6th November: Saxophone Day

It's Saxophone Day. Here are some facts about saxophones which you may not know.

1. The saxophone was invented by Adolphe Sax. The reason today is Saxophone Day is because today was his birthday. Some interesting facts about him are that as a child, he was pretty accident prone and nearly died at least seven times From falling off buildings, into rivers, into a hot frying pan and swallowing a pin. In adult life he suffered from lip cancer but made a full recovery. Despite the eventual success of his instruments, he went bankrupt twice and died in poverty.
2. Sax's vision originally included two categories of saxophone, one for military bands and one for orchestras. The saxophone wasn't the only instrument he invented, either. He also come up with the saxhorn, a brass instrument resembling a tuba, which was popular during the US Civil War.
3. Most saxophones are made of brass, but they belong to the woodwind family because players use a reed to produce sound. Occasionally, saxophones are made from Silver, Copper, bronze or even plastic.
4. They come in several different sizes. They vary in size from the contrabass, which is 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighs approximately 45 pounds. It makes a very low pitched sound. At the other end of the scale is the soprillo. It is only 12 inches long and makes a high pitched sound. Mostly, the ones you will see in bands and orchestras today will be the Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass Saxophones. The most popular are the Alto and Tenor.
5. The saxophone is officially banned by the Catholic Church. Pope Pius X banned the saxophone from churches in 1903 in his Motu Proprio On Sacred Music saying the instrument "may give reasonable cause for disgust or scandal" and "is unworthy of the House of Prayer and of the Majesty of God". The ban has never been officially lifted.
6. Even in secular Music, it wasn't popular at first. People laughed at the first saxophones that Sax produced in the 1840s. Jazz musicians rejected it at first, preferring the Clarinet.
7. In Stalin's USSR, saxophone players were seen as capitalist and were sent to Siberia.
8. The instrument had a champion in Hector Berlioz, who wrote an article for a Paris magazine singing its praises, and wrote the first saxophone composition, L'hymne sacré. Claude Debussy also wrote a piece for it, commissioned by Elisa Hall, a wealthy woman from Boston who'd been told playing the saxophone was good for her health.
9. Famous saxophone players include Jimmy Dorsey, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Steve Lacy, Woody Herman, and Bill Clinton. During his campaign in 1992, the former US President appeared on The Arsenio Hall Show, in sunglasses, playing Heartbreak Hotel on the saxophone.
10. The saxophone playing muppet is called Zoot, named after Zoot Sims, but modelled on Argentinian saxophonist Gato Barbieri. His instrument's voice on The Muppet Show was provided by the appropriately named Frank Reedy.

See details of all my books

Browse other topics I've covered in this blog - HERE.

Like my Facebook page for news of Topical Ten posts posts on my writing blog, a weekly writing quote and news of upcoming publications