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Comment by bobf | Hacker News Reader

I played clarinet, piano, and guitar growing up, but before reading this I had no idea about the story of the relatively modern (i.e. post industrial revolution) invention of the saxophone. I never played jazz, but certainly appreciate it and this quote from the article really struck a chord with me, "Without jazz, what would music be? But without the sax, what would jazz be?"

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I find it fascinating that many of these instruments did not exist in their modern forms until around the same period. Playing clarinet in school, I had never really considered that our instruments weren't necessarily the same as the ones a piece had been composed for.

* The development of airtight pads for the clarinet in 1812 allowed manufacturers to add more keys, culminating in the modern Boehm system in 1839. The earlier clarinets looked like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3NCGSvKHCQ

* Between around 1800-1850, the piano gained the cast iron plate, stronger steel wires, and the double escapement action. 88 keys weren't common until the latter part of the century. Earlier pianos (fortepianos) looked like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ef95BZfYcw

* Antonio de Torres is credited with developing the modern classical guitar starting in the 1850's. Steel string guitars were developed later, and were made commercially by Gibson and Martin starting in the 1920's.

I also played the clarinet in school, took piano lessons at home, and am currently learning guitar. Great choices!

> jazz was 'pummelled' by fanatics of rhythm and noise, which even discredited the sax

Sadly, I find this to be the case. I'm in the odd position of having grown up playing sax, and yet unable to enjoy it in the context of jazz.

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