Melbourne Shenania: the Non-Tennis Saga

Pictures may follow.

Anyway... Melbourne.

So, ridiculously early morning on Thursday. Up at 4:20am, to be picked up at 4:35. I got to bed before 11, so I was doing better than most of the others (apparently they only started packing when I went to bed).

There were 6 of us boys heading across for 3 days of Australian Open tennis action (plus a Sunday of wandering around Melbourne like lost sheep, looking for the cleanest toilet in the CBD). I had also taken my soprano sax to get its 12 month service (which was more of a 20 month service, but who's counting?)

Ok, this one's a bit of a long story...

So, I had my sop with me and we got in early, so I had intended to just drop it in at The Music Shop, in Clarendon Rd, South Melbourne. I had done the whereis search and found that it was only 900m from where we were staying. Anyway, I saw that, had a quick look on the old computer, but didn't take too much notice. So, when we arrived at our hotel in East Melbourne, I took my sax with me, intending to just drop it in on the way from our walk to the tennis - a couple of kms from our hotel. We got onto Clarendon Rd and started walking. I was sure we were heading in the right direction, but the street numbers were heading in the wrong direction. It was suggested that I turn around and head back in the opposite direction, but I insisted that it was farther up, and was wondering whether there was another section of the road ahead. The road ended and we went through Melbourne Park, and I was rather confused - but still convinced that there was another Clarendon Rd somewhere in Melbourne.

I asked passers-by if they could point me in the direction of it, and most people were quite unhelpful, with every answer revolving around a tram. So, I caught a tram. I had $2.65 in coinage for the tram ride. I needed $2.70. The system doesn't take notes. I always find it ironic that a) the inflexibility in the system renders someone who wishes to follow the rules a common criminal (fare evader), b) where they would otherwise have been able to score $2.65 for my patronage, they instead scored nothing, and I still got my ride into town, and c) it's so non-user friendly in the instance where by a set of unfortunate circumstances, you're not carrying ample shrapnel.

Anyway, having arrived at Fed Square, I proceeded to walk past Grant Hackett, then stop, and have Grant Hackett walk past me, and then continue on before walking past him again. I finally found an information person who was very useful. And he had a map, and showed me where I was and where I wanted to go and the best route. It just so happened that I had walked in completely the wrong direction off the tram... oh well, I was now on the desired path.

I walked the few km to The Music Place on Clarendon Rd and dropped my sax in. I explained that my sister-in-law's brother had looked it over and had a little list of tweaks that would probably be useful. So they were all happy with that. Then I asked "Would it be ok if I checked out some tenor saxes?" "Nope." "Course you can. What sort of sound are you after? What have you played before? Who do you listen to? Are you after a beginner, intermediate, or professional instrument?" It was a serious case of 20 questions, and I really don't listen to much music. Even as I write this I'm not listening to music. But I explained that I like the idea of a slightly dirty sound - as opposed to the sharper, brighter sounds that you tend to get from your Japanese manufacturers.

So, I tried a few horns - I started with a non-laquered vintage style tenor sax. I wasn't having much success with it. I tried another again, before finally getting onto a black nickel horn. A black silver colour. Shiny, but still with a dark sound. We were getting somewhere, but with the mouthpiece I was struggling to get a decent sound. So change of mouthpiece. The hardened rubber mouthpieces (plastic mouthpiece) generally have a darker sound, while the brass ones have the sharper, brighter sound. So, at first we stuck to the hardened rubber mouthpieces. I kind of produced a muffled sort of sound. It just wasn't working. The guy who was selling it to me, finally says, "You need something with a bigger opening, we'll try this one. These guys have everything upside-down and back to front - their brass mouthpieces sound really dark whereas their hardened rubber ones are very bright." Anyway he puts it on and I give it a blow and the air just flowed, the sound just flowed, it all came out. An enormous sound. Big dark sound. Oh, it was a thing of great beauty. I could sustain a big sound for a goodly lenght of time. I could get reasonable attack. I was hitting notes better than with the other ones. I was confident to give it lots of air (ie blow hard). So I was sold on the Jody Jazz metal mouth piece.

"So, what's the story with price?"
"Oh, that's not important. Don't let a minor detail like that worry you."

So I didn't.

Hmmm. Oh well. Significant dent in hip pocket later, and I was wondering how the hell I was going to get my tenor back to Hobart. We hadn't checked into our hotel yet, so I couldn't just take the sax back there, so I decided to leave it at the shop and pick it up later - which I did. I ended up getting up early the next morning and jogging into the shop - a good seven or eight km away. It was a good little jog, and so I picked it up, and took the tram/walked back to the hotel. I was back just as the other guys were finishing breakfast.

Anyway, apart from having the old "demonstration tootle", and the "I'm playing outside on the balcony tootle cos you don't want me playing in here" (where I got a "shut up" so I stopped, then a "we want more music, play more music" so I started playing again for a few minutes), I let it be.

Anyway, the story of getting the sax onto the plane was also quite gold. So I'll recount that before starting on any tennis. There was no way that I was going to let Tiger airlines take my precious baby under the plane. It was coming with me. The boys were, for the most part, of the opinion that, no, I was not going to be able to take it on as carry on baggage.

I got to the check-in counter and the lady weighs it and it was under the 7kg limit. But she says "I don't think that's going to fit. You're going to have to check it in." To which I reply, "No, it has to come with me. It's not going in the hold." And she looked across at the guy on the counter next to us and she said "What do you think? I mean, it's under 7kg..." And he just said "No. Too big." Anyway, I reasserted that it was, under no circumstances, going in the hold, but that I didn't mind if they had to stow it specially once we were on the plane. She looked at me and said, "Yeah, that's fine, it's just that I don't know if it'll fit. I'll tell you what, I'll let it through, but if the security people won't let it through, then you'll have to come back and check it in." "Ok."

The security guys didn't have a problem with it, and when it came time to stow the luggage in the overhead lockers, there was heaps of room for it. I reckon I could have bought a baritone sax and stowed in there without any problems, there was that much room.

So, my stresses dissipated rather quickly once I got all that sorted... anyway, that's most of the non-tennis part of the saga...