The Mark VI Legend..... May 25, 2010

What created the legend? Does the Mark VI live up to it’s reputation?.... What does it mean to saxophonist?

I will give you a few thoughts of mine and you can make up your own mind.

First what started the Balanced Action and Mark VI legend is they were the first saxophone to have the offset right hand. Prior to these instruments all saxophones had the keys inline and by off setting the right hand the saxophone became more comfortable to play.

Second the things that make the Mark VI saxophones good are also many time the things that make the bad....

The Mark VI altos for example have several different bow sizes.. this makes each model play completely differently.
*The bow being the bottom of the saxophone between main body the bell.

The bell to body removable ring and the fixed bell to bow rings each have two engraved lines on them.

1. There is the short bow. On the short bow the bottom line of the main body ring lines up with the top bell ring line. They are basically straight across from each other. Right hand middle register tends to be very sharp...

2. The long bow. The main body ring is slightly lower than the bell to bow ring. This was done to help lower the middle E, F etc. that were very sharp on the short bow. It sort of worked.... Side effect is that the low C and some of the other lower register notes are flat and very hard to lip up.

3. The medium bow. The bell rings line up across from each other.... this is the most in tune of the Mark VI altos ... and I know there are great players playing in tune with short bow altos...

4. There are also models with loops for the side B-Flat and Side C key connectors... This arrangement appears on the first Mark Vi altos and extended until the early sixties.. Many saxophonist prefer this side key arrangement... Keep in mind this also appears on many long bow Mark VI saxophones.

Later Selmer used the ball joint connector. Both have good and bad features...

The Mark VI tenors generally have only two basic models one with the loop side keys and one with the ball joint side keys. Mark VI tenor aficionados seem to prefer looking for certain serial numbers and not for design....

The Balanced Actions and Mark VI saxophones were also used by many of the great saxophonist of the 50’s.... making them sought after by young musicians....

Now let’s talk about why there are no two Mark VI saxophones that play alike.
There are several reasons for this and I will just name a couple of the big ones. Each saxophone is had made..... The Selmer saxophones were annealed so it is hard to make each saxophone have the same brass features.... The annealing is what mostly makes each saxophone play differently and it is also what gives each saxophone it’s own personality.

*Annealing is a heat process whereby a metal is heated to a specific temperature /colour and then allowed to cool slowly. This softens the metal which means it can be cut and shaped more easily. Brass & mild steels, are heated to a red heat and allowed to cool slowly.

There have been many improvements in intonation for woodwinds in the past 30 years or so.... the Cooper scale for the flute.... when this scale was introduced many flute players felt the instrument did not respond the same as the older instruments. This is true.... The design was made to improve the instrument and you would not want it to play the same as the old instruments or there would of course be no improvement.

The same thing happened to the saxophones... modern saxophones play more in tune naturally... they respond better... but many saxophonist of the old school do not feel they have the same tone or again personality.
This is of course a personal decision and should not affect the way anyone looks at the modern saxophones... many of the modern improvements will make playing the saxophone a great pleasure.... Keep in mind that we all tend to sound like we do.... it is what we hear and have in our ears and head.... not the instrument or mouthpiece for that matter....

The other real problem we have with the Mark VI saxophones is that they are old..... they suffer metal fatigue.... ware in the keys and tone holes form so many years of playing... a modern saxophone of good quality is tight... responds well.... and does not need as much maintenance as the older instruments.

There are a lot of great older saxophones.... Conn tenors have a sound unto themselves... they also have a very bad fingerboard and the intonation is a challenge....
The King Super 20 saxophones have some great features.... I always had a very hard time playing them in tune but it never seemed to bother Cannonball.... I did not mean to imply that my name should be used in the same sentence as Cannonball.. or that I played like him.... I have many times dreamed of playing like him just did not have the talent.....

As a saxophonist it is important to do what you feel is in your best interest. this includes choice of instruments, type of music you want to play and of course what feels best to you while you are playing...

*Everything in this article and/or any of my articles will always be my opinion and nothing more... I do not claim what I think is face in every case or that everyone should agree with me. These are my opinions based on 45 years as a saxophone repairmen and talking to many of the world’s greatest and worst saxophonist. And working on literally thousands of saxophones over the years.

Sept. 15, 2009

What are the advantages of having 2 necks for you saxophone.

There are several advantages to having two necks.
If something happens to your main neck you have a backup neck that you have played and know. Many woodwind players do not understand the advantage of knowing your instrument. It is perhaps the most important part of playing.... Knowing you instrument knowing where the pitch works for you.... knowing how each note responds. All of these thing are very important. Your best neck gets destroyed .. you know your backup.

If you play two different mouthpieces.... If you happen to like two different mouthpieces for different things or just to play something different. The smaller of the two mouthpieces will always compress the cork so the larger mouthpiece is loose. Two mouthpieces ..... two necks.. one fits each neck. No cork problem. There is also a good chance that one of the necks will line up better for you ... for each mouthpiece.
Same mouthpiece... to necks .... two different sounds.

Materials in necks make a difference. I personally like brass the best for tenor and brass and copper for alto. Plating makes a difference. Gold is thought of to be darker, silver is thought of to be brighter, lacquer is good, not lacquer (Bare Brass) is very free.

It is not necessarily the type of plating that makes a neck play one way or the other but the amount of plating on the neck. A thick of plating responds differently than a thin amount of plating.

Now really knowing what plating does or does not do is very hard to decide for many reasons. How can we test this? Play a lacquered neck..next to a silver plated neck? Not really. Each neck is different. Having made many necks and knowing how they are made we are lucky they even play close to each other.
So if you play two lacquered necks they will play differently. So when comparing a silver and a lacquer how do we know what is the plating and what is just that they are two different necks. Also if you plate a neck while you are waiting... to see what the difference is.. you can not go back and see how it played before you plated the neck. Also there will be a different neck cork..... different amount of glue under the neck cork.... Testing is not very conclusive.

Two necks can be good............

Sept. 15, 2009

The Front F, Altissimo or Harmonic key designs of the saxophone.
by Rheuben Allen

Now before I get started I do not want to hear that Michael Brecker, David Sanborn, Tom Scott, Brandon Fields, Albert Wing, Dan Higgins, Gary Foster, Eddie Harris, Eric Marenthall, Lenny Picket and many other great saxophonist all play the living shit out of the altissimo register of the saxophone using the standard saxophones in their hands. This article is not about confronting the “Gods” but merely a personal view of the design of the altissimo key for the saxophone.
One of the things all these men have in common is years and years of practice and playing in the big time..... Their experiences and talent have made them able to do just about anything they want on a saxophone...When Michael Brecker was asked one time what he did for a hard session his response was “I practice”. This article is for those of us who are not God like... Just saxophone players...

The basic concept I will address in this article is the importance of being able to reach any side key, the harmonic key without taking your fingers off or out of the correct pearl key position.

Dan Higgins and I wrote a book on the Altissimo fingerings a few hundred years ago. And will have in print again very soon. These fingerings were first tested having saxophonist at North Texas State University play them on their instrument with their mouthpieces. Then play them with their mouthpieces and an unknown saxophone. I equipped the room with a VU meter so they could keep the same volume a overtones change with volume. I used a Conn strop to check the intonation. Then I used a spectrum analyzer to check the overtones present in each fingering.

We found by using the register key on the alto saxophone many of the altissimo notes would loose overtones. By not using the neck register when playing the harmonics the overtones present would be much stronger. To test this simply play a front F and while you are holding the note release the register maintaining the high F Listen to the two different note and you will be able to hear the additional overtones present in the tone when not using the register key.

The traditional pearl Front F or Harmonic key s I will refer to it in the rest of this article is the absolute worst design of the long list of bad designs. It is impossible to reach the pearl harmonic key without completely changing your hand position. You either need to move from the correct Palm D position or completely remove the first finger of the left hand from the pearl.
Now there have been many attempts to correct this problem.

The YAMAHA harmonic key is just backwards. You must go over the flat part of the key before you can make the key work. Again requiring a complete change in hand position. Designed by Mr. Eugune Russo a very fine saxophonist and teacher but he was gifted with some of the largest hands I have ever seen on a man. The rest of us in general do not have this gift.


SELMER has the harmonic key for the Super Action Series. They are close but have the key going up where it touches the B key with a thick felt between the to..... again you must change hand position to teach the key.
I designed an extension for the pearl key on the old Selmer Mark VI saxophones that worked very well. Dan Higgins still has this key on his alto. With this extension you do not need to leave the correct Palm D position or leave the first finger left hand pearl position to operate the harmonic key.

One of the major mistakes the manufactures make is putting a thick felt between the harmonic key and the B key. Then when you have the B key down the distance between the harmonic key and the B key become much greater than necessary and makes it hard to operate the harmonic key smoothly. When the B key is open the distance between the B key and the bottom Harmonic key should be as little as possible.
The angle of the key is most important. Many of the key designs would work fine if they were just set properly.

I have been working for over 30 years on the designs of the harmonic keys so it would be easier for us mortals to play in the upper register of the saxophone. I believe I have achived gthis with my new harmonic key designs featured on my new saxophones. I am continuing to work on this problem on a daily basis.... the saxophone is a very imperfect instrument and needs help in many areas.

Sept. 9, 2009

What makes good intonation on the saxophone?
Is it the instrument or player or a combination of both?

To be honest there are so many variables when it come to intonation it is really hard to just what make an instrument play in tune. I believe the number one thing is the ear of the player. Most of the time where the saxophonist hears the intonation is where it will be.

Now to the instruments:

The instrument is effected by the mouthpiece, reed and again the player.

The length of the mouthpiece. If it is to long and the modern mouthpiece makers are making longer mouthpieces today than in the past. The mouthpiece can not be pushed on the instrument for enough to get it where the saxophonist need it to be for the right pitch.

The chamber of the mouthpiece. A small chamber or a mouthpiece with a large wedge usually plays sharper then a mouthpiece with a large chamber mouthpiece. By having to pull the mouthpiece out to far the instrument sometimes does not respond as well as it should. This can be very apparent in the lower register of the instrument. I was going on a trip to France to play in a band and I asked my friend Dan Higgins, one of the great alto players of our time, to if he could help me a little since it had been about 15 years since I played in a band. The first and only thing he said t me was push the mouthpiece in... I cleaned that up a lot..

How far the mouthpiece goes on the neck.. When I was young I heard saxophonist talking about the sweet spot on the neck. That is where the mouthpiece goes on the neck so the instrument responds great, the intonation is good and the tone of the instrument is at it’s best. The sweet spot is different for every mouthpiece and player. But when you find the sweet spot life can be good.....

The reeds:

The reed number. A soft reed plays easier but may not play as well in the upper register of the saxophone. A small opening on the mouthpiece may require a softer reed. A close facing may require a harder reed.

The player:

Now we have the player. The size of the lips, the opening of the throat, the pressure placed on the reed, if your wife yelled at you before you started playing causing you a bad attitude, if the last band you played with played sharp or flat so you had to move your mouthpiece in or out more than you usual.....

*Never make a decision about your equipment after a bad playing experience. Once I owned a Selmer Baritone and the first band I played it in the intonation was so bad I thought it was me and my baritone. I sold it..... then I heard the guy that bought it and he played the shit out of it... no intonation problems for him...

The one thing we do know without a doubt is that the saxophone is an imperfect instrument at best. It is never the same instrument when we pick it up. The reed plays differently and we can never fine two reeds that play the same. The pads seat a little differently and of course the playing situation is always different. Playing in a studio with a synthesizer is completely different than playing in a big band where the lead trumpet player plays sharp so he can be heard.

The best thing for intonation is of course practice. Learn the instrument.
*There is no such thing as a saxophone that plays in tune... It just can not be made..... the design of the saxophone really sucks.... it must be played in tune. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard for young and old saxophonist the their middle E is sharp.... All alto saxophones have a sharp middle E.... All alto saxophones..... just the nature of the length of the tube and where the tone holes need to be to produce both a low E and middle E.

After having said all this the saxophone is one of the greatest instruments ever made. Just listen to Trane, Cannonball, Desmond, Konitz, Sanborn, Dan Higgins, Gary Foster, Jack Nimitz or Brecker only to mention a few. It is one of the most expressive instruments ever made....

My advise for the bottom line...... Just practice and play it in tune.......

July 14, 2009
What make great intonation on a saxophone?

The number one thing is of course the players ears... there is no such thing as a saxophone or any other instrument for that matter that plays in tune. Both great tones and intonation come mostly from the player. Now I am not saying a very good instrument is going to play the same as a very bad instrument. But the instrument is only part of good intonation. I have had friends that change their saxophone just about every week looking for the perfect instrument. it is just not going to happen. If your palm D is sharp on this saxophone another saxophone might have a good palm D but a bad palm E. When you change instruments you change problems. Now I believe in finding an instrument that is good for the way you play. Hell I played Michael Breckers tenor to test it after I worked on it and guess what..... I really did not sound like him.... in any way. Find an instrument you like and practice. Dan Higgins one of the great saxophonist and doublers of all times... has played the same alto for a very long time. The other thing about playing the same instrument is you get to know where the problems are and make them work for you. You get to know the instrument...... Know what you need to do to make everything even in tone color... know where the intonation is on every note. I know what playing in tune means and sometimes that is playing out of tune to math the sharp lead trumpet player. Always matching the strobe is not what making music is all about. Listening is the greatest tool for great intonation....



June 13, 2009
We never play the same saxophone twice.
For years I have heard about saxophonist looking for the perfect saxophone. Hearing guys talk about intonation and the many problems that come with choosing to play the saxophone. The saxophone has so many variables we really never play the same instrument twice. Lets start with the Reed. I can say with some degree of accuracy the reed is the biggest problem with playing the saxophone or any woodwind instrument. (Except the flute and I know someone is going to say but the flute doesn't use a reed... so I added this for that guy) Every time you wet the reed it is different and makes the saxophone play a little differently. Every time you put on a new reed the saxophone plays a little or a lot differently. The reed affect the intonation, response and tone color. So just this one variable makes us play a different instrument every time we play. Now a pad gets wet and swells a little. so now we need to push a little harder than the last time we played to get the instrument to play the same. Or at least close to the same. Now lets talk about the wife.... your are trying to get ready for the gig..... she is telling you you would rather play than spend time with her. (In most cases that is true) Your attitude is not the greatest when you pick up the saxophone and start to play. You don't know why it seems to be hard to play. Well you embouchure is to tight because you would like to cut something so she can not talk so much. Your biting on the reed. Now we have the band you are playing with tonight. The Guitar player has tuned to the air... not a real pitch. You need to pull the mouthpiece out to the end of the neck to sort of play with the group. Do you think the instrument will play. If you do you are kidding yourself..... every time you move the mouthpiece in or out on the neck ... again you have a different instrument. These are just a few of the things the make playing a challenge... I love the guy that says his Palm D is 3 cents sharp... on what day?.... where is the moon?.... where is the mouthpiece? .... Every time we pick up a saxophone it is different.... Just play the thing.....

Nov. 24, 2008
What do I look for when buying a new instrument?

The absolutely most important thing is does it feel good to you. Can you play it with ease. When you take a advise from someone else the information they are giving you is what they like. This may or may not be good for you. It is always good to listen to good players when they talk about instruments but..... just because you like the way a saxophonist plays and think you would like to sound like them... what they play might not work for you. There are many great saxophonist that are just great players. They might or might not really know about equipment. They may or may not know what is good for you. I have watched saxophonist give young players advise about how to play that was not good advise for that student. Listen to everyone.... pick what you like from them.... than make your own decision. If you are right or wrong it is your choice. Remember there is no such thing as a perfect saxophone, mouthpiece, ligature and certainly not a perfect reed. Pick what you like and learn to play that instrument. If you pick something you like and someone tells you you should play something else.... tell them to kiss off! If you like it it is right for you. Hell! they will not be spending 8 hours a day practicing with the instrument like you will be doing. Make your own decision.

*Because you are using the same equipment that Michael Brecker, Cannonball, Lee Konitz, Gary Foster, Dan Higgins or anyone else for that matter used....... there is a good chance you will not sound like them. And of course do you really want to? I bought a King Super 20 Alto once because I wanted to sound like Cannonball..... I do not want to say it was a joke..... but I never sounded like Cannonball. The real beauty of the saxophone is that it is an instrument that we can all find our own tone and personality when we play the saxophone.

April 5, 2008
Why do all instruments play differently?

There are many reasons instruments play differently. Lets take a saxophone. We have the main body, the bow section, the bell section and the neck. We will start with how the neck is made. The brass is wrapped around a mandrel, soldered, shaped, cut, hand buffed. Then the parts are soldered on the finished neck. Now during this process the neck is heated several times. Each time the neck is heated it will alter the brass where the flame hits the neck. If it takes more time to solder the neck receiver to the neck that spot will be heated more than the last neck. If there is more solder under the traditional neck brace that will change the way the neck vibrates. When the neck is lacquered or plated the amount of lacquer or plating will change the neck vibration, the tone color and response. Now we have not talked about the bell, main body or bow. Each of these parts has many of the same processes used to manufacture them. Now though these things can be controlled to a great extent there are too many things that can vary. The leveling of a tone hole during padding, the tone booster and how far it hangs down in the tone hole. The list of variables is very long. The beauty in the ay instruments are made is that they will all be different. The musician choosing an instrument can find something they will really enjoy playing. The sound they want, the response and intonation. Now we ad the big variable “The musician”. We each play differently, have different embouchures, concepts of sound. We as musicians need to find a very good instrument and then practice, practice, practice. The more we practice the less important equipment becomes to our playing. Consider when looking for different equipment the reason you started looking. Did you had a bad session? Did you play with an out of tune group? Always make decisions on a good day and not a bad day. Enjoy playing and make music in stead of worrying about the equipment. When looking for a new instrument it is important to choose an instrument you feel comfortable with the way it plays. Several things to look for when trying the new instrument are: Does it have the tone color you are looking for in an instrument?