It took a couple of days after we talked to the orchestra guy before he got back to me. I was starting to think he had forgotten my email or phone number. This week, he finally got back to me and there is a first practice tomorrow. I could go just check it out or I can show up ready to participate but that means me getting my hands on a sax today.
I went to the two places we looked at for Javalina's sax 3-4 years ago when he was starting out in band Strait Music and Music and Arts. They both have plans where one can rent a saxophone for around $60, but it is an entry level horn. I know this should be good enough for me, I haven't played in a good thirty years, since 1989, other than the one semester in 1991 at the Junior college and then fiddling around with Javalina's sax a couple years ago. My ego, though, says I should be playing a professional sax, which quickly run past $3000 and up to $20,000, for a quality Baritone saxophone. The one good thing about renting is that they will take up to the first twelve months of payments and reduce that from the cost of one of their more expensive professional quality horns. Wife says to do this, I might not like the orchestra thing (it is in a church and they might not like an atheist amongst them). If I stick to a rental, I can just return it and I'll just be out the $60 or so a month for as many months as I keep it. If I keep it long enough, I will pay it off, at a cost of $2000. Another option is to buy the student sax outright and get a 30% discount from the price, so I could go get that saxophone for about $1400. That is about as low as I can see me spending to start playing again.
There are some wild options out there though. I can look on Craigslist and buy a used sax from some unknown and hope for the best. I'll probably get a mouth disease going this route but hey, I'll save some bucks. The really wild idea is to order a Chinese saxophone online. There are many saxophones out there and they are not all made by Yamaha or Selmer, or even Yanagisawa. Apparently, the Chinese have been making knock-offs and now are selling them for as cheap as $200 and the reviews I've seen and heard on YouTube the last few nights sound pretty good to me. I sat and listened to a guy that says he has been studying this for some fifty years and says yeah, 30 years ago they didn't know what they were doing, but they have in that time learned what they are doing and are succeeding at it. Like he said, the saxophone has not changed in 100 years, it is a metal tube with openings and springs, just a mechanical assembly, it can be mastered.
I am going to start with the rental most likely but it would be fun to order some of these $200 saxes and compare. The real fun thing is they come in wild colors like pink and royal blue and black, so I might eventually order all sorts of colors.
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