| Article number: | 54UA |
| Availability: | In stock |
This Mark VI has been long played and well loved by several different owners. Featuring a full mechanical overhaul, this horn is truly worth the attention of any serious saxophonist.
From the 1971 Selmer Paris Catalogue:
"Few instruments in the world today are as highly refined or as widely preferred as the Selmer Mark VI saxophone. Because their reputations depend on performance, professional artists especially prefer Selmers, and for practical reasons - fast execution, playing ease and above all musical quality. Refinement of tone and tuning, sensitive response balanced by great power of projection, and a scale matched through every register set Mark VI saxophones apart from all others.
The preference among professional artists includes every type of musician. Listen to Marcel Mule or Fred Hemke play transcriptions from Bach on altos identical with Sonny Stitt's. In face, listen to almost any recordings of a saxophone; no matter how diverse they sound, the chances are that they were made on Selmers.
As professionals know, musical quality should always come first in choosing an instrument; it certainly does in our designing of it. But it can seldom be the sole consideration, price being only one of the other points the careful buyer should compare. For example, durability is an important secondary virtue in saxophones...
... Balanced action helps make Mark VI models outstanding in this respect. The keys for left hand are well around to the left side of the body, and the right-hand keys well around to the right. The bell rods can be put in the center, directly between the bell and body. We find these key positions are the most comfortable for most players, and the location of the rods makes their action more direct for speed and lightness.
Like any wind instrument, the saxophone's design is a compromise between accuracy of pitch and a number of practical considerations, such as a key mechanism that is easy to regulate and use. A skill-full designer gives his instruments scale that make accurate pitch easy for the players to achieve. For example, a saxophone that moves progessively toward the high side of the pitch as the instrument ascends towards the top of its range is preferable to a saxophone that is irregularly out of tune in different registers. Only the first is a real musician's saxophone."
