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A collection of the" best of the best" contributions by members. Playing, improvising care & repair tips and hints. Contact us if you want to publish an article.
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Preparing a reed for playing (summary)
1. Soak the reed: Place the reed in a cup of water for around 30 seconds to a minute. This will allow the reed to absorb water and make it play more easily.
2. Adjust the reed: After soaking, take the reed out of the water and examine it. Some reeds may be thicker than others or have uneven tips. Use a reed knife or reed clipper to shape the reed to your liking. Make small adjustments at first, as it’s easier to take more off than to add back on.
3. Clean the reed: After adjusting the reed, wipe it down with a cloth or tissue to remove any excess water or debris.
4. Test the reed: Once the reed is adjusted and cleaned, test it on your saxophone. Play various notes and listen for any buzzing or...
What do saxophone ligatures do?
In spite of what you might read on reddit, or what AI tells you,
if a mouthpiece table is flat
the reed is fine
the ligature is working properly and fits the mouthpiece
then changing to any other ligature with the same characteristics makes no difference. Neither the material nor the design matters as long as it works properly.
A ligature clamps the reed to the mouthpiece. Think of this a bit like when you hold a ruler on the edge of a table and flick the bit sticking over so it goes “boing”. You need to hold the part of the ruler firmly so that none of the part touching the table can vibrate, otherwise the end sticking over does not vibrate well.
The same principle applies to the way a reed...
Examples of the saxophone growl
Growling is one of the most popular effects on the saxophone. We often associate it with rock and pop playing but it's also a very legitimate technique in jazz, used by the greats from Ben Webster through to David Sanborn.
Before I go on the describe it, here are some audio examples:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGrg57RbqBE
Although we think of the saxophone growl as an effect, it can be applied with different intensities. You can use it here or there on one or two notes or add it quite extensively. It's up to your taste and judgment how you use it. It can be anything from a slight edge to brighten the tone to a full on snarling roaring tiger growl.
It is a sort of equivalent to a guitarist...
So, you want to play in a band… and why you should
One of the best things that you can do as a musician – whether you are very experienced or an absolute beginner – is to play together with other people. There are many reasons why you should do it. Unfortunately, too many people shy away from it thinking that they’re not good enough, or that they will let themselves down, or that they will embarrass themselves, and so on. In this post I am going to talk about what’s involved and what to expect when joining a group. I’ve made this general as I’m a string player (cello and viol) as well as a sax player, but the principles apply to all.
The first myth to bust is: am I good enough? The answer is yes you are, but obviously you have to find...
Martin Indiana Saxophones Part 1 - The Indiana Band Instrument Company
I have been trying to learn more about Martin Indiana saxophones recently. The Indiana was the brand name for Martin’s second-line instruments.
I thought I would write down what I have found out. None of this information is new or original - I’m just trying to put it all in one place. And of course there may be mistakes in what I am writing.
My main sources have been “The Martin Story”, SaxPics, saxophone.org and SOTW.
The Martin Story website is an excellent resource for people who want to learn about Martin saxophones:
The Martin Story - All there is to know about Martin saxophones
The Indiana Band Instrument Company
The Indiana Band Instrument Company was...
Reverb
Why reverb?
There are two main reasons you might add reverb:
As an effect to make the music sound "subjectively" better. In this case you, or the audience, hear the reverb as something that can add more life or sparkle to the sound. It is easy to overdo this effect and swamp the recording. This is often the case with beginners, but also we old pros can sometimes be guilty, especially if we just got a new reverb unit or plugin and go a bit overboard.
As a way to make a dry recording sound more realistic. If your recording room is very dry, or the instruments/voice are recorded very close, it can sound a bit odd because our ears are used to hearing the ambience of a room.
A combination of the two.
Setting up on busses
First of...
Soundproofing: DIY “Room Within a Room”
Home studio acoustics Part 1
Home Studio Acoustics Part 2 – Making HF Absorbers
Soundproofing: DIY “Room Within a Room”
You will be very lucky to get complete sound proofing for your studio or rehearsal room, but for basic home recording or practising you will get away with partial soundproofing, unless your family/neighbours are really nasty, or you need to cut out the noise from low flying aircraft. When I was at college my landlady complained about my constant saxophone practising so I used to get inside a wardrobe to practise. This worked to a certain extent but was not very pleasant.
Note that acoustic tiling, foam tiles or eggboxes will only cut down reverberation inside the room, they do...
This article is based on my experience playing the saxophone on recording sessions, and also recording saxophones while working as a producer/sound engineer sometimes alongside some of the best sound engineers in the world in some top studios. These methods work for me and are based on a lot of trial and error as well as years and years of observing great engineers and asking questions. You may find it useful to read the article on microphones first.
Microphone Placement
A very important question to ask yourself: “Do I want to include the sound (ambience) of the room with the saxophone?”
If the room sounds boxy or too reverberant for your taste you should place the microphone close to the saxophone and/or use some damping material...
Different Microphone Polar Patterns
Polar patternCharacteristics
OmniPicks up signal all round
CardioidPicks up mainly in front (and a little off-axis sound from side and back)
Hyper CardioidSame as Cardioid but more focussed
Figure of 8Picks up front and back (with a little off-axis from the side)
Sony C-100: choice of OMNI, CARDIOID or FIGURE of 8
Many microphones have only one polar pattern. Some microphones can switch between the various patterns.
Cardioid (and hyper cardioid)
This is the most common pattern used for recording pop and rock, when close miking instruments or vocals. Used when separation is necessary, or to avoid excessive room ambience. Very close miking with cardioid pattern tends to create a...
Introduction
This is something I have been working on since I retired from teaching in 2002. It is a summary of techniques that proved successful in teaching beginning students. My emphasis from the beginning was on tone production. My reasoning was if students liked how they sound, they would practice more and enjoy playing music. If their parents liked how they sound they would be more likely to support their student and the music program as a whole. The ability to enjoy music through performance is one of the greatest gifts that life has to offer. Passing that gift on to others can be a rewarding experience but it carries with it the very important responsibility to give each student the very best possible chance of success...
In any art form, people have preferences and favourites, as is only to be expected.
But sometimes it happens that a whole genre - or a particular practitioner - doesn't strike a chord, is totally incomprehensible and leaves you cold - and yet others think that it, he or she is marvelous.
Assuming that these others are not merely intellectual snobs or fashionable poseurs, one starts to wonder why. It becomes an "Am I missing something?" moment... and what if that which one is missing is a revelation, leading to a widening of artistic horizons, appreciation and enjoyment? The thought starts to nag...
This happened to me with Bird - Charlie Parker, one of tragic geniuses of jazz... and to many, the daddy of them all...
It happened a...
I did this case renovation a while back. A few pictures posted here and there but nothing of the complete build.
Sometimes there are no options for a aftermarket replacement case. So this is what happens when you try to restore what you have. It’s very time consuming but in this case (pun intended )worth it.
This is a case to a 1933-ish H. Bettoney metal clarinet. Initial inspection it looked like it just needed a few spots of glue.
I’ve never done a complete overhaul of a case before. Previously I’ve had some success relining the interior of a flute case.
I’ve had extensive formal training in cabinet furniture/Millworks. Originally the trade I planned my future for. Things change. This project is well within my comfort zone. I...
Whenever people ask about copyright laws they often want to be given some hard and fast rules like "you can use 4 notes" or "you can use a sample up to 7 seconds|" or "it's fair use." But often copyright cases are down to down to a judge and/or jury to decide the context. So it is very unscientific and judgements can seem very tenuous and inconsistent.
Copyright is a Three Legged Stool. If all 3 legs are in position, the case for an infringement of copyright exists. If any, or all, the legs are missing, the case is weakened, and the stool falls over.
The 3 legs are:
1. Access
Has one composer had any way of hearing another work to allow one to be a copy?
You notice that a famous star has a hit that sounds very much like your tune...
The subject of Coltrane comes up on here every so often, so I thought it best to provide a place to air those opinions instead of us cluttering up other folks threads..
This is purely my own idiosyncratic viewpoint, I'm not trying to be populist here and give you a general introduction to his music, just pointing out some aspects of his playing that may not be immediately apparent. I'm not trying to convert anyone to Coltrane fandom, just showing that there's more to him than you may be (un)familiar with.... feel free to disagree (and I'm sure you will)
When people say they don't like John Coltrane I sometimes wonder if they've just not heard the right bits of his lengthy discography. Of course it's not compulsory to like him and there...
1 How do I get work as a composer for film, radio, TV or games?
I wish I could answer this question, or at least get paid every time someone asks it. Initially I was interested in composing music for TV commercials. After a long time taking my demos around to advertising agencies and being told The music on your showreel is great, but you haven’t composed for any real commercials yet so we can’t give you a job. I realised I was trapped in a vicious circle: you need to have worked in order to get work. Finally I got a chance, I was playing in an R & B band in a pub and someone in the audience who liked my playing introduced herself as the marketing manager of a multinational corporation and asked her ad agency to try me out. They...
Getting it wrong then getting it right:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1XlGuT3iWY
Why combine tone & fingering exercises?
I have found this to be very useful, but it may not work for everyone. So the best thing to do may be to try and and see if it does help you.
Some people find that pure tone exercises can quickly become boring, and as soon as this happens your mind wanders, and so whatever gain you would get from focussed practice is diminished. OTOH, some people (who are good at focussing or concentrating on something like tone or long note exercises) may find introducing this other element becomes distracting in itself. In other words you start focussing on the fingering and forget about the tone.
So what you need to...
I was going to put this in the current thread Help with the next step please, but this somehow grew into something that should have its own thread I think. This is one of those things that crop up from time to time in various discussions
My take is that it is now inevitable that mainstream or straight ahead jazz of the 40s/50s (golden era?) is often concentrated on by teachers and learners and is for several reasons:
It may be fair to say that jazz (and its evolutionary forms) as we know it mostly started out in the US (with roots in the slave plantations and ultimately Africa)
It was originally considered as dance music or brothel entertainment (ie way below Classical in terms of "artform").
1940s/50s bebop innovations brought its...
Problems with leaky low notes? The issue is very often your G#
The G# on modern saxophones has quite a complex mechanism. All saxophone players need to know about adjusting the tabbed/articulated G# as it is one of the most common, and yet easily fixable, causes of leaks.
The first thing we need to know is what is a tabbed/articulated G#, and why you would use it.
Articulated G#
This mechanism allows you to keep the G# key open when playing any note F# or below down to D. In the old days you would have had to let go of the G# to play F# down to D.
Example A: play an A major scale from A (in the lower register) down to low D with your G# held down for all notes. It is quite handy to keep your finger on the key - the F#, E and D all...
When you buy, borrow or hire your first saxophone without any experience to speak of it typically throws up a few challenges over the coming months.
High ranking on the list are squeaks or the inability to produce certain notes. It's probably much less common to be lucky enough to have avoided these genuine issues than needing to overcome them.
This in turn throws open many questions about why its happening and then discussions on the variety of ways people are struggling.
At this stage the forum gets lots of posts about these problems and old ground is covered on many occasions.
The enthusiastic but frustrated learner typically questions some of the following:-
The sax,
The mouthpiece,
The embouchure,
The reed strength.
Some times...
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyuECL6WgqA&feature=emb_logo
Quite a few of us on here love and constantly recommend Reaper, but because it's a real studio application many people assume that it will be far too complicated to use ... especially for simple recordings over a backing track.
But it's not. And, hopefully, here's the proof.
This is my first ever 'how to' video so it's not perfect but it should get you started.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask. And sorry for the lower than ideal video resolution.