Saxophone Embouchure and Lip Support Help
Obviously when playing a saxophone, or any reed instrument for that matter embouchure and lip support play as big a role as diaphragm and air support in your tone, when any of these things are lacking you lose the clear, clean and controlled tone that allow you to articulate your sound and your tone well, so this posting is more of a post looking for feedback about how you get around the issue of controlling your tone when your embouchure begins to slacken due to endurance issues.
Obviously for each person it’s different, I personally start to suffer somewhere between 1 and 2 hours, which by some peoples standards is a bit poor (I see you nodding your head), which is simply because my time commitments don’t allow me to play nearly as often as I’d like to! Whilst I’m sure there are those of you out there who can play for hours on end before it starts to have any affect, and I suppose it’s the people that have suffered and moved through it that this post is aimed at.
When my embouchure begins to tire, I’ve gotten into the very bad habit of using my teeth to push against my lip to provide that extra bit of support which is not only a bad habit but also cuts the inside of my lower lip to pieces, not good!! I do try pushing more of the lip up when this starts to happen, but it doesn’t last very long before even that gets difficult (since you’re using the same muscles in a slightly different way, right?).
So my question to all of you marathon sax players out there is this:
“How do you keep playing in a controlled manner once your embouchure starts to flag?“
All suggestions and help gratefully received, obviously I realise that more practice will overcome this with time, but I’m thinking more of a band-aid remedy that will help you pull that extra 30 minutes out of the bag to finish the set you’re playing.