What to do with my Baritone Sax – Part Four

It survived!

My good friend Gustav gave me a hand to pack it.  The secret, he said, was to make sure it was completely immobile inside the case.  So, naturally, we stuffed it full of clothes and put a paperback book between the bell and the case.  Next came the bubble wrap inside the case.  As I said in a previous blog I used suitcase straps to hold it closed due to the busted zip. Then the case got covered completely in bubble wrap and about as much packaging tape.

It does sound like overkill now that I write it out but the upside is that the bari has arrived unharmed.

So, there you go.  My tip of the week of you have to travel with an instrument is to immobilized it inside the case.  It seemed to do the trick.

 

What to do with my Baritone Sax? – Part Three

Who thinks this is a good idea?

I need to bring a music stand with me and I have one of those collapsable flimsy things.  I was thinking that if I wrap it in bubble wrap, and maybe a towel, and put it in the bell of the bari it could travel that way.  It can count as part of the weight limit for the sax rather than my suitcase.

On the other hand I might be risking killing the sax altogether, what with its pathetic case.

What to do with my Baritone Sax – Part 2

The saga of the baritone sax gets worse.  Yesterday was my last day teaching Michael and I can honestly say that there are very few kids who are as much fun to teach as this boy.  So, naturally, I wanted to do something special for his last lesson.

I decided to bring my soprano, alto, tenor and bari to his lesson so he could have a go on each of them and generally have fun.  Unfortunately, when I opened the bari sax case the bloody zip broke in my hand! So now it has a broken handle and won’t close at all.  At least the wheels still work.

So what now? It still has to fly to England in that useless thing.  I don’t have time, or funds to get it repaired or to buy it a new one.  And lets face it I’m in South Africa, the music shops here don’t tend to stock baritone saxophone flight cases anyway. (If they did there would probably be a 100% mark up on it like there are on the high end alto saxes in some places.)

All I can think now is to bind the thing with luggage straps, take out all the extras (mouthpiece etc) put it in boxes and put in as much packing as possible. Then pray.

What to do with my Baritone Sax?

I’m taking the advice of a friend and have decided to put this blog to good use by chronicling my exploits as I move my entire life – and musical career – back to England.  However, I will still be writing about anything interesting that musicians need to know about.

 

As we stand at the moment there is a week to go.  I have packed about 90% of my things and now I’m trying to work out the best way of getting my baritone sax to survive the 11 hour flight.  The problem is that it’s case is shoddy.  It couldn’t even survive a week in Graham’s Town without the one of the zips breaking and a handle falling off. Unfortunately I haven’t a hope of buying it a flight case in the nest few years never mind before I go.

 

On my last trip back to England I wrapped my tenor sax case in foam and found that to work very well.  Of course that was a Hiscox case, which is something my Bari doesn’t have.  I was thinking of creating a box for the case out of sturdy cardboard and filling that with packing material.  Perhaps that, along with the word FRAGILE in BIG letters might be enough to keep it safe.  On the other hand is it really worth the risk?

Weather Affects Your Instrument

Its true. I think my sax has caught the flu and my clarinet keeps screeching in protest at the thought of being played.  The downside they don’t mention when you move instruments in the hold of an airplane is that they get extremely cold and you need to do some minor tlc before they come right again.

Thats not an excuse to not play them though.  I was wondering what I would say if one of my kids came in and said “I didn’t practice this week because my sax was too cold.”  I think its a good thing that hasn’t happened.

All in all I am enjoying being back in England, the culutral home of come of the best music in the world.  Maybe today that will rub off and my practice will go better. Its not only your instruments the cold gets to!