Beginner's Dairy...

[tris]

Introduction

Hello and welcome to my beginner's dairy.

First off a small confession. I have played music for a good number of years before I finally summed up the courage to pick up a saxophone. I had become hooked on Michael Brecker by way of Jaco Pastorious when I was eighteen and from that moment there was always a sense that I was missing out on what I was actually put on this planet to do.



So why post here? Well firstly it is to help me sort out my own ideas. Secondly, I hope I can give some insights into they way I approached the saxophone as a DIYer that may help others who are too poor, busy or Scottish to go and get some private lessons.

I am going to confine this diary to developing saxophone technique as opposed to musicianship skills.

Well hold your hats because here we go!

Next instalment; The most basic of basics, coming soon!

 

[bobk]

Very much looking forward to this as I suspect you know a lot about how things should end up going, even though you are a beginner on the sax.

cheers,

Bob

 

[tris]

[No message]

 

[Simon]

Hey Tris

Excellent move to get with the Alexander Technique! Posture is one of the most overlooked aspects of sax playing, affects your oxygen intake, musculature and as you said, technique. The Alexander method to me is a preventative rather than a curative thing, which can only be good for yer.

So you play with the Walter Beasley embouchure ? How you finding that ?

Simon

 

[tris]

Walter's embouchure... great! I can say (without ego) that it came so easily, so naturally I was really cooking. (But only for about an hour at at time at the moment as I building it slowly.)

Thanks Simon that brings me on to my following point......

Embouchure...


Initially that tonal unevenness, drives us all mad and you want to rush to get ahead go get rid of that lumpiness a.s.a.p. I found that I was so concentrating so hard on getting that open C to closed D2 sounding sweet and even I was forgetting to breath and as my breath was running out I was pinching.

That is where Walter came into my life. I was looking for a book on sax sound production when in a roundabout way I ended up on Walter's site. I was able to download his sound production DVD as an digital download all for the bargain prices of $15 US!!!


http://www.walterbeasley.com/

Now the following is a semi cut paste from another thread. (Call it a tribute to Zappa.)

All my sound problems were due to breathing and breath support. After all you move air through the sax to make music right? (Sounds obvious but I have to admit I forgot.)

So how does this effect embouchure?

As a STRICT rule your embouchure should be as loose as possible at ALL times. This allows the reed to be as freely vibrating as possible. I found that I was increasing lip pressure when I should have been speeding up air flow. These days I have found a really amazing simple embouchure that Walter Beasely teaches. I barely alter it at all while playing.


If you think of the lips as a circle
The top of the circle constitutes the top teeth. These should be placed on the mouthpiece without exerting pressure.
The sides of your mouth are the sides of the circle and these offer the inward pressure and support the embouchure.

The take home message is that the top and bottom of the circle do not exert pressure. This leads to biting and a squashed tone.

All the support comes from the sides.

As you loose pressure on the mouthpiece you may go flat.. So take more in the mouth until you come into tune. Be very careful not to bite or pinch in the upper registers or you will be playing way sharp!!!

At first you want to develop the most open sound possible and then reign it in as you learn control. It is easy to make small from big but the opposite is not true.

Walter has a tonne of more amazingly simple stuff that answers so many question that you feel a bit thick that you did not realise it himself. But sometimes we all need a little positive reinforcement.

This is my tip...


I took the deepest breath possible.

I held it as long as I could.

Then I just exhaled through my horn as strongly as I could.

WOW. This was a great experience, liberating. Fear of sounding bad had stopped me from wanting to get too loud and I was holding back. It was like putting my hands under a dryer in a public toilet when 1 played G1.

I kept at it for a while, property prices in the area fell... oh wait, where was I? The experience showed me the extremes and what was calibre and the way things should work.

PS if you read my ramble about Alexander technique and tried anything in it. Try the head forward and up then go back to what you are used to. I did this and i could feel my embouchure go into spasm when I got back into my old position.

Simon, I tore that ligament in a non-music related fashion. I did have a guitarists hump that I wanted rid of though as it was giving me tendentious. Alexander technique has not been a cure for me. I have had a lot of phsyo exercise and what not. I employed the Primary control idea to my therapy and all the exercises became much easier and my rehabilitation time was cut by about 6 months!!!!!

 

[Simon]

Yeah, interesting point about 'fear of sounding bad'. This is a real problem I had for a long time: that I just didn't play loud enough and push that airstream to find out what the sax could really do!

Lotsa reasons I guess - confidence, fear of wrong notes, didn't like my tone at the time, not wanting to annoy people in the house or street, barking dogs, hurts ears etc - but as Walter says, you can go from a big sound to a small sound but not the other way around.

I became very much a 'sound' player - it was the sound of the sax that got me hooked and it's the sound that I work the hardest on, ahead of technique. I met David Sanborn at a concert at age 18. This guy's about 5 foot nothing and has the loudest, most penetrating bluesy sound I had heard. Truly incredible.

The beauty of the sax is that like a vocalist, you can create your own personal sound on the instrument, with edge, without, dark, mellow etc. This makes it the best!

Simon

 

[Linky Lee]

Hi Tris.

I'm loving this diary.. it's fantastic.

I use that embouchure as well, though I didn't realise that is what it is called, My teacher just showed me three embouchures and some different tonguing techniques and told me to use them all and find what I liked the most.

I too found that the tone was the most even and the intonation was easier until you start pushing yourself too hard and bite!


I've kind of got a diary like this myself, but I don't know if I'm willing to post it yet. I'm already in love with the saxophone, and it's only the beginning of the journey. I may get myself down at times and feel like I'm under achieving but It's all worth it for that one note you play that makes your heart skip a beat and you think, "that was me... and I actually meant to do that!"

I really look forward to reading the future entries here. Great stuff.

EDIT:

I tell you what! that video is superb, and very approach altering. I've got so much to get working on! Why does everyone hate me playing my sax at 1am? I've got a BIG tone 😛

 

[phil_edwards]

Linky_Lee wrote:
.... Why does everyone hate me playing my sax at 1am? I've got a BIG tone 😛

they're jealous Lee, take no notice 😉

Phil

 

[Linky Lee]

I must say... I've finished my practise for the day, only stopped because my embouchure was starting to give way and things were getting awfully wet.

I spent the morning doing exercises on the DVD that Tris recommends. It is fantastic! within 10 minutes of playing my tone was more even throughout the register and was fuller and warmer (just what I wanted!), all the notes were clearer especially the stuffy middle register D. I think I found it easier as I only had to make one minor adjustment to my embouchure to get it as he recommends.

I can see that this would take quite a while to build up stamina when completely switching. I only managed 3 hours, normally I could double that.

I did notice that general playing was much easier and seemed a lot less effort. This meant I played slower at first! It was so relaxing! Then I decided to speed things up and I found I had improved quite drastically compared to last week in terms of accuracy, tonguing, tone control and phrasing (I am taking more breaths than I used too! Lots of diaphragm exercises!)

I agree with Tris and recommend it to anyone and everyone.

 

[tris]

Told you that DVD was good!!!

I can't understand why this is not the "right" embouchure... things evolve for and me, Larry Teal's book, (which is regarded as our bible) is hideously out of date. There is good stuff in there still but many of the concepts are outmoded.

My next thing I was going to talk about was motivation but I am too busy playing at the moment, maybe later......

 

[Linky Lee]

Come on, surely all the great comments here motivate you to tell us more 😛

I didn't think there was a standard embouchure really. I think you just get taught whatever your teacher prefers. Luckily for me she gave me unbiased info and options... though not all of them of course.

I think that is a really important thing about a teacher. they should teach you what you need to know that relates to you and not force you down a line of learning how to play and sound like themselves.

 

[Melissa]

I don't know about all of you, but my embouchure has definately had its phases and changes throughout the years.

 

[Linky Lee]

Well I've played for two years and only just changed, and very minimally as well. I was shown three types and told to use whatever felt comfortable and I could control the best.

This was exactly the same a the embouchure here but with a mixture of movement in both directions, still with a very loose bottom lip though.