THANKS to Lisa Simpson, the brainy, well-behaved sister of bratty, spiky-haired Bart on the Fox Television cartoon show "The Simpsons," Cynthia Sikes is busy these days. Very busy.

Ms. Sikes teaches saxophone in the Center for Preparatory Studies in Music at Queens College of the City University of New York, a 300-student program for youngsters not much older than 8-year-old Lisa, who seems to be, pardon the expression, the only noteworthy saxophonist in the band at Springfield Elementary.

At the beginning of each episode of the series, she breaks into a show-stopping solo that inevitably brings on the wrath of the band director, a jazz man with the unlikely name of Bleeding Gums Murphy. And on top of that, she's a girl playing an unwieldy instrument -- with the mouthpiece and reedy tone of the woodwinds but the metal body and power of the brass -- that's usually seen in the hands of guys. The result of all this: Ms. Sikes has 15 saxophone students, five of them girls.

"When the show started," Ms. Sikes said, "I got an influx of girls coming up to me saying, 'I want to play the saxophone because Lisa Simpson plays the saxophone.' I had no clue who this Lisa Simpson was. I was relieved to find she had a permanent gig over there."