any advice on a C melody tenor sax?

[Jazztropic]

Looking to get a C Melody Tenor to play with a small group without having to deal with transposing.Does anyone use one that could offer thoughts about its limitations or major problems like stuffyness or intonation issues.What is its general tone , more like a tenor or alto?

Thanks

Edited December 16, 2010 by Jazztropic

[jeffcrom]

I've never like the sound - more like a tenor than an alto, but without much body. Allen likes his, so what do I know?

[AllenLowe]

it's work - small sound and hard to cut through a modern rhythm section. I have had best luck using a contemporary alto saxophone mouthpiece (refaced by the great Greg Weir of Florida); it's nice to play in the concert key, though good luck trying to play it in tune (I can do it but it takes a lot of ear). And I hate CD melody mouthpieces.

I actually like the instrument because it's a nice, little, very lyric sound (it will be on two cuts on my upcoming cd project). The angle of the neck is another problem, though I have a guy who is going to fix that for me. And they are generally cheap.

it depends on how experienced you are - if I had to tell someone else what to do I would recommend a decent tenor, however.

[BeBop]

Previous discussion.

[BeBop]

I'd agree with the recommendation for a decent tenor - like post World War II, even. My C low-pitch horns have intonation challenges. (When is an octave key not an octave key?) With a tenor mouthpiece, the sound opens a bit and they become less of a blowing battle. But, aside from novelty and, perhaps price (my most recent purchases were around US$25-30), they don't have much going for them.

I've got one horn that - despite the fact that you'd think reading concert pitch notation would not require any transposition - requires a half-step transposition and lots of embrochure work when moving between octaves. So I don't play it in public.

[danasgoodstuff]

I own two vintage (1920's) C-melodies, a conn and a King. They are quite different from each other so I would take comments about C's in general with a grain of salt. That said, vintage C mouthpieces do tend to be quite stuffy, modern purpose built C mpc or a shortshank Selmer jazz tenor mpc would probably be the way to go but mpc are v. personal, think where you stick 'em! It takes a certain level of committment to make a C, or any other vintage and/or oddball instrument, your main axe. Good tone is a v. personl thing too, see the disagreement here re J McL's intonation, etc. But if you really want to, it's doable.

Edited December 26, 2010 by danasgoodstuff