I did not learn to play saxophone in the most traditional
way. When all but one of the saxophonists quit band going into 7th
grade I volunteered to give up playing trumpet to be a saxophonist. After
school I stepped into my director’s office and was given one of the school’s
alto saxophones. In about 5 minutes I was told to stick the reed on the
mouthpiece like so, put the thing together like that, here’s a book and go have
fun. Ok!
=
I caught the hang of it pretty quickly and soon I was better
than the guy that played for two years. Getting to college, however, I was
enlightened by my saxophone professor that there is a whole new approach to
producing the perfect tone, the totally detailed guide is in Larry Teal’s Art of Saxophone Playing.
It all starts with playing on just
the mouthpiece. To do this, place the end of your pinky on your bottom lip and
barely roll it over your bottom teeth, set the mouthpiece with the reed on your
bottom lip about a quarter of an inch in, place top teeth on the top of the
mouthpiece, create an air-seal with the lips and blow.
It should sound like a horde of dying cats, but make sure
the reed is not being choked. The trick, however, lies in getting the dying cat
to sound an A on a tuner. To accomplish this, have your students open their
throat like when they are yawning. Once mastered, the next step is to use their
mad throat muscles to bend the pitch as far as they can like a slide whistle.
The first time they do this successfully will probably sound like an air-raid
going off.
If students
do not sound an A on the mouthpiece then their tone will be bright and quite
unsuitable for the concert setting.
This recording of a beginning saxophonist is quite good,
fantastic for a beginner! His tone, however, is not close to characteristic
yet. His sound is bright, honkish, and somewhat buzzy on some notes. Have a
listen:
On the other end of the spectrum, this recording of Jean-Marie
Londiex is beautiful. The tone is vibrant and melt-in-your-mouth-chocolate
sweet. Londiex is one of the greatest people to ever play saxophone and this
recording exemplifies it beautifully. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
Now think about this: if you put
beautiful sounding saxophones in your band, would it not make the band sound
better? Playing in the Wind Ensemble at TLU, I definitely feel like players
that have a beautiful sound are able to blend with the tambres of other
instruments, making the entire ensemble play increasedly harmoniously. There
have been pieces in which my saxophone sound meshed with the French horn sound
so well that our notes to where you could not tell if a saxophone or a horn was
playing.
What kind of experiences have you had
where a piece of music was so beautiful that you just sat in awe while
listening to it? This is mine!
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