{"id":165,"date":"2008-06-05T08:10:50","date_gmt":"2008-06-05T15:10:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/blog\/?p=165"},"modified":"2009-08-14T21:58:24","modified_gmt":"2009-08-15T04:58:24","slug":"low-a-low-bb-which-one-do-i-choose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bassic-sax.info\/blog\/2008\/low-a-low-bb-which-one-do-i-choose\/","title":{"rendered":"Low A? Low B Flat? Which one do I choose?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well if you’re anything like me, you’ll likely want one of both. \ud83d\udca1 It just seems to me that having both a low A and a low Bb baritone saxophone makes logical sense…OK, so you can\u00a0really see that\u00a0I’m not a minimalist in any way,\u00a0right? \ud83d\ude2f \u00a0<\/p>\n

My low Bb Mark VI <\/a>is a great old horn. What it lacks for in cosmetics (it suffers from a rather\u00a0ugly relac job), it more than makes up for in sound. I have heard a lot of Mark VI baris, and few have had the sound quality that this bad boy\u00a0has. I don’t know if\u00a0it’s because it’s a relac (but that’s a\u00a0discussion for another day),\u00a0because\u00a0of the\u00a0horn itself, the set up, or perhaps a combination of all of the above, but whatever it is, this\u00a0horn\u00a0can hold it’s own against any of the\u00a0vintage baris (Conn, Martin, King, etc) that\u00a0we hear about,\u00a0that\u00a0ostensibly\u00a0are able to blow the VIs away with their power, tone, edge, brilliance, etc.<\/p>\n

A few years ago I was playing baritone in a sax quintet. A number of\u00a0our arrangements had\u00a0the occasional\u00a0low A peppered throughout the score. I talked to my friend Paul Coats about it, because\u00a0he had told me\u00a0that he had experimented with making a low A extension for low Bb baris. He sent me the directions, and I made one that solved all\u00a0my low A woes. This 6″ piece of\u00a0plastic pipe worked great \u2757 Paul gave me permission to publish his directions on my website<\/a>, and over the years I’ve received a number of emails from players, some very famous, some not at all, who have used this cheap fix to allow them to keep playing their cherished baris.<\/p>\n

If you’re a SOTW<\/a> reader, you’re familiar with\u00a0the acronym “GAS” that was coined there. GAS stands for gear acquisition syndrome, and refers to the (sometimes) irrational need for musicians to acquire more and more gear. Sort of the musician’s equivalent of “whoever dies with the most toys wins”. Well, in 2004, GAS took hold of me (while I was doing a stint playing bari in an R&B band), and I decided that I should get a\u00a0low A bari as a back-up horn. Because\u00a0this was going to be a back-up horn only, I really couldn’t justify buying another Selmer VI,\u00a0low A\u00a0flavored this time,\u00a0as a “back up”.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Because I love vintage horns,\u00a0my choices for low A horns was\u00a0fairly limited.\u00a0The Martin Magna (rare as hen’s teeth)\u00a0would be the one I might have been the most interested in, but the chances of finding one\u00a0would have been slim. And since I would really have wanted to try it before I bought it, the chances would have gone down from slim to none.\u00a0So, knowing that I would most likely have to move out of my\u00a0vintage saxophone comfort\u00a0zone into the realm of the unknown\u00a0(to me anyway) modern pro or maybe intermediate\u00a0horn, I started doing\u00a0research into the modern pro and intermediate brands.<\/p>\n

I\u00a0read, and I read, and then I read some more about the different brands\u00a0A trough Z. Then I went to a couple of the big stores in Vancouver and tried some of those A through Z brands and thought: Wow…I wouldn’t give my\u00a0low Bb Mark VI\u00a0up for any of them.\u00a0I\u00a0purposely didn’t look at prices, because I didn’t want the price to affect the way\u00a0I “heard” the horn. When I did eventually look at prices, I was shocked. What kind of working bari player can\u00a0pay this kind of money for a horn? Most of the pro bari players I know are barely working, and some of these guys are monster players. Who the\u00a0f!$* are these horns being sold to \u2753 … That was my question…But I digress, and that’s a rant for another day….<\/p>\n

One\u00a0brand and specific model\u00a0that I had read\u00a0very favorable reviews about on SOTW, but\u00a0was not at either of the Vancouver stores, was B&S’s pro model Medusa. Long & McQuade told me that their Langley store did have one in stock, so\u00a0I went there to play test it. When I arrived at the Langley store, they dug the Medusa bari<\/a> out of storage and, low and behold, found out that it didn’t have a neck.\u00a0Long story short, it turns out some dummy working there sold the neck to someone who came in looking to buy a bari neck.\u00a0Now they had to order a whole new horn from their warehouse in Toronto. A few days later it had arrived, and they called me to come in and play test the horns.<\/p>\n

Now it turns out I had a choice.\u00a0If I wanted to buy a Medusa, I could either buy\u00a0the one\u00a0that just arrived\u00a0from Toronto (for full price), or they could sell me the one they had originally had in stock, with the neck from\u00a0newly arrived horn, provided that the neck worked with it of course (which it did flawlessly).\u00a0This\u00a02nd option would\u00a0save me considerable\u00a0$.<\/p>\n

When I started playing the 2 Medusa baris I noticed something about them: they had a complexity to their tone that was lacking in virtually all the other modern pro horns I had already play tested, including the Selmer Series II. Of the 2 B&S baris, I ended up getting the first one, not because it was cheaper, but because it was so full of overtones, that it was much “edgier” sounding than the 2nd. For many musicians this would have been a real turnoff, but for me, and the style of music that I play, (R&B, rock, & blues) the more edge the better. (Just as an aside, this particular horn would have been a school’s nightmare. Untamed, it would have sounded like a chainsaw going off in the 2nd row.)<\/p>\n

If you did a survey of bari players out there, you would find that they are pretty divided about their preferences regarding\u00a0low\u00a0A or low Bb horns.\u00a0If the person you’re asking prefers\u00a0modern horns, they will naturally most likely be a low\u00a0A player, since of all the current saxophone manufacturers, only Keilwerth recently made pro model low Bb horns. (A\u00a0practice that I believe they stopped in the last couple of years.) If, however, the\u00a0bari player you’re asking is a vintage horn player,\u00a0the preference of\u00a0horns is almost\u00a0a 50\/50 split.<\/p>\n

Low A baritones\u00a0have definite advantages.\u00a0Modern jazz band and concert band, as well sax ensemble\u00a0scores almost all assume the baritone\u00a0sax playing the part has a low A key.\u00a0However low A baris do have their drawbacks as well. They are considerably heavier than their low Bb cousins…Hell, those extra 6″ of brass alloy do\u00a0provide some added weight to an aleady not-so-light instrument.\u00a0Some people make\u00a0the argument (and this is a fairly contentious point in the sax playing world) that low A horns just sound different than low Bb\u00a0ones, and that low Bb ones have better projection.\u00a0I used to\u00a0believe this to be true…That is until I played the Medusa from B&S. (I notice no projection issues in the Medusa baritones I haved played.)<\/p>\n

I like my low Bb horn. I do not need it to have a low A key. (And I’m quite happy not to have that extra weight around my neck as well!) I have my low A extension that I have\u00a0used very successfully for 8 years now. I do like the versatility in its sound, so I use it as my primary horn. I especially like the sound it has for jazz…Which is a common comment heard from jazz baritone players: they\u00a0prefer low Bb horns for jazz.\u00a0Because it is a\u00a0Mark VI, and very similar in layout to my tenor VI, it feels very similar to my tenor when I play it. So\u00a0even if I haven’t played bari in a while, I can pick up my low Bb horn, and in a matter of a couple of minutes I’m comfortable with my axe again.<\/p>\n

I also really like my low A horn. I prefer the\u00a0sound of it\u00a0for rock and blues work. Being able to let the Medusa run\u00a0loose is a lot of fun \u2757 There are not many baris that can\u00a0hold their own in an electric environment when dealing with the distortion\u00a0effects of guitars. This bad\u00a0boy can, but he can also be very sweet, with only a little edge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

So in the end, if I had to make the decision again which horn to get, low A or Bb, I’d most likely do the same thing all over again: I’d get one of each. But that’s just me. If you’re looking around, and trying to make the “which flavor bari do I want to get” decision, I’d suggest you\u00a0play\u00a0as many as you can. If you have a teacher, talk to him or her. (But that only really works if your sax teacher is a bari player. If they’re a soprano player, for example, they might be able to give you some general info, but might be a bit short on specifics gained from first-hand experience.) From\u00a0a practical perspective, the low A bari may be your best bet.\u00a0If you’re planning\u00a0to study sax\u00a0at university, many schools will require a low A horn, but you should check with the professors at the school where you are\u00a0interested in attending. For some\u00a0students, the Paul Coats-designed low A extension has been\u00a0met with approval by their\u00a0professors.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/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
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Well if you’re anything like me, you’ll likely want one of both. \ud83d\udca1 It just seems to me that having both a low A and …<\/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":[5],"tags":[64,63,618,149,151,51,62,61,141,629,29],"class_list":["post-165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baritone-saxophone","tag-advantagesdisadvantages-of-low-a-versus-low-bb-baris","tag-bs-medusa","tag-baritone-saxophone","tag-french-saxophones","tag-german-saxophones","tag-low-a","tag-low-a-extension-for-low-bb-horns","tag-low-bb","tag-sax-on-the-web","tag-selmer","tag-selmer-mark-vi"],"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