Barry recently asked a question about articulation on saxophone:

“How do you articulate a dotted eighth with a sixteenth?
thanx in advance
-Barry

This question on articulation was included at the end of a comment on here.

At first, it seems pretty straightforward….

But then I thought about it some more.

In a particular style of music, the articulation for that pattern would be fairly set.  In the classical style, you would play the dotted eighth for its full value and then play the sixteenth staccato (generally).  Playing that way makes the two notes distinct and fits in that style of music.

In jazz, swing eighth notes used to be played like the dotted eighth and sixteenth.  As in it would be written out as eighth notes, but you would swing it by playing them like dotted eighth and sixteenths.

Unlike in classical music, you would not articulate the sixteenth note as being very staccato.  That wouldn’t flow well in jazz (in general).

That interpretation changed over the years though and swing eighth notes came to be played more like a triplet quarter note and triplet eighth note together.

There’s also the issue of personal interpretation, depending on how it fits with the music either note can be made a bit longer or shorter.

Articulation is a very important part of playing saxophone, it makes a huge difference in style.

An extreme example would be an all staccato polka type song vs smooth jazz.

Polka would sound like crap if you articulated it like smooth jazz and smooth jazz would sound like crap if you articulated it like polka!