” How do I figure out the fingerings (on saxophone)?”

-Richard

My response:

You don’t have to figure them out. You can just look them up and learn them on a saxophone fingering chart.

Start learning a few notes at a time. It will take some practice to learn them all, but soon you will not need to think about the fingerings.

“I have played sax for one year, I haven’t played anything before.

But the sound, how could I get that powerful sound. Should I blow hard ?”

On day 1, sounded “Like when you put your feet on the tail of a cat”

(playing for one year)

(practices five days a week)

-Sten (Sweden)

My response:

Keep practicing. Your sound on saxophone is probably much more powerful than it was at the beginning. So in some ways, you can continue doing what you are doing and your sound will get better.

Your description of how you sounded on day 1 made me laugh by the way! Not laughing at you though, just a funny description. If you have read what others wrote on Sax Station, you’ll see that most people don’t sound great on day 1.

The amount you practice in a week sounds all right. If you increase it to ever day, that would help.

The size of your sound depends partly on the reed and mouthpiece you use.

I would not necessarily recommend changing mouthpieces before you had been playing for a year, but that’s maybe an option. A simpler and less expensive option would be to try a different reed. Of course, I’m not sure what reed/mouthpiece you are using now.

Practicing ballads/long tones and really listening can help.

And it’s possible you have some bad habits which reduce your sound as well. They could be the neckstrap position, your posture, etc.

Check out my classes if you would like to work with me.

“How long will it take to learn sax?”

(practices two days a week, playing for one month)

-George

My response:

That really depends on what level you want to get to with the saxophone.

If you want to be able to play some songs, you may already be doing that at a month.

But you probably would not even learn to play all the notes on saxophone in a month. You possibly could if you practice every day for significant amounts of time.

If you want a really good tone, that will take more like a few years and you need to be practicing the right way.

If you want to be a top level saxophone player, that can take a lifetime. But it also requires playing every day or at least most days.

If you want to be in a band, it depends on what band and their expectations. You don’t want to bring down the level of the band if your playing isn’t up to par.

The rate at which you learn to play saxophone also depends on whether or not you get feedback.

 

How can I clearly hear the notes without sheet music while somebody else is playing?

I am a new sax player so i can’t always get the right sound at the right rhythm.

Sometimes when I play, I can’t even get the sound. I know that I have to practice harder to get over this, but still don’t know the right way to practice. I don’t play with other players yet.

On Day 1,

It was pretty irritating 🙂 but i could play the a b d and f on day 1 though they almost sounded like each other

(playing 3.5 months)

(practices 5-6 days/week)

(Knows “5 or 6 I guess ” major scales”

-Ezgi

My response

The consistency at which you practice isn’t bad, try to increase to every day if possible.

You said that you have learned a bit of music by ear, that is also good. Keep doing that, as you learn more music by ear, you will improve at it.

Your response about the scales you know is vague. Figure out what you know and can play immediately without thinking about them. You should learn all 12 major scales if you want to be able to play music by ear. Otherwise, if the music is in a key you don’t know, it’s going to be much harder.

Think about it this way, a scale is essentially the simplest thing you can play in a given key. If you are slow to be able to play the scales you don’t know, think about how hard it will be to play music (which is more complicated than the scale) in that same key. Music is composed in many different keys, some are more common than others, but all of them are used.

I made a class on getting started learning music by ear for saxophone players

How can I create a nice warm tone by using articulation and steady breathing?
(Practices three days a week)

(Has been playing for one week)

“I’m interested in the saxophone foundations beginning saxophone class”

-Kimberly

My response:

It’s good that you are already aware of the importance of breathing and articulation. Those two things are big factors in your tone on saxophone.

How you move your fingers also affects your tone a great deal, you may not have realized that immediately.

Practice consistently

Increasing how often you practice is a step you could take immediately to improve your tone. You said that you practice three days a week. If you practice every day of the week, you can improve much faster.

Almost anything you practice on saxophone will improve your tone as long as you listen and are aware of your sound.

Listen

Listen to the great saxophone players. Pick a few that you like and listen to them. To develop a good tone, it helps to know what you want to sound like. One alto sax player I listened to quite a bit was Maceo Parker. Cannonball Adderley also had a great tone. Those are just a couple you might check out.

Ballads/Long tones

Practicing music with long notes will help you focus on tone. If you sustain notes, you need to have good tone in order for it to sound good. Sometimes music with many notes and/or tight/interesting rhythm can sound good even if the tone isn’t great. But if there are long notes, you will need to focus on your tone.

“long tones” are an exercise where you simply sustain notes as you listen and try to make them steady. It is also an effective way to practice tone, but not as interesting.

Keep playing!

You have only been playing a week. Play consistently and you will sound better. Getting books/lessons can help you progress faster/reduce frustration.

“How can I improve my improvising, even though I listen to a lot of jazz and blues artists?”

“I have trouble coming up with different patterns.”

(Learns “a lot” of music by ear)

(Practices 5 days/week)

(playing for 5 years)

(Knows 2 major scales)

(Has the Maiden Voyage book)

-Ishmael, VA

My response:

Imagine you are learning Spanish. Do you come up with your own words and patterns? Or do you learn words and patterns that already exist?

Music exists and you can play music as well as adding your own voice.

With Spanish, people do come up with new phrases that can be beautiful, powerful, poetic. Speeches, literature, music, etc have unique phrases.

Listening

Listening is great and it’s good that you listen. But it’s not enough. You can sometimes learn things by only listening, but you learn much faster if you listen then try something out then listen again and change it and repeat that cycle. “Learning by ear” and “transcribing” (writing down what you learn by ear) really help you develop as a saxophone player.

Copying

The people who give speeches, write literature, and compose lyrics though are masters of language. They have learned from others in the process of creating on their own. They have influences, most likely starting with their parents.

I’m not saying this to discourage you from improvising. However, it does seem like you may have overlooked the importance of copying from others. Your goal is not to sound exactly like someone else in twenty years, it’s to be able to learn from great musicians and be able to sound like them when you would like. You gradually form your own sound and style.

10,000 patterns?

You can start simply with phrases that really fit into the music. I would rather hear one really good song than a thousand terrible songs.

Similarly with improvisation, start with a few phrases. Learn them from your favorite saxophone players. Play around with them. Make them fit into the songs you want to play. That may involve changing the phrases a bit.

Check out my class on improvisation if you would like to learn more and work with me on this.

Do you use the octave key for every note above the (middle) D (on saxophone)?

-Adrian

Answer:

Yes. For middle D and everything above it, you use the octave key.

The octave key helps all those notes play more easily. It has to do with the positioning of the holes on the horn connected to the octave key and the acoustics of how the saxophone works.

What is fork F?

-Tyler

The other day in class, Gary Meek told one of the tenor saxophone players that he might want to use ‘fork F’ for part of Michael Brecker’s tune ‘Straphanging’.

I was playing alto and the trumpet player, Tyler, sits next to me. He asked what fork F was. I realized that I didn’t know what fork F was for at least the first couple years that I played saxophone!

In general, most saxophone players start with the middle range of the horn and then move on to the lower notes and the higher notes. It can be difficult to play certain notes at first.

If you haven’t heard the song yet, check it out! Sometimes this alternate fingering for F (above the staff) ends up being useful. In Straphanging, the tenor gets into the altissimo range.

Here is the fingering for Fork F.

It is played like a C with the octave key with the addition of the button that is directly above where you would usually place your finger for a B.

The fork F on saxophone does not use the palm keys and uses less keys overall than the usual fingering, so sometimes that works better.

There is a similar fingering for fork E on saxophone.

Most saxophones have the front F key, but a few that are quite old may not.