Happy Sax Day!

November 6, 2009 November 6, 2009

If you’re a saxophone player, or even if you’re just a fan of the instrument, today is a day that really should be marked on your calender. It was exactly 195 years ago today that the inventor of the saxophone, Adolphe Sax, was born in Dinant, Belgium.

Adolphe, whose father Charles-Joseph, was also an instrument maker, received a patent for the saxophone in 1846. By this date he had, on paper, designed a full family of saxophones ranging from the sopranino to the subcontrabass. The first saxophone that Adolphe demonstrated was a bass. This occurred around 1842.

So to commemorate the birth of the man who gave us an instrument that forever changed the musical landscape, and for many of us here, changed our lives, I thought it would be interesting to check out how the town in which he was born, recognized where he resided.

Please note, I have optimized all these photos slightly for the web. Please visit the originals on Flickr if you wish to see them with a higher resolution.

Maison Adolphe Sax

Photography by Zephyrinus Source: Flickr

Dinant, statue d’Adolphe SAX

Photography by Jean-Marie HUET Source: Flickr

Adolphe Sax – 2

Photography by Sitomon Source: Flickr

Luckily the saxophone caught on like it did, and we’re playing not only one of the world’s most popular musical instruments, but one that’s relatively easy to pack around… Bass & contrabass saxophones notwithstanding… But even those of us that play behemoths like that these should to be grateful. Can you imagine what kinds of cars we’d have to have if this Adolphe Sax invention had caught on instead on the saxophone? 😉

…this is just my blog. My “real” website is www.bassic-sax.info. If you’re looking for sax info, you should check it out too.There’s lots there!

4 Comments

November 7, 2009 at 9:10 am 15 years ago

Helen

Actually Gandalfe posted a really interesting history about Adolphe’s childhood on the Woodwind Forum. Gandalfe found it on a site from Dinant, Belgium that explores the city’s history. This interesting bit of history tells us how close we came to not even having saxophones:

His childhood was tragic. Hardly able to stand, Antoine-Joseph fell from a height of three floors, seriously bumping his head against a stone: he was believed dead. At the age of three, he swallowed a bowl of vitriolized water, and then a pin. Later, he was seriously burned in a gunpowder explosion; he fell onto a cast iron frying pan and burned himself on one side. Three times he escaped poisoning and asphyxiation in his bedroom, where varnished items were lying about during the night. Another time, he was hit on the head by a cobblestone; he fell into a river and was saved by the skin of his teeth.

“He’s a child condemned to misfortune; he won’t live,” his mother said. In the district, they called him “little Sax, the ghost”.

These initial serious incidents were, alas, but the prelude to an eventful existence such as only a few have known. In 1858, Adolphe Sax was miraculously saved from a cancer of the lip by a black doctor who knew the properties of certain Indian plants. What would the future have been but for this intervention?

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1. November 7, 2009 at 10:43 pm 15 years ago
  
  Mal-2
  
  Antoine was a chemist, but Antoine is no more.
  What Antoine thought was H2O was H2SO4.
  
  Seriously, how does someone (even a child) swallow an entire bowl of acid without noticing it isn’t water?
  
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  1. November 8, 2009 at 5:23 pm 15 years ago
    
    Helen
    
    Makes you wonder if he had any taste buds. 😛 Or any sense of feeling. 😯
    
    The mishaps didn’t stop when he was a child. I don’t have the link book marked, but I can find it again. There was an incident, in France I believe, where it is believed there was an assassination attempt made, but the assassin got the wrong man.
    
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November 6, 2009 at 11:42 am 15 years ago

Tropic

Yes Happy Sax day.

Thanks to him, we all play the most amazing and versatile instrument (I think) and as many people throughout the world have said for the past one hundred years “the saxophone is the instrument that sounds most like the human voice” and I can for one appreciate that.

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