Hello, I recently purchased a strathon mouthpiece on ebay and unfortunately for me it did not come with a ligature, if you have seen the mouthpiece it has an adjustable baffle, which makes putting a regular lig on it almost impossible, does anyone know where I can find one of these ligatures or what type [Continue]

I almost won this item on ebay. A Chedeville Oboe Mouthpiece. Wow. It got to pricey for me. Plus I just had to shell out a lot of money to the IRS. Interesting discussion about it here. Seems it isn’t so great. Looks kind of cool though. Probably would help out some poor doubler out [Continue]

I saw this on the Klarinet list “I just received a note from a repairman friend which said that Ralph Morgan passed away on August 23rd. Ralph worked at Selmer for many decades and was brilliant at mouthpiece design and instrument acoustics. He retired many years ago and concentrated on just mouthpieces. As a maker, [Continue]

Anonymous Coward writes “I want to cultivate an Earl Bostic sound on the Alto–big and blowsy. (Right now it’s small and lousy.) What equipment did he use to get that unmistakeable Bostic sound?” Thinking that strickly equipment will help you is a flaw. He could have probably used anything and still sounded like Earl Bostic. [Continue]

I have to admit, I have never been one to try out “gear” on sax or any instrument. Partly due to the satisfaction of what I already own, and partly due to not knowing if there is something better out there. Namely, I remember how I ended up with my Selmer Alto was because I [Continue]

“I’m an old guy getting back to playing after 45 years of “silence”. I’ve found my eye’s aren’t seeing the charts like they used to but, my fingers have an amazing amount of “memory” left in them (thanx to the great old Englishman I had as a teacher all those years ago and the foundation [Continue]

Master Asia writes “My teacher lended me a E.Rousseau Jazz mouthpiece to test whether I like that one or the Studio Jazz model. The only obvious difference between the two is that the Jazz model has a huge baffle, and the Studio Jazz doesn’t. I was thinking about sticking to the Jazz model but I [Continue]

Vintage Sax? Jazz Future Prospect writes “I was wondering what’s the hipe about vintage. Doe sit have a better sound? Quality? Price? I admit to being a relitive newbie to the fine world of jazz and sax’s in general so I’m not to read in the subject. Also (to save the time of making a [Continue]

jazzeux writes “Hi, I recently read in your post that you are using a “Roland Caravan” clarinet mouthpiece that you love. I tried to find info on the internet but I didn’t find anything. Can you give us more info about it (what compagnies made it, why do you like it, how much does it [Continue]

SirSaxAlot writes “Do different ligatures make different sounds/tones? Do they really make a difference? I’m really looking to find my own sound and any help would be very helpfull. thanx!” Yes they do make a difference. You can spend a LONG TIME messing around with reed/ligature combinations. That is of course assuming [Continue]

orvillethegreat writes “I’ve been playing sax for about 5 years now, and for the past few months, i have been really trying to search for the mouthpiece that will give me MY sound…I play on a otto link 7* right now, and have tried various hard rubber mouthpieces…and i have stumbeled over the realm of [Continue]

Bopfanatic writes “Can anyone help me decipher this? In his autobiography, ‘Beneath the Underdog’, Mingus recalls a conversation with Lucky Thompson, who tells him that Bird used a “number 30 open lay mouthpiece”. Does anyone know what the “number 30″ means, like what brand used that numbering system, or [Continue]

Bopfanatic writes “Hello! I’m a huge fan of vintage sax styles, and I love the huge sound of people like Coleman Hawkins and Lucky Thompson. The problem is that there are very few resources about what setups these players used (everybody seems to be into Mike Brecker and all that malarkey), and since I’m only [Continue]

kia writes “I’ve recently changed over to a Royal Rico Jazz select reeds, same metal mouthpiece opening of 7 open and started with 2 m but went to 3s and 3 m . The problem is now after about 45 minutes of playing Ive developed a leaky bottom left corner of my lip. Don’t know [Continue]

Update: 04/03 21:15 GMT by E :The aggressive bone cancer has taken Jon Van Wie’s life. Very sad. In a follow up to this article I posted, it seems that Jon Van Wie’s condition might have taken a turn for the worst. Subject: JVW update From: wawawe@bigfoot.com Date: 9:03 PM 04/01/03 Newsgroups: alt.music.saxophone I thought [Continue]