AndyB
Member
- 342
Looks great value to me and something I will use parts of myself. Good find.
As with all practice pieces it looks as dull as ditchwater but I'll give it a go. I use the books: 80 Graded Studies for Saxophone Books 1 and 2. They are still pretty dull but there are some tunes in them, if a little repetitive.
Martin
If you think that looks scary, you should try Pete Thomas's "Taming the Saxophone Volume 3".![]()
Do those differ from the 40+ PDF version of Pete's exercises? I have those.
They are included, but there is a lot more stuff. If you bought the PDFs, there was a discount for Taming the Saxophone which you should have received details of..
Up to 5 minutes on the mouthpiece (no sax) - this is practicing getting a reasonable sound and range from the mouthpiece.
Thanks, Stephen. I had heard about the above and tried it, but I found the noise it makes unbearable. It hurts my ears like fingernails on a chalkboard. It must be the frequency that hurts. Don't know what to do about that.
During the tutorials of Jazz Academy our tutor Carlos took us through a suggested daily regime (based in part on David Liebman who he studied under). Depending on how long or how often you practice he suggested the following:
up to 30 minutes (min 5 minutes) on finger exercises. This is practising scales, arpeggios, intervals and patterns over the range of the sax. It is best to focus on only a couple of scales and chords at a time, probably focused on a particular piece you are wroking on.
Then he was very hot on doing transcriptions and suggested that around 50% of practice time be spent on this. Not only getting the notes right, but getting the correct tone, phrasing, etc, etc.
For those of us learning written pieces as well presumably this would be slotted in between finger exercises and transcribing.
Hope this is of some help.
Stephen
Yes, it can be painful. If you do not get a discernable note his view was that your embouchure wasnot correct. Try minor adjustments until you get a note sounding. For example try loosening your embouchure if you get a squeek. Try not to blow too hard or too soft. Once you get a note then you can concentrate on dealing with the throat.
Sing an octave and feel how your throat changes. Play C2 on the sax and then C1 and feel how your throat changes. Play C2 and finger C1 whilst keeping your throat in the position for C2 and you should get C2 although fingering C1. This demonstrates how important the throat is to getting a good tone and intonation, etc.
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