CENTROS DE REGISTRO PARA EL CONCURSO 2019 Y POBLACIÓN QUE ATENDERÁN

incorporated a new mechanism that opened them when the note above them was played. His design also had substitute cross-fingerings for the little fingers of both right and left hands, in the manner of a Boehm clarinet, as well as alternative trill keys for gJ1 _{and dJ}1_{; and the bell of the instrument was extended to facilitate a low a}0 fingering. All of this required substantial rethinking of the normal saxophone layout, including, for example, moving the pads and toneholes for the primary notes away from the touches that operated them. Loomis’s design was highly ingenious but also technologically complex and therefore expensive to manufacture, and he was unable to persuade any company to produce it commercially. Only six models were ever produced, of which only three are known to exist.115

A similar difficulty befell Charles Houvenaghel’s 131 design for the Leblanc company, which led to the relatively short-lived production of its ‘Rationnel’ saxo- phones in the 130s. Like Loomis, Houvenaghel sought to design keywork that left as many keys as possible open in their resting position. He also added an ingenious linkage to the key operated by the right-hand middle finger, which would lower every primary note above it (g1_{, a}1_{, b}1_{, cJ}2_{) by one semitone when it was brought into play,} or produce a fork ea note for the fingering pattern 123_6. This latter arrangement more easily facilitated a d–ea trill, while its other uses greatly simplified trills on a range of other notes. A revised version of this key system was introduced by Leblanc in the 150s, as model numbers 120 (tenor) and 100 (alto). However, as in the 130s, and notwithstanding the obvious benefits it brought to the instrument and the fact that it required very little reorientation on the part of the player, it proved insuffi- ciently popular and only a few instruments were made.

One innovation more widely adopted by manufacturers during the 130s was the movement of the toneholes facilitating low b0 _{and ba}0 _{from one side of the bell to the} other. Conventionally these had always been on the side closest to the player’s hip, but the sound from these large toneholes had a tendency to be muffled by the body, and notwithstanding the use of key guards the player’s clothing would occasionally catch in them. Although some of Conn’s ‘New Wonder’ models in the early 130s had been made with split bell keys, whereby the b0 _{key would be on the closed side and} the ba0 _{key on the open side, away from the player’s body, as the 130s progressed} many manufacturers placed both keys on the open side; for example, King’s ‘Voll– True II’ model from about 132 and the Selmer ‘Balanced Action’ model from 135. This disposition of bell keys, and the more effective key linkages that made it possible, remain the norm on saxophones today: toneholes producing notes from cJ1 _down- wards are all on the side away from the player’s body.

The use of leather pads to cover the toneholes of the instrument has remained largely consistent, and the innovations introduced by Buescher and Conn in the 120s have not been widely pursued. One major exception was the ‘padless’ saxophone introduced by the American H. & A. Selmer Company in the early 10s.116 _Instead of the toneholes being covered by pads located within the key cup, a thin leather ring or grommet was set within the rim of the tonehole itself, and flush to its surface. The key cup was then replaced by a thin metal disk, which closed against the grommet to form a seal. While this worked well when the key and the tonehole were perfectly configured, the slightest misalignment would prevent a good seal from being effected.

Although ingenious, the design proved insufficiently robust, and was neither widely proliferated nor, indeed, continued for very long by the company itself.

With the possible exceptions of the Conn-O-Sax and Leblanc’s ‘Rationnel’ system, most of the innovations relating to the saxophone that were actually put into produc- tion during the twentieth century could be construed as refinements of Adolphe Sax’s original conception for the instrument, making small adjustments to keywork or developing production techniques in a broadly incremental fashion. The Grafton saxophone, patented by Hector Sommaruga in 16, is perhaps the one design that could claim to be truly different, while remaining recognisably a saxophone: it was the first such instrument to be made out of acrylic plastic, rather than brass.

Sommaruga realised in the final years of World War II that whereas brass sheets and tubes were expensive and in short supply, synthetic plastic technology had advanced to the stage where it could be used to manufacture musical instruments, thus poten- tially supplanting the more expensive traditional materials. He set about designing a saxophone in acrylic plastic. An initial patent was lodged in September 15, with full specifications being added in December 16; the patent was awarded in July 18.117 The patent text indicates that Sommaruga aspired to ‘manufacture a saxophone possessing all the conventional playing facilities, and moreover with a more pleasing appearance, greater solidity, less liability to break-down, improved tonal qualities – and all this at a greatly reduced cost of production.’118 _{The last point was particularly} significant, since it was felt that an acrylic saxophone could be manufactured more cheaply than a metal one and would thus appeal particularly to the educational market. The patent also outlined various strategies by which the difficulties of working with plastic would be overcome. These included reducing the number of pillars and altering their position on the body, changing the system of guards used to protect keys, and adapting the body in order that pre-assembled unitary keywork could be fitted. The keywork was itself the subject of a further patent, and since the