Q 01/05

Plas Johnson's tenor saxophone plays the slinky Henry Mancini theme of which 1960s film comedy?

A) The Great Race

B) Charade

C) The Pink Panther

D) Breakfast at Tiffany's

Answer · why

C) The Pink Panther

The Pink Panther. Mancini wrote the tune with Johnson's sound in mind, and when the second take ended the whole studio orchestra applauded, something ...

Q 02/05

The saxophone belongs to which family of instruments?

A) Brass

B) Strings

C) Woodwind

D) Percussion

Answer · why

C) Woodwind

Woodwind. Its body is brass, but its sound comes from a vibrating reed, and that mechanism, not the metal, decides which family an instrument belongs ...

Q 03/05

Which French composer praised Sax's new saxophone in print in 1842?

A) Bizet

B) Berlioz

C) Saint-Saëns

D) Gounod

Answer · why

B) Berlioz

Hector Berlioz. Sax had just arrived in Paris with almost no money when he showed him the instrument, and the long article of praise that followed in ...

Q 04/05

Dinant, which lines its main bridge with painted saxophones in honour of native son Adolphe Sax, is in which country?

A) Luxembourg

B) Switzerland

C) Netherlands

D) Belgium

Answer · why

D) Belgium

Belgium. Sax was only a baby when his family left Dinant for Brussels, yet the town still claims him, with a museum at his birthplace and bridge saxop...

Q 05/05

Of the two series of seven saxophones in Sax's patent, which pair of keys became standard?

A) B-flat and E-flat

B) D-flat and G-flat

C) A-flat and D-flat

D) C and F

Answer · why

A) B-flat and E-flat

B-flat and E-flat. The rival series never caught on, so every member of the modern saxophone family is pitched in one of those two keys and Sax's othe...