
Andrew T
- Messages
- 16
- Locality
- Ootacamund, S.India
I've been playing alto sax for two months now, and have had no lessons (although I've got a music degree and play piano, french horn, trumpet, and recorder as well). I've been playing through Graham Lyons Compositions for Alto Sax, which is a great book. There's one piece I'm having difficulty with though, Dancing in the Rain, last six bars.
For those of you who don't have the book, it contains two very top Ds (two octaves above middle C), then C, then Bb, all in the same register going down, all staccato. This pattern has to be repeated four times. I hope I've explained that well.
However much I practice it, I can't get my fingers round it as it goes quite fast. My son (who also plays alto and has had lessons) and I have talked about alternative fingering - there are three different ways of playing that Bb, but none of them seem that satisfactory for fast playing.
Is this just something I'll have to practice over and over, with fingering of my preference (I prefer playing the Bb with octave key (obviously) and first finger left hand and first finger on right hand for this bit). Or is there another way to get round this tricky pattern? perhaps there are alternative fingerings for the other notes I haven't discovered yet.
Any suggestions would be helpful.
Thanks.
For those of you who don't have the book, it contains two very top Ds (two octaves above middle C), then C, then Bb, all in the same register going down, all staccato. This pattern has to be repeated four times. I hope I've explained that well.
However much I practice it, I can't get my fingers round it as it goes quite fast. My son (who also plays alto and has had lessons) and I have talked about alternative fingering - there are three different ways of playing that Bb, but none of them seem that satisfactory for fast playing.
Is this just something I'll have to practice over and over, with fingering of my preference (I prefer playing the Bb with octave key (obviously) and first finger left hand and first finger on right hand for this bit). Or is there another way to get round this tricky pattern? perhaps there are alternative fingerings for the other notes I haven't discovered yet.
Any suggestions would be helpful.
Thanks.