The subcontrabass saxophone is the largest of the family of

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pr ...

s that

Adolphe Sax Antoine-Joseph "Adolphe" Sax (; 6 November 1814 – 4 February 1894) was a Belgian inventor and musician who invented the saxophone in the early 1840s, patenting it in 1846. He also invented the saxotromba, saxhorn and saxtuba. He played the fl ...

patented in 1846 and planned to build, but never constructed. Sax called this imagined instrument the ''saxophone bourdon'', named after the very low-pitched 32′ bourdon pedal stop on large

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks ...

s. It is a

transposing instrument A transposing instrument is a musical instrument for which music notation is not written at concert pitch (concert pitch is the pitch on a non-transposing instrument such as the piano). For example, playing a written middle C on a transposing i ...

pitched in B♭ one

octave In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...

below the

bass saxophone The bass saxophone is one of the lowest-pitched members of the saxophone family—larger and lower than the more common baritone saxophone. It was likely the first type of saxophone built by Adolphe Sax, as first observed by Berlioz in 1842. It ...

, two octaves below the

tenor A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The lo ...

, and three octaves and a

major second In Western music theory, a major second (sometimes also called whole tone or a whole step) is a second spanning two semitones (). A second is a musical interval encompassing two adjacent staff positions (see Interval number for more deta ...

below its written pitch.

History

Although described in Adolphe Sax's patent in 1846, a practical, playable subcontrabass saxophone did not exist until the 21st century. An oversized saxophone that might have qualified was built as a prop in the 1960s; it could produce tones, but its non-functional keywork required assistants to manually open and close the pads, and it was reportedly incapable of playing a simple scale. The

tubax The tubax is a modified contrabass saxophone developed in 1999 by the German instrument maker Benedikt Eppelsheim. Although it has the same fingering as the saxophone, it has a narrower bore, smaller mouthpiece, and more compactly folded tubing ...

was developed in two sizes in 1999 by German instrument manufacturer

Benedikt Eppelsheim Benedikt Eppelsheim is a German instrument maker of extreme high- and low-voiced woodwind instruments. He is the inventor and exclusive manufacturer of the ''soprillo'', a piccolo saxophone an octave above the B♭ soprano saxophone, as well as i ...

, the lower of which, pitched in B♭, he describes as a "subcontrabass saxophone". This instrument provides the same pitch range as the ''saxophone bourdon'' would have, while the smaller tubax in E♭ covers the range of the

contrabass saxophone The contrabass saxophone is the second-lowest-pitched extant member of the saxophone family proper. It is extremely large (twice the length of tubing of the baritone saxophone, with a bore twice as wide, standing 1.9 meters tall, or 6 feet 4 i ...

. Whether or not the tubax is truly a saxophone is debated: it has the same fingering, but its bore, though conical, is narrower (relative to its length) than that of a regular saxophone. The Brazilian instrument manufacturer J'Élle Stainer produced a working compact subcontrabass saxophone in 2010, which was shown that year at Expomusic. In September 2012, Eppelsheim built the first full-size subcontrabass saxophone in B♭ (distinct from his B♭ tubax). In July 2013, J'Élle Stainer completed a full-size subcontrabass saxophone. It stands high and weighs .

References

External links

MP3 sound recording
of the first movement of "Duet for Basses" by

Walter Hartley Walter Sinclair Hartley (February 21, 1927 – June 30, 2016) was an American composer of contemporary ( classical) music. Biography and education He was born in Washington, D.C., began composing at age five and became seriously dedicated to i ...

, played as a B Tubax duet (one instrument, overdubbed), performed by Jay C. Easton {{Saxophone Saxophones Contrabass instruments B-flat instruments

History

See also

References

External links