{"id":980,"date":"2015-01-17T22:08:37","date_gmt":"2015-01-17T22:08:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesax.info\/makesandmodelslist\/?p=980"},"modified":"2020-01-26T15:30:43","modified_gmt":"2020-01-26T15:30:43","slug":"yanagisawa-6-7-series","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/Pete\/makesandmodelslist\/yanagisawa-6-7-series\/","title":{"rendered":"Yanagisawa 6 & 7 Series"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Vital Stats<\/strong><\/h2>\n

SN-6 Eb Sopranino (F#) Introduced:<\/strong> 1972.  Discontinued:<\/strong> appx. 1980.
\nS-6 Straight Bb Soprano Introduced: <\/strong>1968. Discontinued:<\/strong> appx. 1990.
\n(According to these<\/a> three<\/a> histories<\/a>, the S-6 straight Bb soprano was introduced in 1969.)
\nA-6 Eb Alto Introduced:<\/strong> August 1970.  Discontinued:<\/strong> appx. 1980.
\nT-6 Bb Tenor Introduced:<\/strong> appx. 1970.  Discontinued:<\/strong> appx. 1980.
\nB-6 Eb Baritone (low A) Introduced:<\/strong> March 1967.  Discontinued:<\/strong> appx. 1990.
\nAvailable Finishes:<\/strong> Silver plate, lacquer, lacquer with nickel-plated keywork.<\/p>\n

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Brief Model Notes<\/h2>\n

The SN-600 vs. SN-6 confused the heck outta me. Let me talk through it.<\/p>\n

I eventually found a 1980’s catalog<\/a> listing the SN-600 and SN-800 (the 600 is on the left). It’s a big enough pic to see that the keyed range on both the 600 and 800 are to altissimo E and neither have an altissimo F# key. I even counted tone holes for the upper stack. There are four above the B key and no front altissimo F. If you compare that to the 6 on the SN-9930<\/a>, which has a keyed range to altissimo G, you can only conclude that the horn pictured in the catalog as an SN-600 has a range to altissimo E.<\/p>\n

That’s not the end of it, though.<\/p>\n

The really, really easy way to tell if you have an A-5 or T-5 pro model, rather than an A-4 or a T-4 “intermediate” model, is to see if you have an altissimo F#. Altissimo F# = 5 Series. So, one might conclude that the 6 Series, a professional line, all have altissimo F# keys. They don’t. The B-6 baritone doesn’t. “Well,” you could say, “Baritones generally don’t have altissimo F#. Bari players don’t use that key much and the bari isn’t very common, anyway. Most manufacturers use their older-style horns until they get lotsa orders for a new model bari.” That’s a good point, but the B-6 is Yani’s first bari. I could also argue that the market for sopraninos is even smaller than the market for baris. That’s easily seen by just looking at my stash of Yani bari and sopranino pics. I have probably 5 to 10 times more baris than sopraninos.<\/p>\n

So, let’s look at some documentation.<\/p>\n

The Barnes & Mullins article<\/a> says that the first sopranino was introduced in June 1972 as model “SN-6<\/strong>,” with a keyed range to altissimo E. The Conn-Selmer<\/a> website goes a step further and says that the first SN-6 sopranino was sold to Sonny Rollins in 1972, but doesn’t comment on the keyed range. Yanagisawa’s website<\/a> and others say it’s 1968 with model SN-600<\/strong>, with keyed range to altissimo E. Riojasax<\/a> says that the SN-600, with keyed range to altissimo E, was released in December 1968 and the SN-6 was released in June 1972.<\/p>\n

So, my current opinion, based on agreement from most of my source material, is that the SN-600 is a sopranino with a keyed range to altissimo E. The SN-6, if I can ever find one, probably has a keyed range to altissimo F# or it has some small change to a bit of keywork, like the A-600.<\/p>\n

Wrapping up the model name and introduction date stuff, I want to mention that I couldn\u2019t find a release date for the T-6 tenor. My opinion is that it was probably released around the same time as the alto, give or take a few months.<\/p>\n

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You\u2019ll notice, in the above pics, I didn\u2019t include an A-6, but the A-600, instead. There\u2019s a reason for that: I have yet to find halfway decent photos of a horn that’s actually stamped “A-6.” Until I actually find pics, the A-600 is close enough.<\/p>\n

This horn<\/a> is probably an A-6, but the serial number is close enough to the 800\/880 series that I can\u2019t be sure unless it had the \u201cA-6\u201d stamp by the serial number and I can’t see the serial number.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve seen a number of people selling horns that look like this.<\/a> When people are questioned about it, they say that they looked up the serial number and \u201cit fits\u201d with the A-6. They don\u2019t have a stamp by the serial number that says \u201cA-6.\u201d They just assume it\u2019s a 6. Which is fine and dandy until you see the A-4<\/a>, which was stenciled as the \u201cDorado 500,\u201d amongst other names. The A-4 was produced until at least 1975, and I think it could have been produced all the way up to the introduction of the A-800\/A-80, which was between 1977 and 1980, depending on your source material.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s something else: the A-6s I see being sold don\u2019t have an altissimo F# key. The T-6 has an altissimo F#. The older pro model, the A-5, has an altissimo F#. Even stencils of these have the altissimo F#. I\u2019d assume that the real A-6 also has an altissimo F# key.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve got an A-6 with \u201cA-6\u201d stamped by the serial number, drop me a line!<\/p>\n

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As mentioned above, the SN-600 sopranino has a keyed range to altissimo E. This is interesting from two perspectives: the reduced keyed range might contribute to the the fact that these horns are considered to have the best intonation of any sopranino available until that point. Second, the range to altissimo E is interesting because earlier sopraninos \u2014 and much earlier baritones and basses, for that matter \u2014 had a range to altissimo Eb. In other words, the right-hand speaker key for the altissimo E (and higher) wasn\u2019t there on these vintage horns. It is on the Yani.<\/p>\n

Ed pointed out, in his original article, that the S-6 is a really good copy of a Selmer Mark VI. Maybe even a better<\/em> horn than the Mark VI. While I can\u2019t dispute that one way or another because I haven\u2019t played a Yani S-6, I have played three different Yani-made Vito VSP baritones. These horns look almost exactly like a low A Mark VI horn, but all three were awful horns: poor response, poor tone. That\u2019s one of the reasons I\u2019ve kept away from writing about Yani for a long while: no need for me to write about horns I don\u2019t like!<\/p>\n

Yamaha introduced their first professional horns, the 61 Series, internationally in 1971. The Yamaha 61 horns are much more visually different from the Selmer Mark VI than the Yanis, but also play very similarly to the Mark VI \u2014 maybe a bit brighter than the VI, even. It\u2019s very possible that the Yani 6 Series and the Yamaha 61 Series contributed to Selmer producing the Mark VII. (Of course, there\u2019s also the interesting part that the Yamaha saxophone division was originally Nikkan Woodwinds, which was part of Yanagisawa.)<\/p>\n

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New on Jan. 21, 2020:
\nI have gotten an awful lot of e-mails from folks trying to find out if they have a 6-Series, 500, or 800.  That’s a really, really difficult question to answer when the horn has a serial number that puts the horn from about 1977 to 1982.  Here are some notes:<\/p>\n