Saxophone

The saxophone is a reed woodwind instrument most similar to the clarinet, but with some key differences. Most visibly is that the saxophone is made of brass, while a clarinet is not. And unlike the clarinet, which has the same diameter throughout, the saxophone has a conical bore, meaning that if you were to straighten it out, it would be in the shape of a cone. Both of these things contribute to giving the saxophone its distinct rich sound. Invented in the 1840's by Adolphe Sax, the saxophone missed out on many of the great classical composers. It has since been adopted into many different musical genres such as jazz, pop, funk, and rock, which is a testament to its versatility. However, its feasibility as a classical instrument should not be ignored. This is an *almost* 1:1 scale model of an alto saxophone, one of the more common members of the saxophone family.

I originally built this model for the "music to our ears" contest, and I hope now it will still have a chance to become an official LEGO product. I feel like this model would be a very fun build due to all of the curves and shapes involved. Different techniques are required to produce the different curves at different sizes. LEGO bricks naturally want to be arranged in a rectangular fashion due to the arrangement of the studs; but a saxophone is the exact opposite of that, which, in conjunction with the relatively limiting gold color, made this a pretty challenging build. Getting the shape of the bell right was somewhat difficult, and it ended up taking on an almost fantastical flower-like look. I think it's also safe to say that I exhausted my collection of gold pieces (and that my NINJAGO sets lie in ruins).

This model combines two of the things I love the most, saxophone and LEGOs, and I feel like this would really work as a LEGO ideas set. Unfortunately, it does not play music like the real thing, but if you weren't planning on playing it anyway, you could display it ostentatiously in front of your friends and family and pretend you play the saxophone. It comes with a stand because there's no good way to put down your saxophone.

If you are someone who likes the saxophone, who likes music in general, or even if you don't like either of those things, I would greatly appreciate your support.