In 5th grade they all sound so horribly bad, you won't care which instrument they pick.

I have twins and one plays trumpet and the other plays alto sax. They both love the instruments they chose and would choose them all over again. You’ve gotten good feedback but I will add the following observations:

The trumpet is slight cheaper and slightly less heavy.

Trumpet players are notoriously arrogant because you need to play nearly perfectly because people can hear you and any mistakes you might make. Sax is a little more forgiving. Both can be in jazz and marching and symphonic bands. No saxophones in orchestra but they do have trumpets.

It is slightly easier to get into honors ensembles if you play trumpet vs sax just due to sheer numbers/instrumentation. They take more trumpets. But even better to switch to something obscure like French horn. The kid who plays French horn with my kids is not that good but gets tons of opportunities.

They will have a preference based on the mouth position. You could buy the mouthpiece (only) of each and let them try it out with an instructor. A good instructor. You'd only need 1 lesson comparing.

In 5th grade they don’t have a lot of in-school instruction time, so having private lessons was helpful for my DC, even when just starting out.

Accutane

Anonymous wrote:Trumpet sucks with braces so if a lot of time in those is in the future, that’s a factor in favor of saxophone

Wind instruments sucks if the kid is on accurate due to extreme dryness/mouth sores. Mine switched to percussion instrument.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a reed player. Playing trumpet or saxophone, you can:
Play in band
Play in orchestra
Play in marching band
Play in pep band
Play in jazz band

Probably harder for saxophone to play in quartets and quintets, small group play.

The wind instruments that are most rare and hard to staff (no pun intended) tend to be oboe and bassoon. On the brass side, French horn, tuba, and the baritone horns are more rare. Lots of trumpets, one tuba. One of our kids chose from among those listed and was always in demand because they played one of the rarest instruments. They learned a second instrument for marching band. They auditioned and was selected for a top flight major university marching band later.

There are not many orchestras that have saxophone. If he likes classical music and wants to play in an orchestra, he should lean towards trumpet.

Our high school orchestra had no saxophones, so just going on what I've seen. Our concert has no percussion section, so our kid who plays percussion couldn't do concert band, only marching band. Kid switched to art as an elective.

How do they not have a percussion section?

I knew a lot of people who switched into drum line in high school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was a reed player. Playing trumpet or saxophone, you can:
Play in band
Play in orchestra
Play in marching band
Play in pep band
Play in jazz band

Probably harder for saxophone to play in quartets and quintets, small group play.

The wind instruments that are most rare and hard to staff (no pun intended) tend to be oboe and bassoon. On the brass side, French horn, tuba, and the baritone horns are more rare. Lots of trumpets, one tuba. One of our kids chose from among those listed and was always in demand because they played one of the rarest instruments. They learned a second instrument for marching band. They auditioned and was selected for a top flight major university marching band later.

There are not many orchestras that have saxophone. If he likes classical music and wants to play in an orchestra, he should lean towards trumpet.

Our high school orchestra had no saxophones, so just going on what I've seen. Our concert has no percussion section, so our kid who plays percussion couldn't do concert band, only marching band. Kid switched to art as an elective.

One of our kids played a reed instrument for concert band and a brass instrument for marching band. You don't have to limit yourself, you can cross over.

I played both and I'll echo that trumpet sucks with braces. But in college I'd get picked up to play trumpet for random things more often. I was never particularly serious about wither just basic jazz band stuff.

Anonymous wrote:I was a reed player. Playing trumpet or saxophone, you can:
Play in band
Play in orchestra
Play in marching band
Play in pep band
Play in jazz band

Probably harder for saxophone to play in quartets and quintets, small group play.

The wind instruments that are most rare and hard to staff (no pun intended) tend to be oboe and bassoon. On the brass side, French horn, tuba, and the baritone horns are more rare. Lots of trumpets, one tuba. One of our kids chose from among those listed and was always in demand because they played one of the rarest instruments. They learned a second instrument for marching band. They auditioned and was selected for a top flight major university marching band later.

There are not many orchestras that have saxophone. If he likes classical music and wants to play in an orchestra, he should lean towards trumpet.

^ Actually, saxophone is probably a no-go in orchestra, but probably depends on the orchestra.

I was a reed player. Playing trumpet or saxophone, you can:
Play in band
Play in orchestra
Play in marching band
Play in pep band
Play in jazz band

Probably harder for saxophone to play in quartets and quintets, small group play.

The wind instruments that are most rare and hard to staff (no pun intended) tend to be oboe and bassoon. On the brass side, French horn, tuba, and the baritone horns are more rare. Lots of trumpets, one tuba. One of our kids chose from among those listed and was always in demand because they played one of the rarest instruments. They learned a second instrument for marching band. They auditioned and was selected for a top flight major university marching band later.

Anonymous wrote:Trumpet sucks with braces so if a lot of time in those is in the future, that’s a factor in favor of saxophone

Totally this. I played trumpet in middle and high school and it was a difficult adjustment when I got my braces...followed by another adjustment a couple years later when I got the braces off.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One thing I don't think people think about is when they get to middle school, kids who play very popular instruments (see trumpet and saxophone) may get asked to switch instruments. My kid had to switch to the french horn from the trumpet.

My advice is pick a less common instrument than either of these two, but particularly less popular than the trumpet if your kid is the type who would balk at switching.

Interesting to know! So which are the less popular woodwinds instruments? My DC's school I heard a lot of children wanted to do Flute, so I did not realize that Saxophone is very popular too.

I think less obvious ones overall are piccolo, oboe, bassoon, french horn, trombone, tuba, etc.

All these kids get to middle school pretty much playing the same handful of instruments (clarinet, flute, trumpet, sax, percussion) and obviously that does not make a band.