But at least I could get my hands on the instrument and determine if it would be possible to restore it to playing condition without exceptional costs.Ī few years ago, when I got the idea of trying to find a restorable C melody for myself, I went back to those pawn shops, only to discover that the old C melodies had all disappeared. The big problem was that the pawn shops all wanted $500-600 for these unplayable antiques, the same price they were asking for 10-year-old, playable altos and tenors. As a rule, the silverplate was black and the pads were white, meaning that the pads were original and 40-60 years overdue for replacement.

I’d looked at a few of those just out of general interest (at the time, my alto and tenor were all I ever needed). I already owned a C soprano saxophone, but it had a certain sound that doesn’t suit 90% of what we do in church, at least when I play it.Ģ0 years ago every pawn shop in the area had several C melodies that they had taken in a half-century before. (For more information about playing saxophone in a worship setting, see our article “ Saxophones in Church?”) But for the “fun of it,” with the growing number of songs in B (C# on my Tenor), I thought I’d look into what it would take to get a trustworthy C Melody.

That’s not my problem - in fact the sax parts published for most praise choruses are so bad that if they started requiring me to use the sheet music I wouldn’t play at all. Even players who can survive such keys don’t always do their best work in them.Ī number of praise band players in other churches have bought C melody saxes because it’s easier than transposing or improvising. But lately, we’ve been doing more and more songs in keys like B, which puts a Tenor sax in C# (seven sharps) and an Alto sax in G# (eight sharps). For example, if the song is in C, a tenor player would play in D and an alto player would play in A. Most of those years, the church was doing music in keys that a sax player who mostly improvised could easily play along with.

Though I started playing my Bb tenor in concert, rock and jazz bands over forty years ago, I’ve also been playing it in church services off and on for about 35 years. Horns in my Life: 1920s Selmer New York C Melody

Value of a buescher tenor sax