Snake Oil: It’s Everywhere In Saxland

Be Aware of the Snake Oil

This morning I happened across a post on SOTW that very much reflected my thoughts facing players trying to navigate the sea of [mis]information available to them. SOTW member Balladeer posted these thoughts a couple of days ago:

It’s time for me to vent. I empathize with sax players today. There are so many brands, and few of us have somewhere local to go to actually try before we buy. We do have the internet, and forums like SOTW. Unfortunately, unless we are very familiar with the person who’s opinion we are reading, we may rely on information that does not apply to our own musical values. I’m almost 66. When I started playing our choices were limited to horns made primarily in the U.S. and France. The brands had been around for decades. Most of us wanted a similarly full and rich sound. Sound customization was possible with the choice of mouthpiece, reed, and mostly, our embouchure.

 

I guess the change started with rock and roll and electric guitars. Eventually, sax players needed to be heard in and above the live mix. I guess players wanted a brighter sound. King Curtis and Boots Randolph were doing this. However, both of those players could, also, play smooth and lush.

 

Now, we have all these instruments from the Orient. The design of the bore and the composite content of the metal has changed. Few of these instruments provide the full, rich tone possibilities of the pre-Vietnam war instruments. The same thing has happened with pizza and sub sandwiches. I’m from Philly. Pizza and hoagies are supposed to taste Italian. Outside of the Northeast and Chicago, it’s almost impossible to find authentic pizza and hoagies. The young people have no idea. They only know Dominos, Papa John’s, and $5-dollar footlongs.

 

When I went back to graduate school in 1978 my economics professor said “everybody’s got their own brand of snake oil to sell”. How true. Beware of the snake oil.

In principle I agree with pretty much everything Balladeer wrote. The one thing I’d mention is that deception in advertising—or “snake oil” if you will—is of course nothing new, and this applies just as much to saxophone marketing as it does to everything else.

This snake oil-style saxophone marketing is perhaps best illustrated in the vintage print advertisements by Buescher. For example we have this little gem, in which a woman is trembling with excitement while a man plays a saxophone in the parlour. Of course then we have this one, which tells parents that their child will never be wanting anything if only they played a Buescher True Tone. One of my favourites has always been the ad in which Buescher stated that saxophones required no study, or even talent, in order for you to become a studly player… Whatever…

The other thing to note is that there were quite a few vintage brands/models that were not so fantastic when compared to the best. We have to look no further than say Hammerschmidt vis-à-vis Keilwerth. Keilwerth will always win hands down for consistency alone.

Or if you want to compare American rather than German vintage horns, let’s go with Holton vs. Martin. There are very few—is there anyone?—out there who will argue that Holton made better horns overall than Martin did.

The Internet is awash with [mis]information, and trying to sift through the BS and the hype to find the answer to your questions can range from tricky at best, to almost impossible. On the plus side, the Net has opened up the world’s marketplace to players, and we are no longer limited to horns in stores within driving distance to us, or to those advertised in our local newspaper’s classified section.

This of course brings us full circle back to Balladeer’s original point: Be aware of the snake oil. That statement is even more true now than it was 50 years ago. We now have a world wide web of snake oil to potentially fall into.