SAXOPHONE, a modern hybrid musical instrument invented by Adolphe Sax, having the clarinet mouthpiece with single reed applied to a conical brass tube. In general appearance the saxo phone resembles the bass clarinet, but the tube of the latter is cylindrical and of wood; both instruments are doubled up near the bell, which is shaped somewhat like the flower of the gloxinia. The mouthpiece in both is fixed to a curved tube at right angles to the main bore. In the case of the saxophone, however, owing to its conical bore, the quality of tone materially differs from that of the clarinet. The reed mouthpiece in combination with a conical tube allows the performer to give the ordinary harmonic series unbroken, which means in practice that the octave or second member of the harmonic series is first overblown. The saxophone is therefore one of the class known as octave instruments. The fundamental note given out by the tube when the lateral holes are closed is that of an open organ pipe of the same length, whereas when, as in the clarinet family, the reed mouthpiece is combined with a cylindrical bore, the tube behaves as though it were closed at one end, and its notes are an octave lower in pitch. Hence the
bass clarinet to give the same note as a bass saxophone would need to be only half as long. The quality of tone of this family of in struments is inferior to that of the clarinets and has affinities with that of the harmonium. According to Berlioz it had kinship also with the timbre of the 'cello and cor anglais, with, however, a brazen tinge. The saxophone has not enjoyed much favour hither to with high-class composers, though Richard Strauss scored for a quartet of the instruments in his Sinfonia Domestica. In military bands, however, it has proved of great service while in recent years it has acquired extraordinary vogue as a leading member of the jazz orchestra.