Last January I wrote a post about a DIY saxophone that a player was using to busk with in Sao Paulo, Brazil. This sax was made of PVC piping and, according to the photographer, sounded similar to a real saxophone.
I had hoped that the inventor of this DIY sax would visit my site one day, and tell us more about his invention. Well last night he did.
Gibran Santos is the man behind SaxArte—the colourful, carefully shaped, PVC water pipes that when played, emit a sound eerily like those of an actual saxophone.
It appears that Gibran’s homemade saxophones stem from a lifelong desire to play our beloved instrument. Sadly a lack of financial means put that dream out of his reach.
His love of the saxophone began early. At the age of 6 he already wanted a toy saxophone. Not having enough money to buy a real sax later, he settled on the harmonica, and taught himself how to play it.
One day he found someone selling a type of bamboo saxophone in Republic Square. Unfortunately the the instrument soon broke. However, this gave Gibran the idea to develop his own saxophone, only he thought he would use something longer-lasting.
In 2002 Gibran bought PVC pipes and dura poxy, and went about trying to design the first saxophone for himself. It took a number of attempts, but after approximately 20 prototypes he finally found the formula for a good sound.
Over the years Gibran created enough of these saxophones that he has refined them, and now feels comfortable selling them to the public. These horns are being sold under the name Gibran_SaxArte.arte & company.
For a sample of how true the scale of these C pitched, fibreglass and resin saxophones is, check out Gibran’s YouTube videos. They are embedded on his site.
Gibran sells his horns for 200 BRL (Brazil Reais), which, at the time of writing, is $113.86 according to XE.com.
His goal to produce his saxophones on a larger scale so that the price can be further reduced. He would like to have the price such, that everyone who wants to play, can afford to buy one of his saxophones. He is currently looking for a company to work with to make this dream of his a reality.¹
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Saxarte
https://www.facebook.com/SaxofoneArtesanal/
New saxarte!!
https://www.facebook.com/SaxofoneArtesanal/
Gibran’s saxophone must surely be the very first proper minisaxophone. All of the so called minisaxopohones are actually clarinets using a straight cylinderical bore whereas this instrumnent uses a proper tapered bore based on proper saxophone design. The inbstrumnent is very well made and because of the large tone holes and tapered bore does sound like a saxophone. The sound quality like most other tastes is subjective and an objective opinion just cannot be made in matters of taste. The instrument is most suited for band use and the sound could hardly be considered suitable or pleasant when the instrument is played in the house or in a quiet environment. Having succeeded in making a practical minisaxophone which most certaily is no apology for the saxophone, it would have been high desirable to have provided the instrument with a full complement of keys to enable a chromatic scale of at least one and a half octave if not two. with this reservationn concerning this most interesting and successful design, the addition of a full set of keys for an extended range would have made this the perfect minisaxophone designed amd manufactured any where in the world. Congratulations to this innovator, designer and manufacturer and may he most hopefully progress to an enhanced version of his most excellent design. Much kudos must be handed out to this innovator, designer and manfacturer and may he succeed in all his endeavours.Congratulation, congratulations, congratulations.
really great thanks gibran
Of course it was recorded on webcam and micro phone is not good.
I have to do a video with a better camera ..
You can be sure that my sax is a good instrument and that fonciona as a flute with sax mouthpiece in quel I make handcrafted of resin and fiberglass
Very good …
Thanks!
You are very welcome gibran. Please let me know when you have some new videos up. I will be happy to update the links. Send me an email if you like with more information, and I will write a follow-up piece sometime.
Best wishes…helen
On two of the three recordings I heard, the sounds didn’t seem to match the finger actions. Not sure what’s up there.
I noticed that too. I have seen it before on sites other than YouTube. I assumed it had something to do with server traffic, and the distance that I was from the server. However, IIRC this hiccup appears in the YouTube videos as well. Could it have something to do with the recording device?