Well, I finally got back on the horse. Yesterday, with less than an hour before the store closed, we walked in and I got a new saxophone to start, hopefully, a new chapter which had been missing for far too long. Looking back now, on Sunday morning, it has been over thirty years that I played reading music in a band. I still remember graduation day and playing pomp and circumstance for the last time thinking wow, just like that, I'll probably never play again.
I already feel like a fire was turned on again. We walked in and I intended to get a student basic saxophone like Javalina had gotten a few years back, but I couldn't do it. He brought one ut and said they only had used ones to rent. First off, I don't really like used anything, but that seemed like the only option. I was kind of mad internally, because I waited too long and Strait Music, the other place, told me that they did have new ones to rent. I kept asking the guy questions and he then suggested a intermediate step-up saxophone on the wall that he had for display. Instead of looking like a beginner sax (brassy body with silver supports and silver keys), this one was solid gold looking all the way.
Whereas, the student version could cost me $1400 if I bought it outright, this one will cost me $2000 if I purchase it. I can also choose to keep making the $69 payment until I pay off the non-reduced price of $3000. There is a 30% discount for purchasing it instead of renting. I am still unsure about the brand, but it looks great and sounds ok so far. It comes in an awesome case with backpack straps, if I want to carry it that way, or a shoulder strap to hang on either side of me, or handles on top and the side for options to carry. There is also a big zippered pocket where a music book would fit and then another pocket on top for smaller essentials like pens and stuff would go.
I ended up buying a bunch of reeds at like $5 a piece, an extra mouth piece at a cost of $120, and a cleaning kit. It felt so awesome to be getting my feet wet and preparing to do this. I get home and of course I wanted to go to the bathroom before sitting down with my new toy and ole Knucklehead (Javalina) tells Wife he wants to play it before I even get a chance to open it. Wife said he took it out and promptly wanted to lay it down on the cold granite on the island so he could get the mouthpiece and reeds out. He is lucky I did not see or hear this, I might have punched him in the head. With a fur lined case shaped to hold it, why would he want to lay it down on a hard slippery rock surface and risk bending or scratching it? Wife told him to put it away and wait until I came down. I did offer to rent him a sax if he wanted to join me in the orchestra, but he says he has too many things going on in school.
It took a couple seconds, but apparently, after 30 years, I can still read music. The alto sax is very different than the bari that I used to play. I mostly played low notes below the scale, the alto plays the lead part, usually and tends to prefer the high notes above the scale. I am still going with my fingers up slowly, specially when it is a high C, which is 2 lines above the scale and shit, I am not even sure how to finger a high D, I think it is one of the left thumb valves, but I'll figure it out. The orchestra is performing about 7 songs which I printed out and went through fairly ok for a first time. I think I practiced about two hours last night then I stopped. I got worried my mouth is going to be sore from biting down on the mouth piece as I am not used to it anymore.
Two of the songs are a bit challenging in that there are a lot of notes and the beat is fast, but I can get through it slowly, so I just need to practice more. I figure they will understand that I am new to all this and I just got the music and sax, so I need to knock the rust off first. It will all come back soon enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment