I play alto sax, clarinet,bass clarinet, and precusion. The sax is not that hard to put together. You make it sound like its a process that takes like ten miutes and it takes like thirty seconds. Just be glad that you dont play the contra bass clarinet! That thing sucks.

""The sax may one of the easier instruments to play, but setting it up takes a lot of practice. Some would say it takes more talent to take care of the instrument than to play it...""

i love the sax, but.. =O no way... you don`t know jack about serious instrument maintainance until you`ve played the bassoon (the contra clarinet is probably even worse, that looks like a hassle to take care of too XD)

omg the bassoon... shizz... i`m usually the last to put my instrument together and take it apart. the brass only take 3 seconds, the saxes take 15 seconds, the clarinets take 20 seconds, i take almost minute. 20 seconds on really good days lol. b/c you got the 4 joints (not bad for a woodwind) then you got the bocal, the reed, the crutch, and the strap. (that` y i only use the drop cloth at home, if i used it in school i`d be late for my next class)

spit doesn`t go straight down like a soprano clarinet, NOOOOO, it just decides to stay in the tone holes (yes the tone holes, i am not joking) and the boot joint. grr, and then you have to send a drop cloth through a U-shaped joint.. and then wait for a while for the weight to fall down the other side. ARGH... and if you *don`t* clean your bassoon EVERY SINGLE TIME it sounds like a gurgle...

AND then... you have to be careful not to tear off the whisper key pad when you take out the bocal (i`ve done it 5 times so far LOL, i`m not getting it re-done, waste of money), you have to treat your bocals like your life depended on them (they are so frucking delicate and they cost $200 ea. x__X)

then you have the reed... some days it doesn`t work how you want it to, you might wake up and find that there`s a splinter in your reed that`s making it sound funny, you have to soak it in water (licking doesn`t work like on single reeds unfortunately... T___T)

THEN you get to keeping all the springs, keys, and screws all nice...

sorry for being such an asshole but i needed to get that off my chest. lol. the bassoon is the greatest instrument in the world, but why does it have to be so friggin high maintainance??? ARGGGGH... i think there is something wrong with my instrument b/c there is NO way an instrument could be this demanding. =(

i forgot to add:

yea! the stupid neck strap. that annoys me so much! and b/c i picked the bassoon i have a real ghetto neck straps (the saxes in my band get ones that are padded. it looks like soft foam lol) i get one made of fake leather and felt *sigh*

and sometimes i find myself in the middle of a song leaning over b/c the neck strap wasn`t tightened enouh, or it untightened itself. annoying as hell i`m tellin` ya!

i love the bassoon though. wouldn`t trade it for anything in the world. although i`m thinking of switching to oboe for a few weeks just so i can learn it. i love learning new instruments. =D

do u guys hate ur instruments? or is this some kind of. my things harder then ur thing thread. no pun intended.

Jay,

If the saxes in your band take only 20 seconds to set up/de-set up, then they aren`t taking very good care of their instruments. By the way, as a sax player, I can tell you that the condensation (commonly called spit) also collects in my tone holes. You wouldn`t fail to find a soprano clarinet or an oboe player who also has the same problem. That is just what it is to be a woodwind player.

Also, if you count the number of keys on the bassoon and the sax, the numbers are pretty much the same, they are just in different places. For instance, there are 7 different fingerings for middle B flat on a sax. Each one I have had to learn to use in different circumstances.

There are challenging aspects of every instrument, woodwinds most of all. Just remember that while brass players can set up and de-set up in less than 5 seconds, that inside, they are all very jealous that they can`t play as fast as we can!!

Thomas

hmm, well the saxes in my band are pretty lazy so they get to class a bit late and assemble really slowly, but if you did the same thing they do but did it at a regular pace, yea it`d take 20 seconds. basically if you want to get to band class and get a lkot done, you`ve got to hurry. the slow ones get left behind. most saxes only have the instrument body, the bocal, the mouthpiece, reed n ligature. i play clarinet and i know that DOESN`T take a long time. since you basically fix your ligature after you`ve started playing to check the sound. i mean most of the people in my band only use cork grease once every two weeks, so all there really is to do is assemble the instrument, as maintainance comes AFTER you`ve played (well at least for me)

and no. i play clarinet as well and the water does collect in the tone holes. but only enough to get your fingers a bit wet when you`ve played the really low notes. it`s definitely not like on the bassoon. when you start playing in the upper registers, a lot of spit tends to trickle down, but thankfully on the clarient it drips downt he bell and ono the floor.

the bassoon on the other hand is another story. because of it`s enormous size the tone holes have to be put as far apart as possible. and for the main tone holes covered by fingers w/o the help of keys, it means that the holes have to be cut diagonally. this means that the distance between the bore and the finger is a lot greater, and the tone hole is a lot longer. so when you play a lot, the water collects in the longer tone holes and not only gets you wet, but it comes out in bursts (at least for me). i honestly think there is something wrong with my bassoon b/c having to wipe off my hands in the middle of a piece is something i never had to do when i played the clarinet. but then again, the tone holes on the clarinet are really close together so they don`t need to be cut diagonally.

The horn is indisputably the most difficult brass instrument. I don`t play one, but ask brass players and they`ll agree. The main reason is that the mouthpeice and bore of the instrument are designed strangely and rather incorectly. These flaws make the dinstinctive horn sound. But they make it very difficult to play. Even the best hornists have some notes crack.

I see jay... Hope the one I`ll rent isn`t all messed... XD

Well, stupidly enough, when I play my piccolo for a long time and get the really nasty sharp cutting ear deafing notes, I spit a lot. Then what happens is.... GRRR! The spit doesn`t go on the ground... IT GOES ON MY LEGS! lol... It`s stupidity... Whoooooo spazic me... Anyways... My friend that plays the french horn complains that she has no spit valve so she has to turn it a million times and finally a drop of spit comes out. Sad, isn`t it? Plus, when she plays with all the spit inside, she sounds all stuffy and bubble-ish... I want to play oboe sometime too... But for now, I`m going for the bassoon straight. Yet, I still have to wait... let`s see... about 5 months... God... I wish I can just take the flute back to the store, get like $50 back or something for the alst 5 months and get a bassoon and learn it quick and play for the rest of the year and I could still get solo`s on my band teacher`s piccolo which I use now... But yet again, it isn`t an easy task

Violin is really easy to pick up, honestly, I think it`s a slacker instrument at first since it`s easy to pick up, however it`s hard to even consider mastering.

Viola, makes me want to cry.

French Horn makes me want to never touch an instrument again. After a year, I still can`t understand how someone can master this instrument so exceptionally.

And I won`t even bother trying the oboe again.

I think the French horn must be the hardest.
Second from those 1 stringed instruments. I know a hornist that`s pretty good at trumpet, but she can`t get much out of the horn. The octaves fall and rise pretty easily.

Lets put it this way, if you were immortal, you would eventually master them all.. I personally don`t think any instrument is harder to play than the next one because if you play it enough, you will master it, whatever it is.

^i second that... although some instruments ARE harder to START on than others... in the end they`re all the same...

btw any time you see me posting a lot arund 8notes, it`s b/c my other favourite forum isn`t working lol. this is my backup forum haha... my fav forum has been going offline a lot lately..

So, which`s your fav?

it`s an asian culture forum (i`m chinese filipino) i mostly go there for the off topic useless chatter though... that site is going to hell though.. the things we talk about... it`s so funny but so dirty at the same time...