I got out of school recently, and during school I was using a school saxophone with my own personal mouthpiece. Now that I'm out of school, however, I brought my mouthpiece home and tried playing on my personal sax. I cleaned out the mouthpiece, neck, etc. and was eager to play, but when I tried to actually play, I ran into a few problems, listed from most to least severe.
1) In order to play, I'm having to blow much harder than usual to play. It's hurting my head blowing that much. This is especially true with the lower notes. It might also be worth noting that when I do try to blow if the note doesn't come out if just sounds airy, like I'm just blowing air through it
2) When I am actually able to play the notes, they often jump up an octave involuntarily.
3) It feels like my saxophone is slightly slow to respond when I blow if a note does come out.
If anyone has any advice on how to fix this, I would appreciate this. I might just be overreacting and it could simply be fixed by taking my sax to the shop and get maintenance done on it, but let me know what you think. Also keep in mind, I'm not a beginner, as I have been playing sax for over 6 years and am pretty talented at it.
1) In order to play, I'm having to blow much harder than usual to play. It's hurting my head blowing that much. This is especially true with the lower notes. It might also be worth noting that when I do try to blow if the note doesn't come out if just sounds airy, like I'm just blowing air through it
2) When I am actually able to play the notes, they often jump up an octave involuntarily.
3) It feels like my saxophone is slightly slow to respond when I blow if a note does come out.
If anyone has any advice on how to fix this, I would appreciate this. I might just be overreacting and it could simply be fixed by taking my sax to the shop and get maintenance done on it, but let me know what you think. Also keep in mind, I'm not a beginner, as I have been playing sax for over 6 years and am pretty talented at it.
