the previous post, I mentioned before. The instrument body act more like a speaker, but main part for the sound is still depends on your vocal throat, embouchure and the mouthpiece.

I do agree with what you say about doing long tone for all those benefits you get. But that's the minimum thing that you can get. You can get a lot more by doing on the long tone, if consider you have the idea on what is a tone, and what is a proper tuning. And that's the time consuming part, where a lot people will just give up on that, and later on they will go back to it, and re-do it, consider they are serious about making good music.

I don't means to offense the teacher in Malaysia, but is sad to say, many of them just can't teach well, and can't even play by themselves. Of course people will say teacher no need to be good player, but they do need to know the technical stuff by playing themselves, they do need to know the repertoire to teach the student, and they do need to update themselves with the world out there, on the development of the instrument, the repertoire, the new technology that applied to teaching and instrument and many more.

Just curious, what other instrument you play?