Question:

“….I’m practicing my saxophone right now,, I’m sounding better

But I have a Question:

When you play does your tongue have to touch the reed when you play ???

Thanks That’s what I heard from my teacher.”

-Josselin

My response:

Your tongue articulates the notes, it separates the notes. So it’s off for the note, on the reed between notes if they’re supposed to be tongued.

There are different ways of tonguing, more of a ‘tah’ or ‘dah’ depending on the articulation you want. Takes some time and practice to develop control of articulation.

In the first couple of weeks when I played clarinet before starting to play saxophone as well, I actually used separate breaths to articulate the notes. Have seen a few students do the same thing.

For me, my band teacher noticed quickly and essentially told me to knock it off (since that was a very ineffective way to play), to start tonguing to articulate. That’s how you want to articulate on the saxophone- by tonguing. Much more control, though it takes some work to get that control.

Articulating using separate breaths is kind of like using a closed fist to dribble a basketball. Kind of works but very much lacks control and precision.