Back in 2000 when I first got my Buescher True Tone bass saxophone, the number of bass saxophone available to players were countable on 2 hands. Now, thanks in large part to the bass sax renaissance and the Internet, the number of resources has exploded—almost to the point of being too numerous. How can you tell what’s a good resource and what is not?
That question about resources has led me to develop this section in an effort to create a centralized reference point where bass saxophone players can start their research.
If you have resources that you would like me to add to this section, please contact me. Thanks!
Bass Resources included on Bassic Sax
Bass sax altissimo fingering chart for vintage American bass saxophones
Saxophone Journal, Jan-Feb 1990, edition dedicated to bass saxophones 1
Key height chart for Buescher True Tone bass from Paul Coats.
Series of articles on the Bassic Sax Blog, about the Jinyin & Jinbao-made stencil bass saxes from Asia.
Online Bass Saxophone Resources
PhD dissertation by Lucas Hopkins: The Bass Saxophone: A Historical Account and Performer’s Guide
Facebook bass saxophone group with over 3,000 members
Another Facebook bass saxophone group with fewer members, but great content nonetheless
On Sax on the Web’s Forum you have the following:
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- Bass Saxophone sub forum
- Mouthpiece discussion area
- And please, remember SOTW has a search feature. Enter whatever bass sax parameters you want. For this example, I just entered bass sax.
1 I have tried a number of times, over a couple of years now, to get express permission to use this edition of the former Saxophone Journal on my website. Emails to who appears to be the person I need to get permission from, have gone unanswered. Therefore, I have opted to use this out-of-print, 33+ year old copy of a now-defunct journal, as a resource tool for all bass saxophonists to use free of charge.
If anyone from Dorn Publications takes issue with my including the Jan-Feb 1990 edition of the Saxophone Journal, I am sincerely sorry. It was never my intent to infringe on copyright. I was simply trying to provide an important, verified resource for bass saxophonists. In this day and age of Internet misinformation, this is more important than ever before. It is my sincere hope that we can figure out a way to continue to make this vital piece of bass saxophone information available to players free of charge. Please reach out to me to talk about how we can do that. Thank you.
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