Instrument Stands: Get thee behind me, Satan! Or at least out of the way would help, please.

David Ellingham

As someone who's worked in a music shop and also teaches sax, one of the questions that I've often heard and continue to hear is "What stand do you think I should buy for my instrument?" My response is always: Why?

As someone who's done a load of gigs, the thing that irritates most when setting up is the musician (generally new to performing) who, before setting up his amp or mike stand, or helping to assemble the PA, chooses to place his instrument stand often with instrument on it in the middle of the stage or floor area. Why?

Is s/he marking their territory like a dog at a lamppost? Do they want me to trip up over their stand and injure myself or fall on top of their precious instrument? Are they trying to say to the world: Look, I am an artist, I am creative, recognize me!? Why?

A few years ago at an open jam session in a pub, I was emoting (as one does) at the communal mike when I realized my foot was brushing against a trumpet on a stand placed directly under it. Coming off stage, a local taciturn trumpeter rounded on me for possibly damaging his precious horn: "It cost me £200, you know!" I stopped myself from asking how much he would charge if I kicked it off stage before stuffing it up him, and simply asked why it was there in the first place, if it was so damned precious to him. Why? Why? No answer.

Well, maybe my pathological irritation with instrument stands comes from the fact that I've been there myself, many years ago. As a student, I was at a party where I was going to play. I foolishly left my tenor sax on a stand in the corner of the room and kept an eye on it from where the drink was, on the other side of the room. Too far to do anything when a partygoer decided to pick up my beloved sax by its crook as if it were a walking stick. My howl of anguish and sprint to the rescue was not quick enough to avoid the damage that I had to have repaired later; "I was only looking at it, mate." the guest said inaccurately.

I learnt pretty quickly that a stand is an invitation for harm to come to your instruments. This was born out at Myatt's where the repairmen seemed to be kept busy dealing with damage caused by instruments falling off stands. It can happen to the best of us of course. John Surman told me the anecdote of tripping up and falling on top of his own baritone sax in the recording studio, flattening the bell and having to send it back to Selmer to have it hammered out. Ouch!

Lest we forget: although saxophones are shiny and iconic, they are also made of very soft metal. And desirable to thieves, too. Thieves who can only see your precious instrument flaunting itself like a jezebel when it's on a stand.

So: where are we now? Rule 1: Don't buy a stand, or use or leave your instrument on one unless you really, REALLY have to. Which is usually only if:

1. You are doubling (playing on more than one instrument at a time) in public.
2. You play a brutally heavy or cumbersome instrument (baritone sax, six string bass guitar and trombone qualify; an ocarina does not).
3. You suffer from chronic back pain.
4. You have a note from your mother or local GP, probably also to say you're mad and stupid.

Rule 2: When you're not playing for more than ten minutes in a public situation, put your instrument back in its case.

Personal experience, by way of witnessing a highly inebriated though elderly fen-tiger nearly fall over monitor speakers and collapse on top of my precious baritone sax has taught me never to let my instruments out of my sight and always put them back in their cases during half time breaks, unless I'm standing by them. And keep them away from the punters.

If you think I'm being a bit over-the-top watch Jan Garbarek at his gigs. He walks on stage with his saxes in a shaped case resembling an elephant's scrotum. He takes them out of this scrotal sac as necessary, plays and immediately puts them back in again, leaving the stage with them, even before encores. No stands, no messing around, just good old-fashioned down-home paranoia. A true pro.

So, you may think this plea for music stand sanity is directed solely at sax and brass players but no: you smirking guitarists out there, don't think you're exempt. The same rules apply to you with your godawful stands that resemble orthopaedic callipers that I'm always tripping over. And why do you always leave your empty cases OPEN, perpendicular to where anyone needs to walk to get to the stage, bar, toilets, car park? And as for keyboardists with their cases like the magical totemic slab out of 2001 ...don't get me started, please. I'm off for some therapy, in a small dark room padded with blue crushed velvet with brass hasps on the outside.