I’m 68. Played sax in high school and some rock bands. Haven’t played in 50 years. I have a 1956 la monte superiore (sorry about spelling) sitting in my closet driving me nuts.
Problem is, I have an upper plate and am hesitant to try playing with such. Not fond of pain.
I know the alto will need looking at, and can’t afford the expense of extensive repairs as am on very limited pension.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
-Carlisle Snider
My response
I actually just got my tenor back from my repairman. Hadn’t been to see him in a little while, in general I would recommend going about once a year to get a check up. The repair person will have things like a leak light that can help you discover exactly where leaks are.
In your case, you may want to get someone (who knows how to play) to just try playing the alto. That will be a fast way to determine what condition it’s in. If it’s playable now, maybe you don’t need repairs. If most of the notes play, maybe it’s all right for now. If only a few notes can be played by a professional saxophone player….. then it probably needs to be fixed.
A ‘complete overhaul’ will be expensive. But your horn may or may not need that. My tenor had a number of small problems, ended up not being too expensive to get them fixed.
So,
- Get someone who knows how to play saxophone try your horn
- Go to a repair person and get an estimate, might be worth it to get it fixed
My name is Ermel Arroyo
I can check out the sax and keep price down if it needs an overhaul, also willing to do small repairs, only what’s necessary. Visit my website and send me a message.
I offer free return shipping! You will only need to ship the protected sax and neck, no case to keep shipping cost down, I have done this before and customers were more than happy with my work and my professional packing/shipping.