Talk:Saxophone

The ephemeral Mezzo-soprano saxophone is one thing, but the C soprano and C melody should be in the table. ~2025-31457-60 (talk) 23:55, 9 November 2025 (UTC)

I think that's the least of our problems. There's no clearly demarcated section or even coherent discussion that deals with the concept of the "saxophone family" separate from the concept of the invention of the instrument itself. I've boshed a bunch of existing images from Commons into a single image to compare sizes (see image), which should probably go somewhere too (I can't find a suitable subcontrabass image). Some other instruments have a separate article for the family, which works for some but not others, e.g. clarinet family, sarrusophone (vs. the articles for each size), and others, but on the other hand, it made sense to merge the formerly separate types of trombone into the trombone article. The point is that the F/C versions were promoted for use in orchestras but never took off, partly because by 1900 everyone was making the B♭/E♭ instruments for bands, but also because even French composers never took much of a shine to the instrument. Even Berlioz, despite waxing lyrical about it to all and sundry in his writing and including it in his Grand traité, never published a single note for it. There's a ton of material in the Kendall book.^[1] I guess what I'm saying is, there shouldn't be just a table, there should probably be a separate article, with reworked material including the "Unusual variants" and (relevant bits of) "Related instruments" sections, because this article is possibly too long. — Jon (talk) 03:14, 10 November 2025 (UTC)

That's true and major expansion would be very fine, but vast work ahead needn't prevent inclusion of the two nonstandard types that are (or have been, and if I am not mistaken) more common than the others. ~2025-31457-60 (talk) 14:34, 10 November 2025 (UTC)