You’ve probably noticed (I hope) a relatively new centre section * csax_net tweets… * which feeds back any of my Twitter ‘tweets’ to the blog – it can get pretty confusing, as I ‘tweet’ all the topics from the blog, but then they come back again as if by magic – although you will also notice stuff there that is purely from Twitter, plus any comments from (e.g.) TheSaxDoctor a.k.a. Stephen Howard… So if you’re on Twitter, look me up, I’m csax_net – I had to use ‘underscore’ in the name, they don’t do dots…
Whilst Twitter is a recent toy, I’ve been on Facebook for yonks – yes, it’s currently the same picture on both – it’s a good way to ‘spread the word’, and (certainly on Facebook) keeps me in touch with globally extended family and friends by both word and pictures. There’s nowhere in cyberspace to hide these days…
Anywhere else ? Well, apart from Friends Re-united and Genes Re-United, I’ve an even older presence on Windows Live / Messenger and probably loads more I’ve momentarily forgotten that are out there, sadly neglected, fading in the mists of time as life – and fads – move relentlessly on.
Well, today I said fond farewell to two more of my rapidly dwindling stack of C Melody saxophones – one has gone to Devon, and t’other to the South of France. I wish them well in their new homes, and I’m sure we’ll be following the progress of at least one of them on this blog, as the new owners breathe life into them…
As they patiently sat on the bench waiting for the courier(s) to collect them, I took a picture of the two well packed beauties – and in the middle (by comparison) is what can only be called a ‘cardboard sleeve’ which was all the packaging that one of my saxes came from the US in ! It didn’t even cover the case completely – the ends stuck out – and the sax and bits inside had no more protection than would be used hand-carrying it to a gig… But the sax miraculously survived, and it played right out of the case – maybe more than it did when it went into the case ???
I’ll dearly miss one of them, it was the lacquered King C Melody – I’d been promising myself that I’d get it up to scratch and see if it could give my 30’s Martin a run for it’s money. Never happened. I’ve finally realised that there is only a finite amount of time, and too many demands on that. Sigh…
Just to remind all readers that the C Forum is still very much ‘open for business’ !
Anyone with an interest in the new Aquilasax – I play one myself – can read a very recent post by Steve Wedgwood of Aquilasax, addressing comments in the "Is the Aquilasax neck the root of any intonation problems ?" topic in the Aquilasax section.
Continue reading about Steve Wedgwood – Aquilasax – on the forum…
Is this the largest collection of 1920/1930′s C Melody sax necks ever photographed ?
So anyway, one night, probably after a relaxing glass of scrumpy – oh those carefree pre-diet days – I had this great idea to collect all the necks from the nineteen odd C Melody saxophones that sit there patiently waiting to be brought back to life (nineteen or so, obviously not counting the modern Aquilasax with its two necks…). The first part of checking them out is to try and play the blinkin’ things, and without a corked neck it’s a hindrance (some/most have remnants of 1920′s cork still clinging on for dear life) so the thought of a mass neck-corking session seemed more productive than the normal masking/insulation/gaffer/ptfe tape – or folded over till receipt – temporary solution which can last for weeks/months/years if done well.
“No problem”, I thought, I can easily tell the ‘big four’ necks apart by look and tenon size – not to mention the variety of finishes and different stages of matching neck/body tarnish, and the fact that King and Martin obligingly put the body serial numbers on the necks as well. No need to label anything………………..
But, as with a lot of my projects lately, the “mass neck-corking session” never really happened, so now I’ve started updating my much-neglected website I needed to pair them all up again for pictures. Upon checking the box containing all the necks, not only do I find that I’m a couple of necks down in total (as opposed to ‘pulled-down’, heehee) – I now find I’ve too many Martin ‘stencil’ necks, and not enough Buescher ‘stencil’ necks. Hmmm…
Now that is mysterious, I know that over the last decade I’ve bought one Conn C-Mel with just the neck tenon stuck in (no neck, but I figured that having the correct sized tenon was a bonus for a bargain horn – I’ll probably get a new neck from Aquilasax ‘Steve’ for that one) and the following ‘bargain buys’ also spring to mind -
a) an alto with a C-Mel neck
b) a C-Mel with an alto neck AND a tenor neck,
c) a C-Mel with an alto neck AND a C-Mel neck, plus
d) a mystery sax that turned out to be a tenor, that was listed on ebay as an alto, but I thought may just have been a C-Mel – the very helpful (?) seller just couldn’t measure for toffee…
So I guess I’ll have to eliminate the obvious pairs until I reach a confusing conclusion – of course I could probably sell the spare necks on ebay for almost the same as a whole ‘project’ horn, certainly probably more than a neck-less body. Just thought I’d share that experience with you, whilst still pondering whether it’s all the work of the mischievous “neck gnome” ? Time to leave the web-cam running overnight, methinks, catch the little blighter up to his tricks !
(Update) Just found another C neck (phew!) – I’d taken the nickel plated Conn neck out to be photographed against modern nickel plate, for a SoTW topic, so I’ll give the neck gnome a little slack on that one…
Thanks to milandro for putting up this saxontheweb link to a YouTube Video of the Chateauguay Tenors playing alto, c-melody, and tenor saxes, in an epic topic started by Captain Beeflat, a.k.a. Lewis – Snobbery associated with the C Melody. It’s quite unusual to so easily be able to compare the sound of a Conn C-Melody with a Buescher C-Melody, albeit in the hands of two slightly different style players – Al Mclean and Cameron Wallis.
Had initially been a post about the Conn C-Mel, but these sharp old eyes spotted that when the guy on the left stops playing his Conn C-Mel to switch to tenor (on which he has a remarkably similar style) – at around 2:15 the more aggressive alto player on the right switches to what looks suspiciously like a Buescher C-Mel. It’s too small to be a tenor – and you can occasionally glimpse the Buescher ‘man in the moon’ neck brace if you’ve quick reactions.
TWO C-Melody saxes in one clip, whatever next ? 
Can’t quite make out the mouthpieces yet, the Buescher seems to have a traditional ‘stock’ shape – could they be originals ?
Always been a source of amusement to me that the Conn C hangs comfortably low like a tenor – and usually sounds more like an alto – but all the rest of the C’s can lean more towards a tenor’ish sound (choosing my words carefully here… 
) but have an ‘up and close’ playing position that really only suits alto players in a neck brace 
Maybe that’s why most other C’s play more aggressively than the Conn’s - because of the discomfort and pain ? C’est la vie !
( with extracts from my saxontheweb comments )
Continue reading about Conn and Buescher C Melody saxes in action !
During this period of relative inactivity, I’ve taken the opportunity to migrate my ‘cmelodysax.co.uk’ website to a new primary domain name – ‘ csax.net ‘ Time to reflect that the C Saxophone is capable of being part of the modern world, and not just the “C Melody” sax of the 20′s. There’s also a slight ‘play on words’ as I live on the Dorset / Jurassic coast, ‘C Sax’ sounds like ‘Sea Sax’ – well, I like it !
The old cmelodysax.co.uk address will still point to the new csax.net website, so any existing links you have to my website should still work, and there will also be times when cmelodysax.co.uk will still show in the browser address bar – due to the fact that some of the existing databases like the blog are tied to the old name – but once I nail all the links down it should be showing as csax.net most of the time, especially out on the website pages. I may, in time, migrate the blog to a newer – less cluttered – theme, which will then let me fully change that to csax.net as well, unless I discover a nifty way to techno-fudge it in the meantime.
With all this comes a new (easy to remember) email address, al@csax.net – and, when I’m away from the PC, I have a phone and a wi-fi PDA which both handle emails, so I can pick up emails to the new address on those as well. Naturally, all of the old email addresses will still work for the forseeable future, just like the old links…
And, having a Spring-clean in Autumn, two old linked url/domain’s ( ‘cmelody.co.uk’, and ‘c-melody.co.uk’ ) will not be renewed next year, so in the very unlikely event that anyone uses those, please change over to ‘csax.net’. If anyone ever uses Windows Live Messenger etc., I’ve forsaken my old ‘dorsetdriftwood’ and ‘cmelodysax’ identities for csax@live.co.uk as well – yet more stuff to reconfigure (keeping those grey cells busy, sigh…)
The new name will also herald the move to a wider range of topics here, as – to be honest – there are many more interesting things in life than just saxophones, lovely as they are… Always open to put up topics on behalf of any readers, just email me with details on the links above.
Alan
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