I had plenty of toy instruments,ranging from the toy pianos with the non-functional black keys represented as black paint on the white keys to plastic trash wind instruments, to plastic guitar-ish or uke-ish things, to toy xylophones (with sharps/flats) and so forth all the way to the plastic recorders I played in 6th grade (Tonette and Flute-a-phone brands). I guess the Tonette and Flute-a-phone are as real a recorder as a First Act is a guitar, but I don't count them.

Drum sticks and a practice pad followed. At least the drum sticks were real

In 7th grade my parents rented a Conn 10M tenor sax, but it wasn't mine.

Then I cashed in all the money my parents had saved for me and I got a well used but very playable Selmer (Paris) Modele 26 tenor sax. It was silver plated, but silver plate saxes were considered "old school" at the time so when it was overhauled before resale the sax tech put gold colored lacquer on top.

So I consider the Selmer Modele 26 the first "real" instrument I owned.

Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
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