The MAUI XAPHOON POCKET SAX is a great pocket or travel mini saxophone with a massive, warm sound from its standard tenor sax (2.5) reed and chunky vintage-style mouthpiece. It comes with a full instruction tutor, fingering guide and tunebook to help you master the precision open-hole fingering, and a hard protective cover for the reed. It’s best to have some experience with sax or clarinet to become a Xaphoon virtuoso, but almost anyone can hold clean notes after a few minutes of practice. Each instrument comes in a cardboard storage box. Please note that the density, precision and finish of the Maui Xaphoon produces a sound very distinct from the various cheap copy-moulded plastic bootlegs which you may find at attractively low prices. If you do not want disappointment, buy the real thing.

The Red, Blue and Green colours look bright if you illuminate them but in regular light are subtle and deep in colour. The Gold is a copper-red gold. All have matching reed/mouthpiece caps, gold trim and gold reed clamp. The mouthpiece is a little more like a clarinet than a sax (chunky) and the playing technique lends itself to free expression and modulation - like Armenian duduk or Turkish clarinet. But it's an instrument in its own right. You can change the 2.5 tenor sax reed for a lighter one (1.5 suggested) if you need to build up breathing and mouth control. The leaflet has a fingering chart and helps with learning.

Despatched from Scotland, by Icon Publications Ltd (the owners of Troubadour.UK which has sold these on line now for 15 years).