Charlotte Moore 
Shopping for a clarinet under 1000 dollars puts you in the most interesting part of the market. Below this level you are buying resin student instruments. Above it you are into professional territory. In between sits a group of step-up clarinets that includes the first genuinely good wooden instruments, and choosing well here sets a … Read more
The Yamaha YCL-221II is the bass clarinet most school programmes own, and for good reason. It costs around $3,500, has an ABS resin body that survives storage rooms and touring vans, and plays in tune in a register where cheap instruments simply do not. If a student is moving from soprano clarinet to bass, this … Read more
The Buffet E12F sits in an awkward but useful place: above the E11 that most step-up buyers consider, below the R13 that professionals play, and priced around $1,600. It is the instrument teachers recommend when a student has outgrown their first wooden clarinet but is not ready to spend three thousand dollars. Here is what … Read more
The Selmer vs Yamaha saxophone question splits players more than almost any other comparison in the woodwind world, and both camps are right. Selmer Paris built the sound that defines classical saxophone and much of jazz history. Yamaha built instruments that play in tune, feel the same every time and cost less. The choice matters … Read more
A professional tenor saxophone is a bigger commitment than the equivalent alto, both in price and in how personal the choice becomes. Tenor is the horn most associated with jazz, and players tend to have strong opinions about what a tenor should sound like. Prices run from roughly $4,000 to $9,000. Every instrument below is … Read more
The Akai EWI Solo is the cheapest serious electronic wind instrument on the market, at around $385, and it comes from the company that invented the category. It has 200 sounds, a built in speaker, a rechargeable battery and a seven octave range. It also has a fingering system that is not quite like any … Read more
The Yamaha YDS-150 is the digital saxophone that finally convinced acoustic players the category was worth taking seriously. It costs around $720, uses a real mouthpiece and reed, and has a brass bell built into the body. Yamaha’s aim was clearly not to build a synth controller but a saxophone you can play at midnight. … Read more
The Roland Aerophone vs Yamaha YDS comparison is the one every player makes before buying a digital horn, and the two brands answer the same question in opposite ways. Roland built a versatile sound machine controlled by breath. Yamaha built a saxophone that happens to be digital. Both are excellent, and the right choice depends … Read more
An electronic wind instrument gives a woodwind or brass player something no acoustic horn can: hundreds of voices, a headphone jack and MIDI output, all controlled by breath rather than a keyboard. The category has grown well beyond the early EWI models, and there is now a clear split between instruments built for realism and … Read more
A digital saxophone solves the problem every sax player eventually runs into: an acoustic horn is loud, and most people live somewhere that makes practising after eight in the evening impossible. These instruments use real saxophone fingering, a breath sensor and a headphone jack, so you can practise silently at midnight or plug into a … Read more