Question:
your "beginnings"
Everyone's got their own story about how they started sax. Why do you play the horn you do? What got you started? Who was your inspiration? Come on, let's hear how you became an addition to the saxophone community :D
I'll start - I started playing tenor the summer before seventh grade (for junior high band). I was really small, and the teacher wanted me to play alto "because everyone ELSE wants to" and I told him that was exactly the reason I didn't want an alto. It took a lot of convincing but he finally let me play tenor ... but since I didn't have a teacher, I lost a lot of enthusiasm for it and didn't rent one over the next summer or anything like that, I just lost touch with it. My enthusiasm came back when we got a new band teacher at school, who coincidentally was a tenor player, and he did a bit of a demo for us the first day back at school. It sort of hit me then that that was the instrument I played as well, and maybe I could sound like that one day if I worked at it ... and here I am now, in every band in the school, playing tenor, bari and clarinet and looking to pursue a career in music. All because of that improv demo the first day of eighth grade :D
What's your story?

Answer:
well, when i went to music college, i'm a pianist. but i dont really like to play piano and not too interested. during the second term, my arranging teacher convince me to take up sax cos there is no one playing at my college, mostly pianist and gutarist.
after that my jurney started, i never have my luck to buy a good horn. my 1st sax is b&s intermediate series. is a crap. while my second sax is yani alto 901. this is a good horn but my horn have a dull note which is high c which cant be fixed.
after 1 years of pract i begin giging around.

Answer:
Started alto in 5th grade, played it in the school band until 8th grade, when I moved to this town and they gave me a bari sax to play. I still didn't really practice in those days. I played bari in the jazz band and chamber winds. Then in 9th grade, bari in the symphonic band, then I auditioned for the high school jazz band and made 2nd tenor. I was given a tenor to learn it over the summer, but still not taking it very seriously, didn't even touch it until a week before school started! Then jazz band in my 10th grade totally transformed me... I'd say I moved from, say, level 2, to about level 3, so to speak, level 1 being straightup beginner. Then, I began taking LESSONS in June of last year (end of my sophomore year), started playing alto again, and studied and practiced hard all summer. Over the summer I got to around level 4 or 5 and now I'm approaching 6! Taking it ever-so-seriously and intending to go to music college and becoming a professional... I'd say professional would be around level 7 or 8.
I'm now picking up flute and clarinet, and this year play 1st tenor in our high school wind ensemble, jazz band, and jazz combo band, 2nd alto in region symphonic band, bari sax in region jazz band. Over the summer I also did some professional gigs with caribbean bands on alto sax and soon will be playing a large venue in Philadelphia with my brother's band (he's the drummer), Quick Step John.

Answer:
reply...
Well my dad has been a sax player since the stone age (:-P) so I grew up listening to jazz, and learning about it. I started piano when I was 6 or 7, and then in 5th grade, I picked up the clarinet. I played it for two years, and then my dad took me to a jazz concert. Luckily enough, I heard Spyro Gyra, and Gat Barbiere play. I walked in as a clarinet player, and walked out as a sax player. I guess my inspiration was a combo of my growin' up on jazz, and that concert. :)

Answer:
beginnings
I envy you all who either grew up in musical families, or started playing in grade school.
The country school in Brownsville Tx. did not have band. My dad did listen to Roy Rogers once in a while. When I was in my teens I saw a move about a man in the Louisiana swamps playing the clarinet. I mean he made that stick sing. I was intrigued. It was not until after the Navy when I was 25 that I found a clarinet at a garage sale. For $25.00. I bought a first band book, and asked around about how to stick it in my mouth. I made it work well enough to entertain myself. I stuck with clarinet for about 25 years. Never had the opp. to take lessons as my occupation kept me moving. Saudi, S. Africa, Virgin Islands, Alaska etc.
I always wanted a Tenor Sax. I finally found on in Anchorage. A Vito. I took two lessons while I was there. Now I have a Yamaha 875 but no music teacher near me here in the hilly woods of Arkansas.
When I found this website it seemed I had been in a coma all my life. I am hearing musical things I was never aware of. I am 66 now and I envy you all who started at age 6. I do play this sax every night. I love this Tenor Saxophone.
Guess I got kinda windy here. :oops:

Answer:
My grandfather gave me his old Clarinet when I was 10 years old. (I still have it - a 1927 Selmer by the way) I played it throughout elementary school band and into High School.
Then when I was 15, the band parents hired the local university's jazz ensemble to play for our high school band awards banquet.
The lead Alto player that night was a guy who would later become a friend of mine. He was on the bandstand, absolutely playing his *** off and dancing the 'Funky Chicken' while he played and he was wearing a Levi's denim jacket and a hat that was made out of flattened beer cans.
I thought this guy was the coolest guy I had ever seen and boy...could he play.
So...at my insistance...my parents took me to the local music store the next Friday night and bought me an old silver plated Martin stencil Alto Sax for $ 65.00.
I started playing it and have been playing mostly Sax ever since.
I played in combos, then a big band. I took 18 years off from playing the Clarinet then also joined a German polka band. They told me that they had a book open that was an Alto Sax book that doubled on Clarinet. They lied...the book was probably 70 % Clarinet !!!
It was good to get back to playing the 'agony stick' again and I think that it helped my chops.
To this day I am still friends with the 'Funky Chicken' guy from above though he has gone on in his life to become a top flight pro in music while I have remained a part time amateur.
I still love music though and I love vintage musical instruments and have a small collection of some pretty neat horns.
I moved far away from my longtime home recently which has kind of curtailed my playing for awhile. But I hope to get back into playing again soon.

Answer:
I started out on piano at age 4. Eventually I got into a gifted program (i was number one in toronto at the time) and reached grade 8 or 9 piano by the age of 11. Closer to the age of 11 I started doing some jazz piano, but i gave up piano because it was too structured and I did not have the patience for all that work.
I was changing from a stupid private school to a public one with a music program for grade 7, so a couple weeks before it started, I decided I wanted to play the sax so I rented a student conn i think.
I actually rented the horn right after I had gotten a couple adult (i think) teeth pulled out because there was no room, so the first honked note I played was while my mouth was frozen and bleeding. I had to hold my lips together, and oh how delighted i was when a really flat E (alto sax c#) honked out.

Answer:
actually, my first memories as a kid is watching tv, and seing a sax player, i have no idea who he was or anything, all i know is that since then i always wanted to play.
in grade school, our music teacher was a saxophonist, and at grade 5, he gave the option to his students to follow rudementary sax lessons for 50$ for the year!!!
so i started on alto that year and was supposed to continue the next year, but stuff happened and lets just say i was a very depressed kid at that point, so i quit.
the year after that, i was going to goto what is known as junior high in the US and there was a band option, so i took it because i always loved music and my teacher encouraged me alot.
so when it was time to try out saxes, i was the only kid able to blow in the bary(being almost a football player in looks), so i was convinced to play it even though i wanted a tenor or alto...
that year, i was chosen to go compete in a provincial competition , i played alt, and won, i then bought my fist alto, a yas-23(all i could afford)
the next year, iwanted to take sax lessons in the local music center, but my teachers were quicker than me and had given my name to the local conservatory(musical academy) and they used my first prise as well as a concert i performed in as my audition.
i have since then been a student there, and this is my last year, after i think 6 years as a student there.
i have finished all of my college classes in classical saxophone, and now im heading on to Sherbrooke University for a bachelors in Jazz.
i guess my audition was good, the dean of admissions called me personnally to tell me i was admited.
i just this week bought a used yas-62 the replace the selmer series II that the conservatory had been lending me for 5 years. and the swell part, it plays better than the selmer.
i plan to live my life with music, and i wouldnt mind one day meeting one of you guys for a sax duel, it would be fun, and would give me a reason to practice more:)

Answer:
I started out as a trumpet player in the 6th grade and subsequently played trumpet throughout school, university and a hitch in the service. The last year in the service I was doing so much writing, that I knew I was not going to be a performer and I got hold of a flute, and then a sax and started learning them to give me a better feel for woodwinds in my writing. Got off to a good start with Sadao Watanabe as my first teacher.
When I returned to university my major was composition but I minored in woodwind performance. Soon as I graduated I began writing full time and quit playing altogether. Over the next 20 years I played trumpet, flute and sax sporadically but not enough to hurt me.
I think I've been playing again, now, for about four years and love it. Played lead alto, and now ride tenor in the university big band and principal sax in the regional symphonic wind ensemble. Gig a bit on the side when I can and go to jam sessions regularly.

Answer:
Well, I was 11 when I started going to the music academy in my hometown Lebbeke (Belgium). I didn't know anything of music, neither did I know what instrument I'd play after I had my first year Solfège. It was either trumpet or saxophone and one day in the summer holiday, I said it'd be a saxophone (prolly after seeing Lisa Simpson :wink: ) I hadn't had any idea about how many different saxophones there were, so I took the "light" one that looked as a sax, not as a clarinet. Alto it was. I'm now in my 5th year saxophone and my second year jazz-ensemble. I'm also in my first year of the local , where I play the 2nd alto-sax (I played two years in their youth section).
Next year, I want to play the clarinet (I don't know what the situation in other countries is, but every self respecting saxophonist plays the clarinet et vice versa in Belgium).
My dream'd be to go to the Lemmens-institute (secundary school for musicians), but for that, I'm not gifted enough (maths it'll be...)

Answer:
I was forced to take piano lessons starting at 7 yo. Then when I wuz 'bout 14 I saw the jrhs band marching in the Christmas parade; looking all spiffy w/their white gloves and all. I sez to myself: hmmm, if I can get into the band maybe my mother won't make me take anymore piano lessons. So I asked Mom if she'd get me a 'phone. She comes home with a clarinet and some cock&bull story 'bout all 'phone players should start on clarinet because it'll make'm better 'phonist. Well, I tolerated it for 6 months, and finally after some gently persuasion on my part, Mom bought an ole silver Buescher alto.
The school got a brand spanking shiney new MKVI bari w/low A. Everybody saw how I looked at that horn, and how I looked at them looking at "my" horn, and scattered. I got the bari.

Answer:
My father was a sax player in local bands and mother was also with the accordian. At the age of eight my parents 'informed' me that I should learn to play an instrument. I was given the 'choice' of inhouse learning. The sax won out.

Answer:
I first started playing the sax in 5th grade. My dad and grandfather played the sax a little; concordantly, I wanted to play. I started on the alto for the first 2 yrs. of jr. high (5th and 6th), then switched to Tenor in 7th. The alto was fun, but the tenor is the cat's meow! 8) Now I'm about to be a junior in high school, played in the jazz band last year, and I'm gonna be known this year God willing.

Answer:
started playing clarinet in the sixth grade and switched to tenor sax in the eighth grade. I got a wonderful teacher named Tony Vacca and I play at a restaurant on thursday nights. I love to play the sax and I intend on being a pro when I grow up. I know it'll be hard, but i'm a gonna do it! :)

Answer:
I picked up the alto sax in 8th grade (no previous instruments). I played alto in our high school's 2nd jazz band freshman year. Last year, my band director switched me to tenor. I didn't care for it that much at the time. Soon though, I grew a liking to it. And now I'm loving it! (and have improved dramatically from when I started)
At around the beginning of freshman year, I went to go hear the LCJO perform. That was my first exposure to live jazz. Soon after, I heard the Carnegie Hall jazz band perform. Both are awesome groups.
As far as sax inspiration goes, I really fed off Dexter Gordon, John Coltrane, and some of Cannonball Adderly, learning different licks, and developing a technique.

Answer:
Played flute from 4th grade to Junior in High School. Was never much of a flute player (I thought), but was tops in the bands at that time. It just wasn't my voice.
My grandfather played soprano sax, although I never got to hear him play. Always wanted to try it -- was more my voice than flute, I thought. Back then, my parents said that sax wasn't for "girls," so I couldn't do sax (by their command...). I wanted to play that thing soooooo bad...
Senior year in High School, I had the opportunity to borrow an alto sax and play in the jazz band for about 4 months. Got me hooked -- I was on my way.
Life happens -- family -- multiple jobs (don't get me started) -- no music for 20+ years...
I now have my sop sax, bought it for myself last Christmas as a treat, and I'm loving every minute of it!
Life is too short. Do what you wanna do NOW! :)
..and in my humble opinion, although I will never play professionally or in public, yes, I do think I play sop sax better than flute because I FEEL it. This one's for ME! :)

Answer:
I played trpt from 4th grade until two years into college (mus ed degree). I studied at good colleges and had good teachers but really never had high chops or endurance on the trpt the way I wanted. One night I was playing with a neighbors kid and got kicked in the chops before a concert. I had to fake my way through the whole concert and take all the parts down an octave. Said, that's it. I quit. Three days later I was going crazy because I had always practiced an instument every day for at least an hour. So I rented an alto sax from the local store and started taking lessons a month later.One thing lead to another and I was lead alto in the jazz band (state college) and working (gigging) within 4 years. I'm envious of players who had grade school and junior/high school experience on reeds or sax. I think if I would have started on sax I'd have monster chops. Oh well. Anyway, at the time (70s) I really liked Tom Scott and Don Menza as inspirations and copied Charles Mcpherson and Phill Woods on alto. K