I have been playing dual horns regularly for 40 years. I understand completely anyone's feeling that this is not a legitimate undertaking and that any practicioners are probably stupid. However, to say it sounds horrible without actually hearing somebody that knows how to do it is a bit of an insult. I take a few simple solos on them, but mainly I do 'horn parts' on pop tunes when I am the only horn on the job. Also on that job I will play mainly tenor with a lot of bari, some soprano and alto. My 'duals' consists of tenor and alto. I don't do it as a trick or to get attention. It's just my way to get a two-sax sound, and since it's very hard to do, for the satisfaction of getting them to play in tune and blow with the same resistance. The little 'head arrangements' I come up with on songs that never had horns are very satisfying. I have tapes and CD's of it that you would swear was two players, but it's just me. I was actually a lot better at it in the past when I did it on every job. Now, I play in a 'horn band' and there's no need for it, although the guys want me to work up a number featuring it. There have been and still are a number of guys doing duals on all levels of commercial/jazz playing. The mistake most 'newbies' make with this is trying to do something flashy with it in a solo setting - usually sounds bad and elicits comments like the one that started the thread. Ideally, you would walk into a club and hear a band with some really close harmony from the two saxes, then discover that it's one player - not taking a solo, just playing the right parts behind the number. Listen to Roland Kirk - dig the unique sounds and harmonies - he took the whole concept to the nth degree as far as jazz is concerned. I don't play that way at all. Anyone trying this would benefit highly from tips from those of us who know how. Right off the bat, you have to match up your mouthpieces/reeds for equal resistance, and the mouthpieces have to be small, like Guardalas, etc. You have to do this without messing up your set-up on either horn. In other words, you would never set up two horns just for dualing unless that's all you planned to use them for. Then, you have to learn to think in both keys while playing the alto on the right side with your right hand working the upper stack. Using two straps, you can then either tuck the alto upside down under your right arm while you solo on tenor or just let the tenor hang while you play the alto. Really, the mindset I have is that I'm playing a different instrument, not playing two saxes. You either learn to play them as one instrument giving two notes, or you fail at it. Usually the lines for each sax are parallel, but not all the time - there's some room for independent lines, little suspensions and so forth, like any horn section. At one time I was going to rig up a pitch harmonizer and midi connection for each horn using a Kurzweil horn module. Then, the alto could be a bari, too, or either one could come through the module as any kind of horn, with more harmonies added by the IPS-33 pitch harmonizer, with the harmonies being corrected in real time by the midi connection to the keyboard. Nothing new there, just adapted to the dual horns. See the band touring as 'The Average White Band' with their excellent sax player and only horn covering all the great horn parts on one horn with electronic augmentation, including 'Pick Up The Pieces'. Anyway, I came to my senses and got rid of all electronic equipment. I just use a reflector now, not even a stage monitor. I realized that all I needed was to be able to hear exactly what I sounded like with no electronic modification. The electronic stuff was making me lazy and I began to lose the center of what I was trying to do. Still, as a project it would be interesting to try that, but just not practical for gigging with the 'duals' although it's done with one horn all the time.