Saxamaphone!

My last semester of high school was filled with courses I needed in order to get the few credits I required to graduate.  So, “bird courses”.  Something a bird brain could pass.  For me, that was teaching Communication Technology, doing an art class, and music for fun.  I started off the class playing the drums, but soon learned that I have no internal mechanism with which to keep a beat.  That and there were two others looking to play, so I would have had to share.  So I switched to the tenor saxophone, partially because my music teacher Ms. Hogan said she needed more people in the baseline for the class, and partially cause I’ve always wanted to play the sax.

And wouldn’t you know it?  Me, who had never bothered to learn an instrument (save for a brief stint trying the trombone in grade school, until I realized my arms were too short to play it), find out in the last semester in high school that I was damned good at the sax.  Especially considering I’m bloody tone deaf (I can mimic, but don’t ask me what key that was) and I can’t read sheet music (I had my own notation for it which I could understand). 

Well, that was 10 years ago.  And perhaps it’s the hormonal state of which I’m living at the current moment, but I’ve been rather nostalgic as of late.  Miss home, miss spending weekends at my Mom’s place, going on this kick of music from my youth (Duran Duran, Men At Work, Quarterflash, Jethro Tull, etc.)  And it was probably not the best of ideas for me to go searching for Baker Street by Gerry Rafferty.  But damn it, I got this sudden urge to play a sax again.  The rift from that song was one I always wanted to learn to play. 

It was the next morning that, for shits and giggles, I decided to look on eBay to see what was there for tenor saxophones.  I was expecting a load of them, well out of my price range.  The average brand new tenor costs about $2,500.  Like I got that kind of cash lying about.  And sure, I found a bunch of those.  Mostly Yamahas, what I played in high school.  And then I see one with a buyout of $215 US.  Intrigued, I check it out.  And there’s a huge bankruptcy sale going on!  Shit!  Hundreds of tenor’s on sale for like $300 and change Canadian! 

So, in a few weeks, I’ll be the proud owner of a red lacquered (like you couldn’t have guessed that :D ) tenor sax.  And I’m sure Gunther and Gunther Jr. will shortly thereafter be proud owners of ear plugs.  And I of an insulated, sound proofed basement :D.  But damn, like I could turn that price down!  Sure, it’s not a Yammie.  I would have much preferred one, since I know the quality of their instruments.  But I’m not that bloody good to be that picky about my instrument.  If one of these days it turns out I can make some scratch playing, then sure, I’ll save up and get one, but until then, my $300 saxamaphone will make me happy and my family deaf.

Maybe I’ll start my own ska band.