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Trivia Archive

July 2001 Sax Trivia Contest

Prizes:

  • $100 gift certificate to the S ($ 100.00 value)
  • Vintage Selmer mouthpiece (eit ($ 0.00 value)

Winner

Charles Gorczynski from Brookfield, WI US

Contest background

Mike, John, Joe, and Paul walked into the Broadway Oyster Bar where the local jam session was happening that evening. Miles was already sitting at the piano trying to figure out the last chord to a new jazz composition he was working on. Mike brought his Conn-O-Sax, John brought his rothophone, Joe his heckelphone, and Paul brought his newly acquired piccolo heckelphone.

Mike looked over at Paul's new instrument and asked, "Wow!! What a cool axe, what key does it play in?"

Paul replied, "You know, I just found it for $100 at the First Captial pawn shop on the way over and have no idea what key it plays in, in fact, I'm not sure how to figure that out."

At this point, John said, "I know how to figure it out. Lets all play 6 fingers (as if we were playing middle D on a saxophone) and see what chord we get.

When they did this, it sounded a little empty and they were not quite sure what they were hearing, so they did it again.

By this time, though, Bob had showed up with his tenor sarrusophone and joined in with the chord. Not having heard the original instructions, he simply played without closing any keys (open fingering).

When they finally released the chord, Miles screamed out from behind the piano, "WOW, that's it, the perfect final chord for my composition!!! A complete G7 chord in 3rd inversion, why didn't I think of that earlier…..THANK YOU!"

He also knew what key Paul's new instrument was in as well as everybody else's horn.

Contest Question

What key do these five instruments each play in? Conn-O-Sax Rothophone Heckelphone Piccolo Heckelphone Tenor Sarrusophone Please answer in the order listed above (ie. Db, F#, E, B#, F would mean you're answering Conn-O-Sax in Db, rothophone in F#, heckelphone in E, piccolo heckelphone in B#, and tenor sarrusophone in F).

Correct Answer

Conn-O-Sax Key of F Rothophone Key of Eb (alto rothophone) Heckelphone Key of C Piccolo Heckelphone Key of F Tenor Sarrusophone Key of Bb

Where You Could Have Found The Answer

You could have found the answer to this month's trivia question by going to any number of different web sites that deal with vintage instruments. The trick was figuring out which type of rothophone was being used. Since the chord played by all 5 instruments was a G7 chord in 3rd inversion, relative to the other instruments being played, the rothophone must have been an Eb alto.
Thank you to everyone who entered our July contest. This month was certainly a challenging question and we only had 7 correct answers.