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Post by Zi on Feb 1, 2023 10:31:00 GMT
Having asked if the sax is easier than the clarinet I came across this www.yamahamusiclondon.com/YDS-150-Digital-Saxophone/pidBYDS150It has a zillion buttons and things to mess about with and it looks like you can type a decent letter and receive calls from abroad. On another site everyone who had one said it did everything they could hope for and everyone was happy and fulfilled...* There's even vids of people having a nice time. Forget the hour you need to learn to play the piano**; this one you can play anywhere immediately... and it doesn't annoy the neighbours or make the dog howl. Perfect! *some people need to have more aspirations maybe
**forum in-joke |
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Post by pavane on Feb 1, 2023 11:20:46 GMT
I recently came across this device which I think is even more versatile and lightweight than the digital sax. I'm not sure that blowing into it would create a vibration you can feel in your lips, fingertips, and even your heart but it has many other advantages and could almost certainly be mastered in an hour! And it definitely wouldn't bother the neighbours. |
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Post by evergreen on Feb 1, 2023 13:54:45 GMT
Wow, that's amazing, I've never seen one of those before, I didn't know they made them. I wonder if the sound compares well with an "acoustic" sax.
I must get one and stop spending time on the piano, I've already wasted over an hour on my piano and I still can't play it to a decent standard  |
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Post by evergreen on Feb 1, 2023 14:06:14 GMT
I recently came across this device which I think is even more versatile and lightweight than the digital sax. I'm not sure that blowing into it would create a vibration you can feel in your lips, fingertips, and even your heart but it has many other advantages and could almost certainly be mastered in an hour! And it definitely wouldn't bother the neighbours. I'm what you might call "technologically challenged" and I don't even understand the terminology in the description! |
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Post by Zi on Feb 1, 2023 14:22:36 GMT
evergreen - Yes, I think it is amazing. I occupy this strange place which on the one hand absolutely loves old musical instruments - as a teen my fave groups included Amazing Blondel and Gryphon - but on the other hand I adore gadgets. I wish I could be plonked in a place where there were loads of musical instruments and I could try them. I'd love to have a go at the serpent and a Moog synthesizer! More realistically the elody recorder also appeals to me because it can be plugged into an amp and it's likely I could play it a bit. I never had the chance to learn a musical instrument as a child and now, set free of any constraints I'd take notice of I'd really like to have a go at as much as possible! My husband was surprised at how cheap the digital sax was - he thought a couple of grand as he puts it... 
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Post by pavane on Feb 1, 2023 16:12:22 GMT
I'm what you might call "technologically challenged" and I don't even understand the terminology in the description! I'm not sure about all of it myself but it probably plays a good tune. To be honest, I'm just airing my prejudices here, (very) thinly disguised as humour. I'm generally all in favour of easy solutions to things, but there's something about musical instruments - it's not that you have to suffer per se, but that they are something that demand an effort. Maybe this ought to be a separate thread because the boundary between something that is a musical instrument and something that isn't is clearly quite blurry in places. When I had the digital piano I often played it in harpsichord mode: it didn't really sound all that much like one but near enough. I've always fancied the idea of a Hammond organ with a tonewheel! I classify these very definitely as musical instruments btw, just not very traditional ones. I'm not sure about the digital sax - I can't really tell exactly what it is from the advert. I watched the video and the last person says you don't have to be a saxophone player to play it, so what do you have to be? Sonny Rollins apparently spent a year and a half practising for many hours a day on a road bridge in New York so as to avoid bothering the neighbours, and a saxophone you can play silently sounds a lot better than that. Is it like one of those electric pianos where you can either play it as a piano or flip a few switches and the piano itself will knock out the complete set of Beethoven piano sonatas? |
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Post by keff on Feb 1, 2023 16:38:56 GMT
Also found the digital sax intriguing and at one point asked myself is this just a digital piano made to sound like saxophone with a different set of keys. It will not work unless you blow and how you blow nuances the sound, as far as I can tell. At £800ish it is a little too expensive to take my interest much further. However I would define it as a musical instrument. PS I did come across www.nuvoinstrumental.com/products/clarineo/ a few years ago and would be interested in anyones comments. |
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Post by pavane on Feb 1, 2023 17:08:10 GMT
I haven't seen or tried a clarineo but I did try a Nuvo flute and it seemed pretty good to me - as in, for the money etc. I couldn't play it, but that's another story.
Julian Bliss got started on the Lyons clarinet (much the same as this afaik) and is now one of the world's top professionals.
Slightly separate issue: I had another look at digital sax and the weight is 1kg excl batteries. It takes tiddly batteries so they won't weigh much, but I read a review that says they don't last long either, and that particular reviewer stuck a rechargeable battery to the back of it, which would weigh more again. My lightest clarinet weighs 600g, which is a good deal less.
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Post by Zi on Feb 1, 2023 17:11:10 GMT
I bought the Nuvo Toot - it can be played as either a recorder-like instrument or a flute-like instrument. It's really durable and can go in the dishwasher. I got it out of curiosity because I'm interested in recorder type instruments. I could actually get sounds out of it which is more than can be said for the plastic Yamaha fife I have. Neither of us here could get much of a sound out of that. In fact, I took some persuading to try my husband's Boehm flute because I thought I wouldn't get a note but that is much, much easier than the fife was.
I'd love to try the Nuvo Sax and the Jhorn. As I see it, I could play all the recorder music on the Sax and the fingering is pretty simple and it wouldn't be heavy. I've always wanted to have a go at a brass instrument so the Jhorn would be a good compromise because again it's light. The reviews on them are really mixed with some people saying they're great and others finding them out of tune...
Woah - That digital sax is quite heavy then. I find the one I have a struggle without the harness and even then it has a tendency to go sideways... I must weigh it.
edit to add it weight 834g
It feels like a ton...
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Post by pavane on Feb 1, 2023 17:50:04 GMT
That seems quite a lot - I just weighed my heaviest and it's 770g and it's an A clarinet, so slightly bigger. |
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Post by Zi on Feb 1, 2023 18:02:16 GMT
Now I feel all justified in saying it's heavy! That was all of it - including the mouthpiece but not the case...  |
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Post by pavane on Feb 1, 2023 18:16:17 GMT
That was all of it - including the mouthpiece but not the case.. Likewise - all set up and ready to play. (That's because I am playing it - but I'm doing the lazy practising thing again and doing a bit of playing, interspersed with a bit of dallying on this forum.)
Edited to add: out of curiosity, I weighed my plastic Selmer and it's 705g complete with everything except a reed (so 706g playing weight) so yours does seem to be on the heavy side. I presume the extra ironmongery for the plateau keys adds some of that extra weight.
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Post by Zi on Feb 1, 2023 18:44:06 GMT
Yes, I wondered about the plateau thing. Maybe that wasn't such a good idea but then I may squeak more than I do and it wouldn't sound at all nice - ever. When it sounds nice, it really is nice... but it's a bit infrequent...
I may buy a different sling...
I'm playing treble - some Telemann but I stopped to discuss what BIS meant and then we had a discussion about whether it was likely to be Latin (one source) or French (another source)... I've never seen a BIS before...
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