Sky Eclat
JF-Expert Member
- Oct 17, 2012
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ADOLPHE SAX
Adolphe Sax invented the musical instrument that bears his name - the saxophone - but his childhood was one that included accident after horrific accident.
Born Antoine-Joseph Sax in Dinant, Belgium in 1814, Sax came from a musical family. He started crafting his own musical instruments as a teenager, but he almost didn't live that long.
When he was a boy, Sax reportedly fell out of a window, was struck on the head with a brick or large stone, and swallowed a pin or needle.
He also imbibed watered-down acid.
Additionally, he tripped and fell onto a hot stove and landed on a cast-iron pan, almost drowned, and was burned in a gunpowder explosion.
Even the invention of the saxophone was an accident of sorts... the result of a modified saxhorn he'd created with his father, Charles Joseph Sax, in 1845.
The younger Sax patented his saxophone in 1846, sold his instruments, and even became an instructor at the Paris Conservatory.
Late in life, Sax developed lip cancer, an ailment he survived, but died in relative poverty in 1894.
Adolphe Sax invented the musical instrument that bears his name - the saxophone - but his childhood was one that included accident after horrific accident.
Born Antoine-Joseph Sax in Dinant, Belgium in 1814, Sax came from a musical family. He started crafting his own musical instruments as a teenager, but he almost didn't live that long.
When he was a boy, Sax reportedly fell out of a window, was struck on the head with a brick or large stone, and swallowed a pin or needle.
He also imbibed watered-down acid.
Additionally, he tripped and fell onto a hot stove and landed on a cast-iron pan, almost drowned, and was burned in a gunpowder explosion.
Even the invention of the saxophone was an accident of sorts... the result of a modified saxhorn he'd created with his father, Charles Joseph Sax, in 1845.
The younger Sax patented his saxophone in 1846, sold his instruments, and even became an instructor at the Paris Conservatory.
Late in life, Sax developed lip cancer, an ailment he survived, but died in relative poverty in 1894.