What questions do you have about learning the saxophone?
The questions that advanced players and professionals have won’t necessarily be the ones that will help you. Although, if you’re addicted to saxophone, you might find them interesting anyway.
If you have been playing saxophone one year or less……
Do you have questions about buying a saxophone?
Getting a new mouthpiece?
Playing the extreme registers of the saxophone?
Improving your tone?
Received a question from Tim about saxophone overtones that seemed to be coming out unintentionally. He was working on altissimo. My first thought was that it might be leaks, but he has a pretty new horn. Might also be an issue of the timing of lifting the fingers between the notes.
Hi Neal
I hope you are doing well.
My question is about overtones. I have been working on some altissimo notes, and I guess in the process overtones. My problem is I hit ovetones in my normal playing. Just going from low F to low A.
It really sounds very bad when you hit a high A instead of a low A!
Don’t get me wrong I like have the use of overtones, but I want to be able to control them.
Is there something I can work to get some control with overtones?
Thanks for your help!
Keep rocking!
Tim
Neal: I’m doing well, thanks. I know you have a pretty new horn…. but it sounds like there might be leaks. They would cause the higher overtones to come out when you’re not trying to play them. Playing long tones in general will help you control your saxophone including when overtones come out. Also, is your setup comfortable? I’m talking about the reed/mouthpiece combo.
-Neal
Tim: I’m having the horn checked out in a couple of weeks and I’m going to try some different reed combo’s to see how that goes.
Thanks for the info, I’ll let you know how it goes.
For the alto sax players! The Jackson 5 Bass Line.
Again, you can learn it by ear and disregard the diagrams and learn it by ear or you can go ahead and use them to play along.
It should be played slow enough for you to get it by ear. The first note on alto sax is F. To give you a quick hint upfront.
Let me know what you think!
A new sax video lesson for ya’ll.
You can check out the diagrams if you’re a beginning player and need help, or just ignore them and learn it by ear.
Might be better to just have note letter names and/or just give you guys the first couple of notes and have you learn the rest by ear.
The main benefit of a lesson like this is that the music is played slowed down and that’s done by me actually playing it slower on saxophone instead of using a machine to slow it down and distort it.
The editing is a little rough, but the video itself should help you learn a cool musical line on saxophone.
Let me know what you think!
Got a question about playing full range chromatic scales, specifically how to master the high and low ends.
We don’t spend as much time in these areas of the saxophone’s range, so naturally we aren’t as comfortable with them.
For the chromatic scale and other scales, there’s a practice technique I learned that really helps.
Rachel:
Hi, I’m trying out for All District on alto sax. Right now I’m really struggling with my extreme registers when I play the full range chromatic!
Neal:
Hey Rachel, that happens, the high and low extremes are harder to play. You probably just want to focus on them a bit in isolation. The mid range isn’t as hard, so don’t spend as much time on it. If the lows are really hard to play, you could have leaks. What would you say specifically is difficult about it?
Rachel:
Mostly fingering up to speed, and tonguing fast enough when I descend.
Neal:
There was an exercise I learned called ‘micro scales’. You can use it on any scale, including the chromatic. Take five notes and play them from bottom to top or top to bottom. You can do this across the range of the saxophone and find out where you are having trouble and then concentrate on those places. For those parts, slow down and spend some time on them. It will help your fingering technique and articulation too.
Rachel:
That sounds great, thank you so much!
The other night I decided I wanted to know ‘Goodbye Porkpie Hat’. The song written by Charles Mingus as a tribute to Lester Young based off of the jam session after he passed away.
It’s a ballad that I have played before and somewhat knew.
So I thought I would concentrate on this one song and learn it.
The whole strategy of working on less material- making you really master it seems like a great idea in theory, but historically I definitely haven’t always done it.
After a little while I learned all the notes, the melody isn’t terribly complicated.
Spent a little time getting the crescendos right and trying to play the inflections.
Probably should listen to a few players on the tune to get some ideas.
Then I went on to the chord changes. The chord changes are not standard by any means. The melody has one set and the solo section has a completely different set.
Charles Mingus says, “I went home and wrote a blues the way I thought they were playing, with different types of chord changes0note just the regular blues- and it became part of the book.”
That makes it an interesting song. It has alterations, changes between multiple chords within a measure and has a sequence of altered ii V progressions.
But it also made me realize that I should really master the harmonies of the standards first. Getting down the blues changes, minor blues, Rhythm changes, etc in all keys will be useful for many more songs.
Just like you learn the common words in a language as a young child, rather than the complex medical terms that will only be useful in a very certain situation.
It’s a cool tune, but for now I think knowing the melody is enough!
I would like to learn all there is to know about the sax.. whats the difference between my major and minor scale and what are they
-Lavert
Hey Lavert,
The major scale is 7 notes with a certain set of intervals between them.
If you played a C major scale on the piano, it’s the white notes traveling from C up an octave to the next C. C D E F G A B C
Between E and F and and B and C there are half steps.
So the pattern is W W H W W W H, where W = whole step and H = half step.
It’s the same pattern for all twelve major scales (one for each scale starting on each different note).
Minor scales are a bit more complicated, since there are three types- harmonic, natural, and melodic.
Master your major scales first. Then you can relate minor scales and many other types of scales to them.
-Neal
Last weekend I was subbing in a big band on second tenor and we played ‘In the Mood’ by Glenn Miller.
The main melodic line has a harmony on that part that goes from G to Bb to F.
Using the side Bb fingering is pain for that!
But, as I figured out/remembered towards the end of the song, it’s much easier to use the ‘F’ fingering for Bb in that situation.
You play a B like normal in the left hand and also include your pointer finger down for your right hand.
This makes going from a G to a Bb to an F really easy!
There are several fingerings for Bb.
…gong fu actually means skill that transcends mere surface beauty. A martial artist whose technique is decorative but without power “has no gong fu,” whereas, say, a calligrapher whose work is no pretty to look at but reflects a strong, austere taste certainly “has gong fu.”
(Mark Salzman, pg 30 Iron and Silk
A saxophonist should also have gong fu in his or her playing.
Part of that means, really mastering the basics before moving on. And having a solid foundation beneath any flashy technique.
Sometimes I hear a musician grooving and then they ruin it by playing something fancy that loses the groove.
Mastery of anything involves the same processes, so I would recommend the book Iron & Silk even you don’t study martial arts. And the author, Salzman, also plays cello and he took his cello to China on his stay there.
Using a metronome and starting slowly will help build your skills and make you more comfortable.
Reading properly will help you with improvisation since it will give you quicker access to written music and ideas. It also lets you share your ideas, esp. if you start composing.
To make it your own, you’ll add your personality and your style and maybe even change the rhythms. But it’s important to be able to play music as it was written sometimes, especially when you’re playing with other musicians.
It’s much faster to be able to play music by reading it than playing it by ear, IF you’re a good reader. I’m not saying your ear is not important, however, you want to have multiple tools for music. If you were building a house, you would want a hammer and a saw and probably a lot of other tools. Having a really big hammer wouldn’t make up for not having a good saw.
And think about this, if someone suddenly can’t play a gig and you get called to come in and read some charts, you won’t get the gig if you can’t read well. It will go to someone who might not sound as good as you, but who can read.
-Neal
“Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the Earth.”
Archimedes
He could do this by leverage.
You can also get better faster using the leverage of tools and help from other musicians.
A metronome, tuner, method book, can all make you get better if they are the right tools and you use them correctly.
Just listening to recordings can teach you a lot if you really listen.
So can recording yourself and finding things that you want to improve in your own playing.
Another way is to take lessons and use what your teacher says, if they’re good lessons. Then you’re leveraging all the time they have spent learning the saxophone.
A scientist doesn’t build all his or her machines and come up with equations and theories from scratch. Einstein, Newton, Galileo, and almost anyone you can think of took the foundations of science and added to it.
You can learn sax by yourself, but tools and other people can help you learn faster.
Want to play saxophone, but feeling lost and not sure how to get started?
In this online/downloadable class you will see methodical lessons in a sequence and you can get feedback and ask questions at any point.
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Want to take your playing to the next level?
You’ll learn fundamental saxophone skills, building past the basics. Master rhythms. Learn about phrasing, tone, and more. Here you will get feedback which is crucial to developing good habits.
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