SaxaphoneIn 1846, Adolphe Sax was awarded a patent for the saxophone. He had invented the instrument in the mid 1840's by combining the clarinet's single reed and mouthpiece with a widened oboe's conical bore. His first saxophones were of wood. Although he soon switched to brass, they remain classified as a woodwind instrument. Sax patented many new instruments, but although they were adopted by French army bands, he had no factory production and made little profit, yet he spent ten years in court protecting his patents. The first saxophone production in the U.S. began in 1888 when Charles Gerard Conn of Elkhart, Indiana, made brass instruments for military bands. They had two octave keys, and descended down only to B-flat.«* |
