The World's Smallest Saxophone

foreign [Music] foreign [Music] Michael Michael Michael Michael Michael wake up [Music] Michael have told you because the pillow doesn't exist but Jamie it feels so real Jamie yeah what's that [Music] yes it is true that Michael was having a nightmare there but don't worry as challenging and as high-pitched as this instrument may seem and be it's not as bad as you may think [Music] so what is a ciprilo well it is an instrument that is precisely one octave above the B flat soprano sax or half an octave above the E flat Supreme Vino sax and it is fingered from a bottom B flat to a top E flat now this instrument has been designed by The Specialist maker based in Munich and Germany Benedict eppelsheim and he specializes in making really tiny tiny instruments like this one here and the huge instruments that we've featured in our store the basses and contrabasses and Benedict is just he's an incredible guy a proper engineer really knows what he's doing all of the things that he designs all the instruments that he makes are absolute Feats of engineering and it's not just saxophones he makes some other weird and wonderful instruments as well but we absolutely love his work here at sacs.co.uk so in terms of the design of this instrument before we get onto its playability and all the rest of it it has a really curious thing going on with the octave key so we'd normally expect to find an octave key on any saxophone right here at the top that would be the first octave and then the second octave would be further down but in this case because all the proportions have just been squished so much the octave key is actually embedded into the mouthpiece which is just incredible from the visual point of view first of all at first you look at you think eh what is going on now just don't get it and then you realize that this this thin sort of lever of metal is actually an octave key and it sits just above the top of the ligature there and then we've got another Optive key just below it here but otherwise in terms of the design it's got the basic saxophone mechanism that you'd expect to find with any saxophone here you can see you know your right hand ethernet C here you can see the usual arrangement of table Keys here okay but as I mentioned in the outset in terms of its upper range we're only going to fingered E flat so he doesn't go up to the E and then the F and the F sharp beyond that because it's just so hard to achieve these notes and do you necessarily need to go that high anyway this top E flat is high enough but more about that later so that's the fingered range of it that's the basic mechanics of it um so it is just like a reduced version of a sopranina or a soprano saxophone but obviously pitched an octave above so in terms of the playability of the ciprillo I can't lie to you this is a really challenging instrument to play I think even on Benedict's website he actually mentions that this is not for amateur players and it should be considered a professional instrument and even if you're a professional player and you pick it up at first you might be baffled by how hard it is to get all of the notes because it requires such specialist technique and perseverance through really there's a guy that we once connected with here at sax.com called Nigel wood who's possibly the most famous prillo player in the world and we did a little collab video with him actually it was great I was playing one of the bass instruments he was playing this and I seem to remember the story goes that he almost locked himself in a Cupboard probably wasn't covered it was probably a music studio for two years to become Adept at playing this so he can play it out and about and he is an absolutely fantastic player and does really well on Mr prillo so much better than I'm about to sound in a minute but I will give it a go so it's that kind of dedication that you really need in order to to Really sort of eek out the the juice in this instrument because it's all there the engineering is perfect but it does take some persistence and perseverance and all the rest of it so that is your sort of health warning that comes with this instrument in terms of its practical use I mean it's going to be limited let's face it um there's not much account there for the soprilos so you kind of have to make it your own you know if you're going to invest in this and you're a really Adept player professional or whatever you probably already have an idea in mind in terms of what you're going to do with this instrument whether it's writing your own music recording studio pieces um just even getting a reputation for being the only soprilo player you know in your area or maybe even the country and that might get you work alone you know it's that kind of Niche specialist instrument you're not going to buy one of these and then think oh they didn't let me into the band why not well I mean look at it and you will hear it now so I'm gonna embarrass myself as I've said I'm going to play a few bits and pieces try and demonstrate the range and but I'll tell you right now I'm not going to go up to the top key for that because I just cannot get there I think I can hit an a if I'm really lucky and then beyond that yeah the notes just fail they are there to be got but I just can't do it at this stage so I'm going to be honest with you so let's see how it sounds foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] well there you go guys actually I strangely did enjoy that experience of playing the saprillo for you I would say in my experience of playing it has been maybe five minutes a day for um three or four days or so so maybe 20 minutes accumulated minutes and the reason it's only five minutes a day is because it really does butcher your bottom lip you know we're all taught as sax players to have a nice relaxed embouchure and all the rest and support well certainly you need the support to get the best out of this you absolutely need to be pushing from the diaphragm that you cannot slack enough here you do need a certain amount of firmness and this is the the bit that you would develop if you played it for you know weeks and months at a time to try and get anywhere near as good as night or wood is um but I have actually progressed in the last few days so I can give you guys hope out there that if you buy one of these things after a few days you will be better at it if you persevere again so I've really enjoyed it I mean I have to admit I in terms of what I did for you there I kept it nice and simple I didn't go above G I kind of chickened out I can play the a but I didn't want to risk it here um and we've got another what a B flat b c c the E flat to go in the range so there's a fair bit more to explore there and it's obviously all attainable I've heard Nigel Do It um at so it does have a lot of scope a lot of potential and it's just a really interesting bit of Kit um you know if you're the kind of player I mentioned before the kind of musician who might like to buy this instrument but I know there's a lot of oddballs out there and you just like to collect weird and interesting instruments and this is certainly one of those so you now know it we have these at sacs.co.uk we have this in stock so come and try it out in the London store it is here for you to try out so there you go that's that's what I've got to say on the saprillo if you like this video please do remember to put a like on the video and subscribe to the channel if you haven't done so already and thanks for watching I will see you again on the next one foreign [Music]

Channel: SAX

Views: 399,400

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Id: FTqOeuHJjxI

Length: 10min 7sec (607 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 05 2022