Hiring a saxophone | Pros and Cons

When you first start learning saxophone, or if you’re thinking of adding another sax to your collection, is buying a brand new instrument the only option that you should consider?

Or is hiring a saxophone a better way to go? Or maybe even buying a used sax?

So to help me with this conversation today, I’m joined by Rob Driver. He’s from Music Corner. They’re one of the leading saxophone hire companies here in the UK. And hopefully we can get some answers to this really important question.

Nigel: Rob it’s great to have you here. I was actually just thinking before we started filming today that, I’ve spent the last week making a video about the brand new $10,000 USD Selmer saxophones. And they’re beautiful, right?

But it struck me that times are tough for lots of folks at the moment. And it’s such a shame if the price of a new saxophone is a barrier to stop people actually starting to learn saxophone. 

The Benefits of Hiring a Saxophone

N: So are you seeing more and more that hiring a saxophone is a way that people are getting around this? 

Rob: I think hire offers the flexibility of course. It obviously brings down that price, it helps people get involved.

And also it’s that a lot of people also don’t know whether they’re going to have the time. There’s a lot of factors in learning saxophone that some people don’t often think about until they start.

N: It’s a new activity, isn’t it? So you don’t know how you’re going to react to it. Everyone feels the same. Even like when I start learning something new, you don’t really know if you’re going to click with it. Is it going to be the thing that you’re going to stick with?

Breaking down the cost barrier

N: And it can be a massive investment getting started with an instrument. A case in point are those very expensive Selmers, which are lovely, by the way. And if you’re curious, keep an eye out for the YouTube video because I’ve got some interesting thoughts on it.

With Sax School, we’re helping thousands of adult learners. We’ve got thousands of adults learning with us all around the world. I’m curious, though, for your business, are you seeing a lot of adult customers who are hiring saxophones?  Or is it more children, or is it parents of children? What’s the sort of breakdown? 

R: What we actually find is a lot of our customers are adults. There is a fantastic foundation for schools where children are obviously involved there. But when you leave school and you come back into music, you often found that you can’t hire because you’re not in the education system anymore. So that’s what we can cover though.

R: We can obviously help provide that affordable outlay to getting involved and playing an instrument. Our main aim of Music Corner has always been to break down financial barriers, to take music to the masses. We want to make playing an instrument as easy as buying your football, and going to the park and playing your football.

Easy access to music

N: Yeah, I love that. And you know what, that’s so aligned with what we’re doing at Sax School. Because that’s always been my mission too, right from the start, is to make saxophone education accessible to everybody. So it’s not like you need to go to a university. It doesn’t need to be really complicated to get started. It should be easy to get started and t should be accessible.

So yeah, I love that, Rob, that you’re thinking about it from the instrument side of things too.

I imagine though a lot of people have got concerns about hiring a saxophone if they’ve ever done it before. Perhaps they’ve had a dodgy hire experience with some other tool or something. I’m guessing people worry about what sort of saxophone they’re going to end up with. Are they going to get like a beaten up old sax that’s been hired to 50 million people before? Or will they get a new saxophone?

Understanding the Hiring Process

N: Talk us through the whole process. How does it work with hiring a saxophone?

R: Obviously our business is hire and we take great pride in the instrument. So whenever an instrument gets past its best we don’t want that to go out. We want every instrument to be proudly owned. And we want people to talk about the instrument that they’ve hired from us and to go out, join a local community band, get some lessons.We want people to talk about it.

So actually, what you’ll find is when you’re hiring an instrument, they are taken great care of . Every time an instrument comes back to us, it is completely serviced, so it’s stripped down. Pads, corks, and parts are replaced. 

N: That’s hard to say, isn’t it? Pads, corks, and parts. I don’t think I can say that three times really quickly.

R: Yeah! But what you will find with hire instruments is they are well looked after. And most other hire companies would also look after their instruments.  So you are in safe hands. And the best thing to do is have a chat with the person at the end of the phone and really get to know that company before you go with them. 

Importance of maintaining a sax

N: Yeah, I guess that support is really important. It’s something that I see from the students that come and join us.  A lot of people don’t understand that a well built saxophone, a good quality saxophone if it’s well maintained, will last a lifetime.

They can be fixed. A lot of people look at a saxophone and think, ‘oh my goodness, it looks so complicated, there’s so many moving parts on there’. But in a lot of ways, they’re actually quite simple, and they are easy to maintain. And there’s actually quite a lot of repairers around.

N: So I think it’s important for people to understand that it’s okay to have quality saxophone, as long as it’s well maintained, even if it’s not brand new. And that’s certainly something that we encourage our members to consider as well. Because from a price point of view, it can be a lot more affordable if you’re looking to buy one. So yeah, absolutely. That’s great.

Choosing the Right Saxophone 

N: So what, can you give us an idea of what sort of brands or models of saxophone that you would typically hire out? 

R: Yeah, so we start to hire at £15 per month.

N: That’s so affordable, isn’t it?

R: Yeah, we try and keep it affordable to suit most budgets. Our ultimate goal, like I said before, is to break down financial barriers and we want everyone taking part.

N: So at £15 a month, what brand of saxophone can I expect to get then? 

Hiring a saxophone for beginners

R: So you’re looking at probably an Elkhart or an Earlham. So we do use very good, well known brands already. We’re not trying to reinvent the world by bringing a new brand to market. What we’re trying to do is actually make those ones that are already there and already tried and tested, just affordable.

N: Yeah. Those are good, solid student saxophones. And a lot of people would look at buying something like that as their first saxophone. Actually, increasingly these days, we are seeing students who are looking for that intermediate or beginner saxophone. But even the big well known brands, their intermediate and beginner saxophones have become quite expensive now, right?

N: So now there’s another layer underneath there of more affordable, obviously Chinese saxophones. There’s a bit more of a variety of quality in there. There are some good ones, I’ll say. But yeah, all the prices just seem to have shifted up. Like I was saying with these pro saxophones.

Hiring a pro saxophone

N: What about hiring a pro saxophone? Is that something that people ask you about? Is that something you help people out with? 

R: We do help people out. We often refer to that as personal shopping because for us as our we mainly focus on students – getting students started.

R: Obviously, if you want to then take it to the next level and you still want to use us as a hire company, we have an offer.  What we can do is take up to 12 months of hire off the price, that you’ve already paid in hire fees for the student one. And we can take it off the next level instrument. But obviously we cherry pick the best on the market, we bring it in.

R: When it does come to picking intermediate and pro instruments, I’d always recommend visiting the shop. And the reason for that is because now you know what you want. So when you’re a student, it’s just about getting started at the right price. Once you get to that intermediate pro level, you know what you’re looking for.

R: You know what sound, whether it’s jazz, or big band. And y ou want to go in and test three or four of those brands. So that’s what I always recommend is once you get past the student stage. Go visit a local shop and try a couple out. 

N: Yeah, I completely agree.

Getting advice on choosing a saxophone

N: We’re always sending people down to sax.co in London. There’s a few retailers here in the UK. And obviously we’ve got lots of students in America and there’s some brilliant shops over there too, depending on where you are. But yeah, there’s nothing that beats going and actually picking up saxophones and having a play. Or maybe get somebody in the shop to play them for you so you can have a listen to how they sound.

Hiring a saxophone as an adult

It’s feeling them, holding you in your hands. However, I do think Rob, we have quite a lot of people who join us at Sax School as brand new beginners. Or maybe they’re coming back to saxophone. They played back in high school, and now they’re in their forties or fifties and they want to get back into playing again.

N: And a lot of those people will go straight in and say ‘I know I’m going to do this. I know I want to get the best saxophone I can now because that’s the only one I’m going to have for now for years, even though I’m just a starter.’ And and I could understand that instead of starting with a cheaper instrument and working your way out.

N: But what I’m hearing you saying that is that even that could be done on a hire basis. So you then take some of that hire that you’ve paid and take it off the purchase price of the saxophone. 

R: Yeah, absolutely. Actually our most popular hire is probably a Yamaha which won’t surprise many people, I’m sure. And we, again, we make that affordable.

R: But what I often say to people is, if you’re coming back into it, you’ve already played before, 85 or 90 percent of learning that instrument is reading music and that will come back fairly quickly. So you go with the Yamaha, And once you’ve got back into your stride, give it six to eight months, make sure you’re still playing, then offset that budget against something else.

N: Or stick with the Yamaha. Hey, I’ve got a Yamaha alto up there. I’ve had it for 30 years! Actually, goodness me, I got it in 1987. Rob, how many years is that? 

R: Yamahas are fantastic. 

N: That’s a lot of years, isn’t it? 

R: Yeah.

N: I think I got my value for money out of it. They keep going. They are brilliant instruments.

Durable horns

R: And they’re obviously others out there. They do keep going. You often find when you go to a local pub and you see someone playing in the bands, it’ll often be still a student Yamaha. They keep going. 

N: Yeah, absolutely.They’re great saxophones.

N: That’s the Pro 62 when that first came out, I guess around that time. And yeah, I just kept using it. I see a lot of the pro players who might have they’re loved Mark VI at home, but then they’ll take a working horn out for doing gigs. And sometimes you’re right though.  Sometimes it is a student instrument or an intermediate instrument. Some of them play great. It’s surprising. Some of the ones I’ve had sent me for review, they really are amazing.

Hiring a sax when touring

N: So I’ve got something I wanted to ask you, actually. I’m curious to know if you’ve got any interesting stories of customers that have come to you to hire.  Because I was talking to one of our members the other day. And he was telling me that he lives in a few different places in the world. So he has a few different saxophones. And I was thinking for someone like him it would actually make sense to maybe hire a couple. So what about you? Have you had some interesting customers who’ve come to you doing something a bit different?

R: Yeah, we do. We often get bands that are on tour. If they’re touring the UK, they would come to us because we don’t know what to expect when we put our instruments in a hold. Will they still come out the right shape? I don’t know. So a lot of people will phone us up before and say, ‘Look, we’re heading to the UK for a couple of months. Can I hire a saxophone? Or flute, clarinet, etc’. And yeah we’ve done a couple of names. We can’t obviously disclose. 

N: Don’t tell me I don’t want to have to sign an NDA, Rob. 

R: Someone was over for the Grand Prix and they left their saxophone back at home. And they just wanted to have a sax for the weekend so they didn’t miss the practice

Adding to your sax collection

N: Oh, that’s awesome. And what about people who maybe already playing alto and then they want to experiment with a tenor or a soprano? Or maybe even a baritone. Do you see people hiring a saxophone to try something different?

R: Yeah, we get that all the time. And absolutely it’s the correct way to do it. In fact, we start our tenors at £20 pounds per month. So again, they’re really affordable. And it is so that people that have already played the alto, can have a go at something deeper and just see whether they like it, before they then go in and get something better. Again, they can use that offset payment that we offer.

N: It’s a really common question I see from our adult learner students at Sax School. The first question is ‘should I start with alto or tenor or soprano?‘ And then once they’ve been playing for a few months, then it’s ‘is it okay if I also learn tenor?‘ Or another one of the saxophone family.

N: We do these Weekender events every year. We just did one and had 50 people from all around the world who came and joined us. And nearly all those people have got multiple saxophones. Some have three altos or two tenors or whatever. But they might have a soprano and also a tenor and a baritone. They’re just so into it. And I love the enthusiasm that we see from a lot of our adult members.

But, starting out and thinking, ‘Oh, I want to learn saxophone. How much does a saxophone cost? Really? And then maybe I’m going to have four of them!’ That’s a lot of money, right? So it’s a great idea to start off with hiring a saxophone.

Buying a used saxophone

N: Okay. So we’ve talked about hiring. And obviously the option is there to buy a new saxophone, but what about buying a used saxophone?

I guess that’s another option that people could consider if they were looking for an alternative to buying a brand new saxophone. And we spoke a little bit about how saxophones need to be well maintained, but have you got any tips for people for buying used saxophones? 

R: The thing is you can always think you’re getting a bargain. And we see it all the time. People have bought a saxophone off eBay, Gumtree, Facebook, they’ve paid fantastic price for it. But then they’ve taken it to their local music shop and it needs a full overhaul and a service. And in the end that bargain became a bit of a money pit.

So I will always say watch out. Do your research make sure it’s correct. Go try it and take a friend that already can play, and they can try it as well. 

N: Am I right, Rob? Did you tell me that your family background is as doing sax repairs or instrument repairs? 

Quality matters

R: Yeah. So this is where everything started. is We still do repair instruments. But it is about getting a good quality instrument.

There was a certain point where we refused to work on cheaper models because you can’t guarantee your work. Imagine when you bend a piece of metal, every time you bend it and bend it, it gets weaker and weaker. So you need a good quality metal to actually get started with. So you’ll find that with those cheap instruments – they are cheap for a reason. You’ll need to go get them set up.

Personal Shopping

And that’s another thing when you’re buying secondhand, go to a respectable shop that may sell secondhand instruments and get opinions. We actually do a thing called personal shopping.  So you come up with a price of how much you want to spend. If you’re a beginner, but want to rent. We can go ahead and do that research for you and you can get it right. 

N: And that’s actually,  that’s a great service. Because there’s so much to learn. If you are new to saxophone and wanting to find your first instrument, obviously you’re going to go on Amazon. Or you’re going to go on eBay. You’re going to do a Google search. And you’re going to get swamped by all these different choices and possibly be tempted by something that looks like an amazing bargain. But you do need advice again. 

R: If it looks too good to be true, it probably is. There’s benchmark prices to look for.

Better quality, lower price

N: However, I think that’s one of the really important things to remember about buying a used saxophone. If you are going through someone like you, who’s already a repairer or a big retailer, with a stock of secondhand instruments that other people have traded in, you can potentially get a better quality instrument for a lower price than buying a new one.

And what you said before about the quality of the metal I think is super-important. And it’s one of the reasons why getting a better quality instrument, if you’re thinking for longevity, is a better option.

A perfect example is that Yamaha we just mentioned a minute ago. I’ve also got another saxophone over there that I did a YouTube thing for a couple years back. It’s an old student model Yamaha. I think it was the 23, probably from the 70s. It still plays great and it’s just so well made. And I think back then the older instruments were made better than the newer instruments today. I think the newer instruments today are engineered better, but the older ones were made of better material. So if they’re well set up and well maintained, they can still be really serviceable. 

R: There’s a brand called Amati. I’m not sure. Have you come across Amati?

N: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. 

R: Yeah. So they went bust. But they made some fantastic instruments. They were heavy. But they still play and they’re still solid. 

Setting up and maintenance

N: if you get a good one though. And I guess that’s where it really comes down the the way that they’ve been maintained, the way they’ve been set up.

And by for anybody who doesn’t know – setting up, you can explain it better than me. But it’s what you were saying before about pads and corks and all that sort of stuff. It’s all the little fine adjustments to the height of the keys. So it’s all that stuff makes a massive difference to how well a saxophone plays.

So if you do buy a used sax that seems like too much of a good deal, then you just have to be prepared that you will have to invest a little bit of money in a good repairer to get that saxophone up to playing condition. 

Customer service

R: Yeah. If can go back to where hiring a saxophone may be a very good option when you’re starting out. You’ve got that support network. And when you go and buy something secondhand off eBay, Gumtree, Facebook, you don’t have that. So you don’t know if a problem is you or the saxophone!

At least when you are hiring a saxophone from a reputable company, you know it’s you! You’re the one that needs to do the work!

N: I don’t know if that’s quite the right way to spin it, Rob, if I’m honest with you, but yeah, I get your point! And then, and at the very least, what you can do is pick up the phone and ask the question.

I have to say we see that a lot in Sax School, because we’ve got members all over the world, right? So we’ll get an email from someone says, ‘Oh, I was so excited to get the saxophone and I can’t get the mouthpiece on.’ Or ‘why can’t I get this note out?’

And you think ‘yeah, you need to talk to the person who you bought it from’. Because there are certain little things that need to be adjusted for a saxophone to work correctly. And it’s such a shame if that part of the buying process is missed out. I think that’s called ‘customer service‘. I’m not sure!

Making it easy

R: Absolutely. We’re not perfect. If there’s something wrong with any instrument when you’re hiring it from us, we very swiftly send you a label to get it back to us. We get it turned around as quick as possible. So we aim for those five star reviews.

N: No, I love it. I’m always looking for companies like you, Rob, who do look after the customers and make that process of learning as easy as possible. Because that’s what it’s all about. Oh, that’s awesome.

Hey I think we’ve covered some really good stuff here and I hope for anyone listening that it’s been useful.

N: Maybe now you will consider hiring a saxophone, or at least looking at a used saxophone, instead of just spending all of your money on a very expensive new saxophone. It’s at least the start of the process. Awesome.

I think we’ve covered loads of stuff here, Rob, and hopefully that’s opened your mind if you’re listening and thinking of getting a new saxophone. Maybe hiring a saxophone is something to consider. 

Special Offer for listeners

N: And I’ll tell you what, Rob has very kindly set up a special promo code for our audience where you can get your first month sax hire free. Jump over the Music Corner website and use the code SAXSCHOOL to get your first month sax hire free with £50 deposit.  

R: No problem at all, Nigel. Speak soon. 

Try Sax School PRO for free

N: If you’re curious to know how we’re helping thousands of people in Sax School every single day and how we can help you to improve your playing, then go grab the 14 day free trial that we’ve got running at the moment. You can explore our thousands of lessons, our structured courses, get help from tutors, even attend all of our live stream sessions that are happening all the time. We’d love to help you inside Sax School.

Thanks again for listening to the podcast and don’t forget you can claim that free month of sax hire.

Keep practicing hard. We’ll catch you next time.