This morning I was looking through Flickr, and I happened across some very unusual saxophone photos in Daniel Stover’s, AKA Kasparguy’s, photostream. Someone had customized the hell out of a Selmer Mark VII alto.
Stover Saxophone 2012-15
Photography by: Thad Matthews Source: Flickr
Stover Saxophone 2012-8
Photography by: Thad Matthews Source: Flickr
Stover Saxophone 2012-13
Photography by: Thad Matthews Source: Flickr
Kasparguy has lots more photos of this horn in a separate album. If you want to see how truly customized this Mark VII is, be sure to check out these 40 shots.
Kasparguy also has another customized Selmer alto in an album. This album contains 34 photos. This set is interesting, because there are a number of pics that show a player’s hands on the keys.
It took me a few minutes to figure out what these horns were, but then I realized that these were saxophones that were specially customized for a one-handed player, by technician Jeff Stelling. I had written about these custom horns before. In that post, I included a link to the company that does the customizations. If you’d like to find out more about these innovative saxophones, I’d encourage you to check out my article from April 5, 2011.
Helen, I just ran across this post via Google and wanted to say hi. I couldn’t find a direct contact link on your blog so decided to post a comment.
Jeff Stelling is currently working on a left-handed instrument for another player. He started work on it shortly after finishing my Selmer in January 2012.
Brian Russell has recently finished a left-handed tenor using a slightly different mechanism, but very similar fingering pattern. I have some videos on my website of my playing duets on my toggle sax, including links you’ve already posted. I invite others to come to my pages at onehandsax.com
As far as playing two instruments at once one-handed, That would be getting to be rather burdensome on the back/neck. Just one of these toggle key saxes weighs considerably more than a conventional instrument, due to all the additional mechanism that has to be be built. My Mark VII alto, weighs more than most tenors! Granted, that is partly due to the fact that VII’s were noticeably heavier instruments to begin with.
Hi Daniel.
Sorry about my slow response to your comment.
I find the whole idea of playing the saxophone entirely one-handed (left or right) rather overwhelming. It would be like learning the instrument all over again. I have the greatest respect for players who manage to do so, and applaud the techs and the R&D people who even have the ability to think this stuff up.
I suffer from a neuro problem that has left me with some fine motor skill deficits. Since December 2006 it has drastically changed the way I play, and I have had to learn how to do things differently. Given the amount of neurological fatigue I also suffer from, if I in effect would have had to learn a whole new instrument, I would have likely not been able to come back as quickly as I have. Certainly I would not have been on stage within a year again.
I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but I recently wrote an article about Brain Russell’s customization of a Mark VI for Charlie Borzillire. Borzillire is a pro player from Wisconsin. After that article I was in contact with Russell, and am actually planning some articles on one-handed saxophones in general.
Thank you for the visit Daniel, and link to your website. If you’d like to reach me, my email address is: bassic.sax.info@gmail.com
Warm regards,
Helen
Helen, Learning the fingerings for the toggle sax was quite easy. It’s a very logical pattern. If you check out the fingering chart on the PDF of David Nabb’s One-handed Woodwinds Program, you’ll see what I mean. It looks overwhelming at first, but I started thinking of it as taking the two hands of a conventional fingering chart and bringing them side by side. Since it took Jeff just shy of two years to complete the conversion of my horn, I had plenty of free time to sit and finger through scale patterns and music to get the fingerings in my ind. Once my horn was finished, it was really just a matter of really feeling the keys and how much movement/pressure was required to actuate them.
I have had my horn just over two years now and am playing my first recital on March 1st. It will be my first recital in over nine years, since my last clarinet recital as an undergrad. Not to mention my first recital as a saxophonist! yikes!
Hi Daniel.
Thanks for visiting again. It reminded me that I have never followed-up with those couple of articles I was planning on writing about one-handed saxophones.
I just checked out your website. Very interesting. I need to spend some more time on it, to really get the most out of it, but I really like what I did read, and the areas you write about.
BTW, congrats on your upcoming recital. As the say in showbiz: Break a leg. 🙂
It would be wonderful if you could stop by again after the performance, and let us know what your experience was like, performing after all these years, on what basically amounts to a new instrument. Any chance some/all of it will be recorded?
PS: Thanks for your email. I’ll respond to that later today. As per usual, I’m really behind in my replies to everything…helen
I wonder if there is sufficient demand for such an instrument to redesign it mechanically from the ground up to be played with one hand, rather than modifying an existing mechanism. It would also be nice to have a mirrored version that can be played entirely with the LEFT hand, for those that want to do the two-horn trick (and don’t have an Aulochrome).
http://www.aulochrome.com/
You have to admit that the idea of being a horn section by yourself — without electronics — is an intriguing one.
Also, it seems to me that while a system based on the normal two-handed fingerings makes sense for someone re-learning to play after a lifetime of playing in the conventional manner, it is totally irrelevant for someone learning to play for the first time. They don’t have the existing muscle memory to leverage (or fight). For these people — and there are potentially far more of them than of the first group — a cheaper, simpler mechanism might be in order. One idea is that if it were allowable to place the crossover into altissimo much lower in the instrument’s register, by allowing easy access to the third harmonic, it would be possible to do away with the left palm keys and high E and F# entirely. One would simply recycle the fingerings for high G to high C#, but sounding a fifth higher, to get through (current) altissimo G#. A should be reachable without any palm keys, as should Bb, by their conventional ventings. I haven’t taken the time to figure out how you’d reach notes above that, but I’m sure they’d be there in some form. This would likely require better control of voicing than a normal two-handed instrument, since there would be fewer harmonics to choose from for any given note, but if it was EASY, someone would have done it a long time ago. (Besides, most players reach a compromise between ease of voicing and ease of fingering anyhow. I know I don’t use the most stable altissimo fingerings because they’re awkward, I use somewhat less stable fingerings that are much easier, and expect my voicing to keep me on target.)
Yup, for people like me (and you I think) it certainly is indeed intriguing. Also, I’d have double the volume! Now there’s something I really like the idea of as well… I really have been playing with guitar players too long, haven’t I. 😈
I agree with you about the idea of having a sax set up for people to play entirely with the left hand. I’ve often wondered what’s to happen with players who have left-sided strokes. Playing with their right hand is of course not an option in that case. I wonder if it too difficult to do, or if there have just not been any players who have approached the designer about the concept?