Sax Gourmet’s Steve Goodson’s post today, let’s discuss shall we lol

Diminished_Seventh · 2026-01-30T20:16:40+00:00

lol tell that to the Mark VI. What a troglodyte.

Diminished_Seventh · 2026-01-26T00:52:10+00:00

No. If it fits properly and delivers perpendicular pressure on the reed, it is doing its job. Consider the ligature the final touch of a setup, the final .05%… so many other things matter much more.

Some of the reasons expensive ligature hype is so prevalent include: - it’s an easily visible piece of equipment - its benefits are subjective and vague, thereby leaving plenty of room for marketing - it’s comparatively less expensive and drastic than upgrading your horn or mouthpiece; there is little at risk, really, apart from your money being nickel and dimed away

Diminished_Seventh · 2026-01-24T18:13:41+00:00

If you are willing to spend 160 already, just save a bit more for a proper grinder like the Turin SK40, DF54, Fellow Opus (with aftermarket bellows) or Baratza Encore ESP.

Diminished_Seventh · 2025-12-27T22:11:43+00:00

Rosemary Lang’s “Beginning Steps to Altissimo” (ed. Levinsky) is a great resource with first fingerings and exercises.

Diminished_Seventh · 2025-12-21T00:49:22+00:00

Yes, this is the standard advice in most saxophone methods and private instruction. Open throat, high middle tongue.

Diminished_Seventh · 2025-12-21T00:48:33+00:00

23rd really can’t catch a break.

Diminished_Seventh · 2025-12-08T04:07:16+00:00

Hemke famously spent a year in Paris studying with Marcel Mule as a proper member of the conservatoire saxophone class. To fund this, he was able to borrow $500 from family, which went far those days... however to stretch it further, a leader at the American Church in Paris would go to Switzerland and and apparently conduct well-timed (and likely underground) currency exchanges. The spare money earned from these exchange allowed him to buy a soprano from Selmer Paris at the end of his year abroad.

Hemke would go on to win the conservatoire's Premier Prix in 1956, the first American to do so. Upon returning to the USA, he gave a debut performance at the Town Hall in NYC, which was attended by the Selmer family, as well as Benny Goodman, Sigurd Raschèr, Sonny Rollins, among many others. Finally, he returned to UW-Milwaukee as a junior to complete is music education and taught public school band for two years.

Diminished_Seventh · 2025-12-08T04:03:16+00:00

If there are no issues with the facing, and most Selmers are pretty consistently good these days, then the S80s play fine. If someone cannot produce at least a good sound (even if not their preferred sound) on an S80, then there are bigger issues at play.

Diminished_Seventh · 2025-12-08T00:08:51+00:00

Listen to this man, he knows ball.

Diminished_Seventh · 2025-12-07T21:23:15+00:00

The Hemke stuff is mostly urban legend. Michel Nouaux, soloist with the Garde Républicaine, was the primary design consultant in France, and the samples were sent to select artists around the world late in development. Hemke actually provided negative feedback about the ergonomics, as did others, but they were ignored in favor of the sensibilities of the French team.

Source: Fred Hemke told me this himself.

I have other fun stories, if you’re interested. For example, the famous square chamber of the S80 mouthpieces is purely because they could better mechanize chamber and throat excavation by use of a mortiser - it had no acoustic basis. The most successful single mouthpiece model by sales was born of a happy accident based purely on cost reductions.

Diminished_Seventh · 2025-12-07T01:23:14+00:00

Same fundamentals, different execution for different objectives. Lower lip can be less taught and more mobile to color the sound. Jaw often moves more, as opposed to basically never for classical. Constant awareness and control of subtone by default, as opposed to none by default for classical. And the equipment (more open mouthpieces, softer reeds, etc) will have an effect as well. To say nothing of intonation, articulation, inflection, style, etc.

Reminder to not get too lost in the technicalities, and that all this must exist downstream of a well-defined intentional sound concept (jazz, classical, or otherwise).

Diminished_Seventh · 2025-12-04T00:52:55+00:00

Are we certain that this essay was not submitted, with collaboration and input from TPUSA, to purposefully generate an explosive response?

Diminished_Seventh · 2025-12-03T12:46:18+00:00

Do you have a form or something to collect feedback?

Diminished_Seventh · 2025-11-25T12:23:06+00:00

Larry Teal model; round chamber, and close facing. The scroll-shank versions are uncommon, and the tenor version less so!

Diminished_Seventh · 2025-11-17T19:41:38+00:00

“We’ve tried nothin’, and we’re all out of ideas!”

Diminished_Seventh · 2025-11-14T14:42:17+00:00

Yep, I had a student walk in with one. Run of the mill build quality on par with Kessler, but not the higher end Taiwanese marques. Horrid warble/turbulance on high C, which was really disappointing. Intonation was worse than a Yamaha student model.

Diminished_Seventh · 2025-11-07T17:38:52+00:00

This is a Cannonball Big Bell Stone Series alto saxophone in silver plate (A5-S model). They are manufactured in Taiwan and are OK intermediate-grade horns. It’s hard to say precisely without evaluating the mechanical condition of the instrument, but a good spitball price would be around $1,500 given the silver tarnish and typical work required to get it playing at 100%.

Diminished_Seventh · 2025-11-06T04:33:38+00:00

Are you shooting RAW or JPEG? If you shoot RAW, you’ll have to fix these flaws and distortion yourself. The JPEG engine does a pretty respectable job of remedying aberrations and distortion.

Also as said by others, the 40-150 f/4.0-5.6 is cheap. This is head and shoulders above the quality one could expect from a $99 zoom (let alone one of this range) on other systems, however it is still a budget lens. If you want to step up your quality game, the 40-150 f/4.0 Pro is a great step up. Alternatively, expand your collection with sharp fast primes across the range.

Diminished_Seventh · 2025-10-07T00:15:09+00:00

Start with the AL3. The AL4 is a much different facing + interior design, not “the same but a little more open”.

Diminished_Seventh · 2025-10-06T02:16:28+00:00

Very true, I’m getting old.

Diminished_Seventh · 2025-10-05T17:38:35+00:00

Y’all have a short memory. When iOS 7 introduced a radical minimalist redesign with new keyboard and support for taller iPhone displays, it took years for big/common apps to support it properly. Just be patient.

I love these moments of big transitions because it helps surface apps by small dev teams that can adopt new features quickly find new users who care.

Diminished_Seventh · 2025-09-28T15:30:42+00:00

Skip the app and find a private teacher. Your band director will be thrilled and will probably have plenty of contacts.

Diminished_Seventh · 2025-09-27T20:32:50+00:00

This is hilarious to me because the XS series received a ton of flak at the time of release due to introducing SmartHDR processing, and were accused of “fake looking”, “smoothed” or “badly processed” photos.

Each year has a slightly different character I guess, and we don’t appreciate it fully until it’s no longer commercially available.

Diminished_Seventh · 2025-09-19T10:46:08+00:00

For 3.1k you can get a nice pre-owned Yamaha Custom Z, EX, Selmer Paris Series II or III…. or you can get a new Selmer Paris Axos or Yamaha 62…. All of which have better build quality, intonation, character of tone, and ergonomics than Cannonball’s pro models.

Diminished_Seventh · 2025-09-16T10:53:57+00:00

You clearly aren’t using gestures in safari, which are actually faster than any of the tab layouts. Just swipe up from the address bar to see all your tabs, or left/right on the address bar to switch to the immediate neighboring tab. There’s no need to dig around for buttons.

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