{"id":16481,"date":"2010-02-03T10:28:39","date_gmt":"2010-02-03T18:28:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/blog\/?p=16481"},"modified":"2010-02-03T10:28:44","modified_gmt":"2010-02-03T18:28:44","slug":"in-memory-of-adolphe-sax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/blog\/2010\/in-memory-of-adolphe-sax\/","title":{"rendered":"In Memory Of Adolphe Sax"},"content":{"rendered":"

This month marks the\u00a0116th anniversary of the death of Adolphe Sax\u2014the inventor of our beloved saxophones. Sax died in February 1894, in Paris, France.<\/p>\n

Some sources state that\u00a0Sax’s death occurred on February 4th. Other sources indicate it happened on the 3rd,\u00a0while a marker by Sax’s grave\u00a0indicates he died on\u00a0the 7th\u00b9. One thing that everyone seems to agree upon however, is that Adolphe Sax died in February 1894.<\/p>\n

As most of us know, Adolphe Sax’s contribution to the music world was not limited to the creation of saxophones. Sax was also responsible for some important improvements to bass clarinets. He was the inventor of state of the art valves for brass instruments.\u00b2 Sax also\u00a0invented brass instruments such as the saxhorns, saxtrombones, and saxtubas.\u00b3 And in the words of Albert R\u00e9my:<\/p>\n

The list of the inventions and perfections that Sax accomplished is very long. Apart from the families of instruments already quoted, mention has to be made of reforms to musical notation, compositions, musical methods (Sax became a teacher for military musicians at the Paris Conservatory directed by Auber), a pamphlet on the influence of wind instruments on the lungs, a planned applied school for inventors, a plan for reorganising orchestras, a remarkable study on concert hall acoustics, improvements in the majority of brass and wood instruments. All together: a good forty, not counting a large number of rather extravagant and even fantastical discoveries, which nonetheless show that Sax’s inventive mind was ever alert.<\/p>\n

Source: Adolphe Sax<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Under the category of what R\u00e9my calls fantastical discoveries<\/em>, this instrument definitely applies.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 7 Bells<\/h3>\n

\"Front<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Photography by: celesteh<\/a>\u00a0 Source: Flickr<\/a><\/h6>\n

The photographer wrote the following caption to these photos:<\/p>\n

This seven belled, seven horned beast was invented by Sax to be a chromatic horn. Each valve goes to a separate bell.<\/p>\n

One problem of having valves in serial, rather than parallel, is that valve combinations tend to be out of tune. (On a modern horn, the third valve is tuned to a length which is based on a ratio of it’s pipes compared with the rest of the instrument. If the player also presses the first valve, then the ratio of the rest of the instrument changes and the third valve pipe is too short). This is a clever way to solve the problem, although it seems like it would tend to be heavy.<\/p>\n

At the Musical Instrument Museum in Brussels, Belgium<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0 7 Bells – back<\/h3>\n

\"Back<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0Photography by: celesteh<\/a>\u00a0 Source: Flickr<\/a><\/h6>\n

I’m still trying to get my head around how a player might play this thing. They’d need to use both hands to operate the valves, and sit\u00a0the instrument\u00a0in their lap I guess. Ouch! That’s got to be heavy. \ud83d\ude2f<\/p>\n

But hey, this was built by the same guy who supposedly walked from\u00a0Brussels to Paris while carrying a bass saxophone, so I guess he figured the player just needed to man-up. ;)__________________________________________<\/p>\n

\u00b9 Adolphe Sax page on Wikipedia<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00b2 Adolphe Sax page on Wikipedia<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00b3 Adolphe Sax page on dinant.be<\/a><\/p>\n

\n
…this is just my blog<\/em>. <\/span> My \u201creal\u201d <\/b> website is<\/span> www.bassic-sax.info.<\/a> If you\u2019re looking for <\/span> sax info<\/strong>,<\/span> you should check it out too.<\/span>There\u2019s lots<\/em> there! <\/span>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n

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This month marks the\u00a0116th anniversary of the death of Adolphe Sax\u2014the inventor of our beloved saxophones. Sax died in February 1894, in Paris, France. Some …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[79],"tags":[74,653,202,114,644,643],"class_list":["post-16481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photos","tag-adolph-sax","tag-famous-not-so-famous-sax-players","tag-flickr","tag-in-memoriam","tag-photos","tag-vintage-horns"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t