I've been invited to join a wind quartet which is various combinations of flute/clarinet/saxophone, but sometimes just saxophone - so I'll need to learn alto sax .

I've been offered a Yamaha YAS275 to try for a little while, but will eventually need to buy my own instrument, and the budget probably won't stretch to a Yamaha unless I look for a second-hand one.

Does anyone have any experience of the JP saxophones or other cheapies such as the Myall Jazzman or the Notus?

I'm a bit wary of spending too little, as I'm all too aware that you get what you pay for... Student Music Supplies has entry-level models at £199 which is a bit worrying

Any ideas, please?

Yes!! Buy a Hanson Saxophone. Their intermediate model is cheaper than the Yamaha student. Owning both I can assure you that it has a better sound.

I don't work for HAnson but they are always very nice to us when we deal with them

Hanson do a decent beginners' sax, yes. There is a very active second hand market in saxes too, and certainly it's well worth looking into : you can find some really rather good bargains.

I can highly recommend calling the people at sax.co.uk, in Crowborough. They are very knowledgeable, and you can very easily spend hours there... They have a smaller branch in Denmark Street in the centre of London too.

My daughter plays a Hanson tenor and her teacher was very pleased with it when we bought it. We went for an intermediate model, but after 6 months my daughter was having a lot of problems with squeaks, and the teacher suggested perhaps we ought to upgrade. This was rather a shock as we had deliberately not gone for a beginner model to avoid having to upgrade too soon. (She was already quite a high level on clarinet, so we anticipated rapid progress.) After advice from on here we looked into upgrading the mouthpiece and it seems to have solved the squeaks and the sax no longer seems to be in need of replacement (phew!) The mouthpiece upgrade was £120, but worth it as it seems to have made a big difference.

Good luck!

We never had any problems with the intermediate model but the upgrade had a few squeeks and was very hard in the lower register. We also changed the mouthpiece, well daughter's teacher has lent her one. A trip back to Hanson uncovered a bent key and since it's been repaired it sounds fantastic.

Thank you very much, notmusimum, barry and andante. I hadn't thought of Hanson, and will look into them: also will take up barry's suggestion of contacting sax.co.uk.

jc

My 9 year old son is playing a Trevor James Revolution II Horn bought from Dawkes.co.uk - he loves it and has never had any problems with it. Dawkes also did (and still do) a take-it-away finance scheme, a rental scheme and a buy back scheme that made the cost a little easier to swallow!

Maria

Thanks for that, Maria

jc