World Record

Question: How many sax players does it take to clean a saxophone?
Answer: Apparently at least one.

I bought a box of Q-tips today to clean my sax with (a various tedious job).

I have, officially, the grimiest saxophone in the world. I looked it up on Google. You do a search on “world’s grimiest sax,” you get markmaxwellmusic.com. I looked it up in the Wikipedia. There’s an article about how dirty my sax is. Argh! I spend so much time outdoors in the dirt, wind, rain – this silver-plated sax collects specimens from all over America and saves them for future generations.

So I get layers of muck on top of the layers of tarnish crust. Mix that with all the spit that flies out of the horn while I blow my brains out. The sax is no longer silver, it’s taken on this weird shiny grayish brown patina.

Strangely, the sax ends up looking very soulful, very antique, and lots of people tell me how beautiful it is! Lots of people! But man, don’t look too close. I think I have a colony of ants living in the bell.

(Roberta has promised to help me take it apart and clean it when I get home. Next time you see me my Yamaha Custom YTS-875S Tenor Saxophone will be shining!)

If you’re a sax player, here’s my advice. Don’t play your sax. Don’t even take it out of the case. Take a picture of it, look at the picture often, but don’t actually put it together and blow into it. Get an Wind Synthesizer and find a good oboe patch.