Saxphone History Essay

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Antoine-Joseph, know as Adolphe, Sax was born in Belgium on November 6th, 1814. Sax worked with his father, Charles-Joseph Sax, who was also an instrument maker. Charles was an important figure to Adolphe has he made several changes to the design of the saxophone when Adolphe began making them. In 1841, after leaving the Royal School of Singing, where he studied flute and clarinet, Sax began to experiment with new instrument designs. Sax left Belgium and moved permanently to Paris. Here he began work on a new set of instruments, which were exhibited there in 1844. They were valved bugles, and although he had not invented the instrument itself, his examples were so superior to those of his rivals that they became known as saxhorns. These later developed in to the euphonium and flugelhorn. In the late 1830's to early 1840s Sax began inventing the clarinette-bourdon, an early design of contrabass clarinet, his first important invention was an improvement of the bass clarinet design, which he patented at the age of 20. Sax’s moved to Paris also allowed him to introduce his new instrument to the rest of the world. Soon to follow was the creation of an entire saxophone family: fourteen different saxophones in all. Each differed by size and pitch. They were the: E flat sopranino, F sopranino, B flat soprano, C soprano, E flat alto, F alto, B flat tenor, C tenor, E flat baritone, B flat bass, C bass, E flat contrabass, and F contrabass. Many of these variations, however, are seldom used or have become obsolete. Sax's intent in the construction of the saxophone was to invent an entirely new instrument, which could: provide bands and orchestras with a bass to the woodwind and brass sections, prove capable of having more refined performance and have with enough power to be used out-of-doors. However, Sax's amazing ability to offend rival instrument
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