Does your yard need some saxing up? Are you looking for some yard art that’s not the same old, same old? If you answered “yes” to the previous two questions, then I might have the perfect solution to your decorating dilemma: a saxophone fountain.
Source: custommade.com Used with permission
This double sax fountain is the work of James and Sandi Harris, who own Wyld at Heart Customs, in Bakersfield , CA. Their website says:
We are a young company that has progressed into making custom wine barrel furniture and fountains…
Our custom fountains vary between the one of a kind artistic instrument fountains and pottery fountains to wine barrel fountains and pitcher pump fountains….
We have something for everyone.
Just focusing on the instrument fountains, they have something for nearly every music lover—brass and woodwind players are both very well represented. However, since I’m a sax player, my natural leanings are towards their saxophone fountains.
James and Sandi Harris certainly don’t disappoint: there are quite a few different saxophone fountains that they illustrate on their website.
Besides the Conn/Yamaha conjoined twin alto shown above—at least the key guards suggest a MexiConn and a perhaps YAS 23—the couple also have just a regular, run-of-the-mill alto saxophone fountain. This particular one appears to have been made with a vintage sax.
Source: custommade.com Used with permission
Being a baritone player, naturally the double-belled, silver baritone saxophone fountain caught my eye. It is really quite striking, and it too was made with a vintage saxophone. However, this one is so vintage, it doesn’t even have pearls, and was likely originally only keyed to low B.
Source: custommade.com Used with permission
Source: custommade.com Used with permission
The saxophone fountain that is however perhaps the most unusual, is one that the artists call the Saxahorn Fountain.
Source: custommade.com Used with permission
This strange melded horn is obviously a combo of some brass wind bells, a large brass wind mouthpiece, and an alto saxophone body tube. The neck? I don’t know what brass wind it came from. I’m guessing maybe a baritone horn. All in all, this is one very interesting piece.
Source: custommade.com Used with permission
This is only a sample of the work that James and Sandi Harris have done in the past. Since they do custom work, you can contact them through their website on Custom Made, (not the most user-friendly contact page around), and order something that is just as interesting, and will be unique to your garden.
The neck on the Saxahorn looks like part of a bass clarinet neck bonded to a “bit” from a sousaphone. These “bits” are placed between the mouthpiece and leadpipe to lower the pitch when the slides cannot be extended far enough. The mouthpiece also then would probably be from some sort of tuba. In between the “bit” and the 3/4 of a bass clarinet neck is… I can’t tell.
You’re likely right. It’s hard to tell proportions. I was just pulling instrument names out of my ass. :blah: