Fix sticky pads
It happens to all of us who play saxophone… you take it out of it’s case, start playing your favourite warm-up tune and, well, it doesn’t sound like it usually does, and the keys just don’t feel the same as they usually do. Some of the pads seem a little harder to press and others don’t lift at all. The ones that don’t lift will often include the G# key.
The reason the G# key is one of the first to be affected is because the pad is moved away from it’s hole by a small spring and no matter how hard you press the G# key, it’s only the spring pressure which will lift it. You can tell if the pad is sticking by pressing the G# key and gently pulling the pad away from the hole – if you feel a little resistance and then the pad move clear of it’s oen free will then it’s almost certainly a sticky pad. If the pad moves freely but flops back, then the spring may be at fault.
I asked my local music store if there was something I could buy to fix this and they sort of went ‘uhh?’ They said that the didn’t know of any cures and the only fix they new was to renew the pad. Hmm, so much for an ‘expert music store’…