Saxophone Essay

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Saxophone The Saxophone is a group of instruments within the woodwind family, consisting of many different types, all a similar conical shape, excluding the soprano, utilizing a single reed in the mouthpiece similar to a clarinets. There are 4 main or more commonly used types of saxophones, which include; the Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Baritone saxophones. History of The Saxophone The saxophone was invented by a Belgian, Antoine-Joseph (Adolphe) Sax, born on November 6, 1814 in Dinant. His father was an expert maker of musical instruments. As a child he learned to make instruments, His father's passion for creating instruments had such an influence on him that at the age of six, Adolphe had already become an expert. He produced some of the finest types of flutes, clarinets, and other instruments. In addition, he learned to play the instruments as he had to test them when he made them. During his youth, Adolphe Sax studied the clarinet and the flute. Sax, already a knowledgeable and skilled musician, became aware that there was a tonal disparity between strings and winds, as well as brasses and woodwinds. He noticed that the brasses were overpowering the woodwinds, and the winds were overpowering the strings. He saw the need to come up with a new instrument that would create a form of balance between the three sections (brass, woodwinds and strings). The sound that he was seeking would lie between the clarinet's woodwind sound, and the trumpet's brass tone. Sax combined the body of a brass instrument and the mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument, and the saxophone was born. Adolphe Sax created an entire family of fourteen different saxaphones, 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. Each of them differed in pitch and

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