An instrument that lasted for probably several hundred years and remained pretty much the same until he bolted those damn pickups on it.  It's exactly the same thing but it's versatility has multiplied a bunch.  Think about how many different types there are between classical and heavy metal.  The way they make you feel when you listen to them.

A woodwind is just a woodwind.  I can't get any kind of special effects to hook it up to, but once I did stick a mike inside it and hooked it up to my amp.  I found that if I put it on reverb and set the gain at about 50% it would sound just like twin horns.  Drove my first wife crazy with that little trick.  It just sounded so cool.

I've been playing a lot around here when I get into the mood.  Kathy's been playing too.  We're having the occational jam session here and I'm getting back to where I once was.  I have a big problem and need an expert to talk to and don't know who to talk to.   It's time for me to have a new mouthpiece.  I'm serious this time.  The deal is the one I'm thinking about costs around $400.  That's just what they cost and I really don't mind paying that but the real problem is the range of variables.  There are several variables involed in making a mouthpiece.  Varying degrees of dimensions and angles, the chamber and the curve which make it sound and behave differently, easier or more difficult to play.   The problem is learning the transition beetween the upper and lower octaves easily and the mouthpiece is a major factor but also the player's skill probably accounts for most of it.   If I'm gonna spend $400 on a piece of metal I dammed sure want the right one.  Like I said, I guess I should start with talking to my repair guy.  That would be a start.  Honestly I'm gettin pretty tired of the $10 plastic one I've had for 33 years.

For my first year I was pretty much concerned with keeping my fingers in the right place and hitting all the right notes.  A couple years later I made the A band and never will forget them handing me that big folder full of music.  Up to that time I had been playing classical and folk things.  Old standards.     This folder had pieces like Proud Mary, Make Me Smile, Watermellon Man, Basin Street Blues, Lots of jazzy shit and a lotta pop songs that were playing on the radio.  That was the time when something clicked inside my head.  Until then I had been tapping my toe and counting "one-two-three-four one-two-three-four" with eyes focused on the sheet music.  Hell I memorized the rudiments and began to focus on the MUSIC, not the sheet music.  It was a hell of a lot more fun.  Here I am several decades later and have only begun to get back to that point I was over a decade ago but like that time back in 1972 I really don't even need that silly sheet music shit to play the song.  My brain tells my fingers where to go.  I fumble a little at first but soon it's locked in.  The rest is up to a lot of other factors.  Muscles mainly.  I know guitarists use a lot of different muscles when they play. We've had this conversation before, but playing a woodwind takes a whole lot of muscles working together.  They play a mechanical, not just mental role in the way the music sounds beyond just the right pitch.  I know you know exactly what I'm talking about.

I've been working this song just about every night for several weeks.  I think I've got it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnRqYMTpXHc