Update: I have now published THE PAGE ON MY WEBSITE about this horn. Included on this page are the key heights. If anyone is ever looking for key heights for a Conn New Wonder C soprano, please come on over to my Bassic Sax website.
For years I had toyed with the idea of getting a C-pitched soprano for those occasional oboe parts in pit orchestras when the book I played had 8 bars here, 16 bars here, etc. etc. Then in January 2020, I took the plunge and got one from my vintage and bass sax buddy, Paul Lindemeyer.
Paul had an unrestored, Conn New Wonder Series II in a storage locker. Ever since he got it, it had never been playable. And since he already had 2 other fully playable C sopranos, there was really no use in him keeping it. He and I came to an agreement, and next thing you know the little beastie was winging its way to me via FedEx.
Due to a family emergency, I was on an extended stay in WA, so Paul sent it to me there. Shortly after it arrived, I went to my favourite music store in Washington State: Bellingham Wind Works.
Paul had sent me a MP he believed was possibly an unlabelled Conn piece, and Wind Works’ saxophone specialist, Marcel, looked at it closely and confirmed that it was indeed a Conn blank. However, since my New Wonder C soprano was not in playable condition, I tried the MP that Paul sent on a horn that Wind Works had in stock, which was nearly identical in serial #. I also tried a couple of other C soprano MPs that they had stock—both stamped Conn Eagle.
In the photo below you can see the blank that Paul sent me on the left. Its window is a bit longer, and its table a bit shorter.
While the Conn blank the Paul sent me played well, and in tune, both Conn Eagle MPs were more free-blowing, and Marcel noted that they gave the horn a more open and less constricted sound. This confirmed what I heard. So with that, I bought one of the Conn Eagle MPs, and opted for the Légère Signature Series #3 reed and Rover dark lig that I had been using for the play test.
Fast forward a few months
As we all know, 2020 is been the year that live music has for the most part been silenced. Theater gigs have come to a grinding halt, and there is nothing musical happening. Full stop.
The C soprano “is a horse of different color”.
Once my tech got caught up on some jobs he was doing, in spring he set out to do an overhaul on the C soprano for me. I opted for flat metal resos with a rivet, and conventional Pisoni pads. Nothing special or extreme.
Once the little horn was done, I was very excited to try it. I had had great success with the silver-plated C soprano at Bellingham Wind Works, and even surprised myself how well and in tune I was able to play it given I had no previous experience on these instruments.
Oh, was I in for a letdown. My New Wonder was horribly out of tune. It was basically unplayable. I was crushed. David adjusted the key heights; I tried it again; but nada… It was all for not. 😥
I reached out to Conn historian, and the man I bought the horn from, Paul Lindemeyer, to see if he knew if there were any key height charts available from Conn for these New Wonder horns. He told me that to the best of his knowledge there weren’t. They likely were either destroyed in one of the numerous fires at the factory, or just tossed out. Whatever the case, he had not seen or heard of any.
Then I had idea. I reached out to the lovely owners of Wind Works and asked Kat if they still had the Conn C soprano in stock. Luckily they did. It had been for sale on Reverb, and it was about to be sent to its new owner, but they still currently had it in stock.
I explained to Kat what was happening, and asked if it was possible for Marcel to measure the key heights and send them to me. Marcel did just that, and within a week I was able to provide David with the precise key heights for the identical horn that played in tune.
David set the heights, and presto, my C soprano played just as perfectly in tune as the one I had tried at Wind Works.
NB: Once I have my website updated with info on this horn, I will post the exact keys height there, and provide a link on this page so if anyone is ever in the situation I was in, they’ll have those key heights readily available to them.
The summer of 2020
Since there are no performances or rehearsals of any kind permitted in BC, I had the idea to do oboe/soprano sax duets with my buddy Margaret. I put together a custom book of duets pulled from the Universal Sax Method, as well as Rubank’s Voxman duet books. Since all of these were originally oboe duets anyway, they were perfect for us.
Margaret and I got together weekly to work on these duets, and to just be able to play with someone else. We sat more than 8′ apart, and played outside.
For me, working on classical music this seriously was really a challenge. I have not practiced classical music this hard for years… Dare I say decades? Yikes! 😯
What also made me nervous, was that Margaret has perfect pitch. Early in the summer I had some really scary moments with a couple of notes. But within a couple of weeks her oboe and my C soprano were perfectly in tune. The two instruments sounded perfect together.
The Fraser Valley Philharmonic Society provided us with a custom arrangement of the Flower Duet. We have been working on perfecting that for a recording.
How a C differs from a Bb soprano
Now if you’ve ever heard a Bb soprano that sounds oboesque, or played with a smooth jazz or hot jazz setup, then you are likely wondering: Just how different is the tone of a C soprano from a Bb?
The short answer is: It couldn’t be more different.
Physical differences
As you can tell from my two sopranos below, one is considerably shorter than the other. The one on top is my Mark VI Bb soprano. The one on the bottom is my Conn New Wonder Series II C soprano.
The C soprano is 59cm long, while the Bb comes in at 65cm. Naturally the bore in the C soprano is also smaller, and the keys are located more closely together.
Tone
Bb sopranos do tend to have a nasally sound to them—this is especially true depending on the mouthpiece you are using on them, and the type of soprano you have. To paraphrase a line from the Wizard of Oz: the C soprano, “is a horse of a different color”.
The C soprano has a very clean and pure sound. It sounds like a saxophone, pure and simple—just a rather high one. It’s a bit like comparing an F Mezzo soprano to an alto sax in tone. That 1/2 step makes a huge difference.
Range
The range of most C sopranos is from low Bb (Bb1) to high Eb (Eb3).
There are some Buescher True Tone models that are keyed to high F (F3), but for the most part, C sopranos only are mising those last 2 semi-tones that the majority of its contemporaries
Embouchure control
The embouchure of the C soprano, for me, is the hardest thing to keep control of. Being primarily a bari player—and a non-legit one at that 😉 —I am used to a very loose embouchure. Not even a Bb soprano requires as much embouchure control as this little beastie does.
The C soprano has a tiny MP that uses conventional soprano saxophone reeds. I have opted to go with my regular choice of Légère Signature Series and a Rovner lig, but as we know, it’s the player who makes this all these variables, and more, interact together to create the [in tune] sound.
To give you an idea of the difference between the Bb and C MP sizes, I’ve chosen a random selection of my Bb soprano MPs for comparison/contrast. From top to bottom the MPs are:
- Bobby Dukoff D8 (Bb)
- Runyon Custom 7 (Bb)
- Selmer S80 C* (Bb)
- Conn blank (C)
- Conn Eagle (C)
As you can see from the photos, there is about a 1 cm difference between the Bb and C soprano MPs. The Bb sax MPs are about 7 cm, while those for the C soprano are about 6 cm.
I have found that even the smallest amount of muscle changes on one side of my face, have radical changes in the horn’s intonation. Through doing long tones I discovered how I could bring a note that might have been 50 cents sharp, into perfect tune by only the slightest muscle changes on one or the other sides of my face.
After a few weeks of playing by myself at home, I felt I had enough of a handle on this little beastie that I could play with Margaret without embarrassing myself. I was correct, and furthermore, working with Margaret really helped me further develop my tuning since I found myself naturally coming into tune with her.
Pre-overhaul pics
Due to what has been going on with work, I have not had a chance to take any “after” photos of this little Conn New Wonder C soprano. I hope to change that in the coming few weeks.
In the meantime, here a a few “before” pics. I really doesn’t look much different now. Not being a silver horn, it wasn’t tarnished or anything.
Finish
If you look up the old Conn catalogues of the day, you’ll find that lacquer was not an option back in 1926 when this horn was made. Paul and I discussed this before I bought the horn from him.
Although you can’t tell that from these photos, there is no damage to any of the rolled tone holes, and the engraving is very nice, but not as crisp as new. I suspect this little horn is likely a very old factory lacquer. (From a time when horns were often sent by their owners back to the factory to be overhauled, and bare brass horns lacquered.) When I shoot the “after” pics for the website, I am going to try and capture some of those details so you can see better what I’m referring to.
Fun facts about this horn from 1926
Thanks to Mark Overton’s saxophone.org site, I was able to find a 1926 Conn catalogue where I found the following bits of info about this horn.
Although Conn listed a multitude (9) finishes in their 1926 catalogue, only 6 were officially listed on their saxophone price list page. Why not the other 4 finishes—despite some of them mentioning saxophones in their descriptions? Who knows? And it’s not like there is someone left alive to definitely answer the question. Perhaps they were custom orders. Maybe it was an oversight or typo.
In any event, the following is the description of the 6 finishes noted as available, followed by a price chart for a Conn New Wonder C soprano in 1926.
- Finish 00 :
- Quadruple gold plate
- Completely hand burnished
- Bell richly engraved
- Finger tips pearl inlaid,
- Saxophones with pearl rollers
- Finish 0:
- Quadruple gold plate
- Sand blast finish
- Interior of bell, valve caps, keys, water keys, ferrules, etc, as well as engraving background: hand burnished
- Finger tips pearl inlaid
- Saxophones with pearl rollers
- Finish 1:
- Quadruple silver plating
- Sand blast finish
- Gold plated and hand burnished interior of bell, ferrules, engraving, water keys, knobs, etc.
- Finger tips pearls inlaid
- Saxophones with pearl rollers
- On woodwinds this finish symbols represents heavily gold plated keys, posts and rods
- Finish 2:
- Quadruple silver plated
- Sand blast finish
- Points burnished
- Inside of bell gold plated and burnished
- Finger tips pearl inlaid
- Saxophones with pearls rollers
- Finish 4:
- Highly polished brass with neat engraving design.
- Finish 6:
- Body heavily nickel plated and highly polished
- Pearl finger tips
- Saxophones with pearl rollers.
- On woodwinds this finish symbol represents nickel plated keys, posts, and rods
| Factory # | Finish 00 | Finish 0 | Finish 1 | Finish 2 | Finish 4 | Finish 6 | |
| 2-M (LP) | Cash | $170.00 | $150.00 | $120.00 | $105.00 | $85.00 | $95.00 |
| Installments | $178.50 | $157.50 | $126.00 | $110.25 | $89.25 | $99.75 |
It is very clear that my little Conn New Wonder 2-M is a Finish 4 horn, which would have cost $85.00 new in June 1926. According to the CPI inflation calculator, that is $1250.45 in today’s US $$.
I will update this page once I have the website’s page on this horn up, complete with the new photos and key heights.
Thank you for this informative post. I just picked up a 1922 New Wonder I C Soprano with Finish 1. It was in near time capsule condition when found. It’s going to need work to be fully playable, but it definitely has a very distinct voice unlike any Bb straight soprano. The closest Bb horn that matches it in terms of tone is my 1913 Conn Wonder Curvie.
Hi Helen,
I have a Holton C keyed to high F. Neat little horn, with as you note a more sweet and refined tone than a Bb soprano (my main Bb is a Buescher True Tone).
Although many authorities have said you can’t play a C soprano in tune without a proper C soprano mouthpiece, I have found my Holton plays very well in tune with either my Selmer S-80 or Rousseau 4R. Except, oddly, for low Bb which is so sharp I made an insert to bring it down. With the insert it plays just as well in tune as my Buescher. Of course Holton sopranos of etiher variety have the reputation of having the best intonation of all the older sopranos.
In playing oboe music do you find it tends to go higher than the standard range of the C soprano?
When I first got my C soprano, retired tech and pro player from FL, Randy Emerick, let me know that a stock Yamaha soprano MP works well on my C soprano as well. Best part of all, the 4C, 5C, and 6C all worked on the horn, so it offered me the option of more open-tipped MPs. Not sure is the Yamaha piece works on all C sopranos, but given what you write about about the Selmer and Rousseau pieces working on your Holton, I bet they would.
As far as the range of the music goes, the music I’ve picked is standard saxophone repertoire that was originally written for oboe. There are the occasional high E or F in the pieces. I then either give that part to Margaret and play the other part, or, if both parts have high notes above the range of my C soprano in them, I drop the couple notes down an octave.
Sadly, now that BC’s COVID numbers and deaths are climbing beyond what they were in spring, our Provincial Health Officer has put a new Health Order in place that prevents us from socializing with anyone outside our household. This in effect has stopped Margaret’s and my playing sessions. 🙁
Maybe soon you’ll be ready to take the ultimate plunge and join the even smaller band of sopranino players! Your observation about the difference in tone is even more-so when playing sopranino. Can supply you with tracks to hear how surprisingly mellow and lyrical it can sound.
Nope, never going to happen Wade. 🙂 I will never go smaller. The sopranino has no practical use for me. 😉
The the horns I have, have to have some practical application. Sadly, the timing on the little one couldn’t have been worse. Who would have predicted that the world’s population would let COVID-19 get so out of control?
Now I will just have to be content using my new little horn with my best oboe bud, in the privacy of our our homes. Hoping that one day our lives will get to normal. Sure, we’ll do a recording, but to me that has never what performing has been about. I enjoy performing for a live audience. Playing to a camera or into a mic is not very inspiring for me.
Oh well, First World problem, right? Suck it up Kahlke. I sound dangerously close to needing cheese with that whine. 😉
Wow, so have you made friends with it? I had one for about a week back in my first couple years of playing and just couldn’t play it at all:), sold it immediately! Same as yours but in finish #2:), beautiful little horn it was. I love the old Conns I’ve had. And the engravings on the NW’s-NWII’s. I have now only a ’26 silver C-tenor which is a beauty as well with its own unique voice.
I could see why you didn’t make friends with it in your first couple of years. These are not easy-to-play horns. They require quite an advanced embouchure to control their intonation. I can see why production of them stopped after only a few years. If they were intended for the home market, they would have been an epic fail.
The horn I tried at Bellingham Wind Works was a #2 finish. It was beautiful. It looked like it had just been built in the Conn factory last week. Yes, it looked brand new. I suspect someone bought it, couldn’t play it, and then put it upstairs in their attic for decades. Even the case looked new. If I had not just bought the horn from Paul, I would have bought theirs on the spot.
I love my vintage Conns. I actually have quite a number of them now. Unless I am forgetting 1 (which I could easily be doing) I think I have 4: The straight-neck C Mel NWII that I’ve had for 20 years now; the curvy Pan Am I’ve had for the same length of time; the NWI I recently got from my teacher as a gift; and now this one.
You see, I did forget one: My 6M, that is my go-to alto for jazz. Funny thing, I got rid of my 10M b/c it did nothing for me. I found it the saxophone equivalent of watching paint dry compared to the other tenors I have. There was nothing wrong with it, it was just rather, Meh.
I have to admit I miss my Conns. I haven’t had one newer than ’29. With the exception of the first horn I ever played which belonged to my younger brother and is now in my care – it was a “Mexi-Conn” and actually has nearly identical tone to my ’29 alto. The NWII was more comfortable. I suppose I’ll have some again sometime. Maybe when I’m done with my Super 20’s – I think my Martins (alto and tenor) are beating them…
Check SOTW messages for a new link to pics…
p.s. I’ll bet most of those C-sopranos were never played much! Glad you’re putting one of them to work:)
I wonder about those finishes as my nw2 is burnished gold throughout without the pearl inlays to all keys.
As a question, the stock mouthpiece that came with my 160xxx is a dark clear red…stamped “conn” on the front and a “D” on the table…only one of its kind I have seen
Yah, I’m not sure about those descriptions. I don’t believe it refers to full MOP inlays on all the keys, just the regular key touches. The descriptions don’t seem to provide a special description for saxophones with full MOP like we see in what is commonly referred to as the “Virtuoso Deluxe” series.
I have seen coloured Conn MPs. Not many, but a few. The ones that I am thinking of are white and amber. I am now not sure if I saw one in red or not. I would have to do some research to confirm this, but IIRC, those came from Runyon. But don’t quote me on that. My memory on that is a bit sketchy. It goes back almost 20 years to a conversation I had with Paul Coats about bass sax MPs. Paul was of course friends with Santy, and learned how to do MP refacing from Santy himself.
When I was in New Orleans picking up my bass, I also bought some Runyon pieces that Paul touched up for me. He told me about the history of Runyon, and the company’s collaboration with Conn and other companies.
Edit
Ah yes, here is one even on my website. This is a white Conn Comet bari MP that Runyon made for Conn back in the day.
If you’d like to read about it, you can find the article Paul wrote for my site here.
If it’s older than the 40’s, probably not Santy. But yeah he made Charlie Parker’s white mouthpiece, for instance. I had some transparent plastic Runyons but the were all from near the end of his time. I liked them all and wish I’d kept them:)