A request from Cuba (pocket sax from PVC)

Last Tuesday (April 14, 2009) I received the following email from Gabino Cid of Havana, Cuba.

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A request from Cuba (pocket sax from PVC)

My name is Gabino Cid, and I live in Havana, Cuba.

I love sax music (I always loved it), and I found your web posting about the plastic pocket-sax (http://www.bookofjoe.com/2008/08/pocket-saxophon.html ) in internet, a few months ago. I’m not a musician, I just like to play music at home, and just learning to play recorder (sweet flute). For several reasons, I’ll never have a real sax, nor even a plastic pocket sax, so, I decided to make one for me, using a PVC water pipe, with the same fingering pattern of the recorder (that make me things easier to me !!!).

I used a real alto sax mouthpiece (I bought a second hand one, in 5 USD — don’t tell my wife, I told her that some friend gave it to me for free, hehehehe), a sax reed (1 USD), and PVC plastic tubes (for water piping). I made some calculation in my PC, in order to design the holes and the fingerings like a recorder (sweet flute), and it works!!! Once I finished and tuned it (it is in C4), I painted it with black metallic paint. I’m sending you a picture of the instrument I made [top].

This is me learning to play my homemade PVC pocket sax:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEE8VBHNu0g

And this was the last training session (last week)…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uXaAMVNzo0

But I have a real trouble: My design doesn’t allow me to go higher than one single octave (from C4 to C5). I’m attaching the drawings [below]

of my “instrument”…. I read that the pocket sax does cover two full octaves. And for me, it is impossible to make it, without help. I'll never be closer to a real pocket sax (I live in Cuba), so, I can't "copy" (sorry for the expression) the measurements.

I understand that it is not fair to “hack” the creator’s masterpiece’s design, but, believe me, I don’t want to do that for commercial or piracy purposes, just to have my own pocket sax, and I have no ways to buy me one for me. I broke my “real” reed, so, I’m making my own reeds too…. but when I had the real one, I couldn’t go higher that C5 either, so, my homemade reeds are not the problem….

Please, could you be so kind of sending me some drawings — or tips — about the plastic pocket sax design (position of the holes, diameters, etc) that help me to improve my “instrument”, and then I could enjoy it better?

Thank you very much. I’m sorry about my English. I hope you can understand this letter.

Sincerely yours

Gabino Cid

www.gabinocid.blogspot.com

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Now, I know there is someone out there somewhere who can help Mr. Cid.

A good chance for joehead nation to show its stuff.