A saxophone is a curved metal wind instrument that you play by blowing into a mouthpiece and pressing padded keys. The shapes you see most in popular music and jazz — alto and tenor — bend at the neck and at the bottom. Adolphe Sax, a Belgian instrument maker in the nineteenth century, invented it; the name is his surname plus -phone, from Greek for “sound” or “voice,” the same piece as in telephone. His family name Sax is a form of a German name meaning “Saxon.” Though actually, even though the body is metal, you play it with a reed, so musicians group it with the woodwinds, not with the trumpet family. Jazz made it famous; you also hear it in pop, marching bands, and some concert music. People shorten it to sax. There is a whole family of sizes, from small and high to huge and low.