Saxophones, Guitars, Songwriting, Music Production, Logic Studio, and a bunch more!
You are currently browsing the Saxophone category.
A post form Neal over at the ever informative Sax Station, got me thinking. Neal mentioned that he likes to take a Clarinet along for portability purposes when traveling, where my preference is for my Curved Soprano Sax.
Depending on who you ask, most people understand the term doubling as meaning having a main instrument, but in addition playing a similar instrument usually of a similar type. For example, a sax player might double with a Trumpet, Clarinet, Oboe, or similar. The argument for this is that each instrument brings it’s own challenges, style of playing and technique, that can often translate or influence variety on your main instrument. There are many people in favour of this as bringing something fresh to their main instrument, however. Many people (including the likes of Larry Teal and many other pro players) believe that in order to double properly you have to invest proper time and effort into the secondary instrument.
Whilst I have no plans of doubling anytime soon (beyond guitar and keyboard, which can’t really be considered doubling in the vein of this post), my thoughts are that surely serving two masters, for instance the clarinet and saxophone, splits your focus, and time you’re investing into the second instrument, might be better spent focusing purely on your main?
Obviously it’s hard to have objective experience, since you can’t be in two places at the same time, but I’d love to hear from other doublers regarding their thoughts and experiences on the subject?
Per my teachers instruction, I’ve been playing Soprano almost exclusively for the last few weeks, the concept behind this is that, it requires greater focus and a more controlled embouchure, which sounds to me like it makes sense. So this is how I’ve practicing, and to be honest the Soprano Sax is a much more portable instrument meaning that I’ve been getting more practice overall which can only be a good thing. I’ve been paying particular attention to subtone and the higher register up towards Altissimo (but not into it).
I’m happy to report that the concept worked in practice, I picked up both the Alto and Tenor yesterday for a short session on each, and it’s safe to say that my control, intonation and quality of tone overall had increased dramatically, I almost didn’t recognise the person playing (which has to be a great thing!!).
Anyone else have any thoughts about using this method for improving tone focus and control? I’d love to hear about it!!
I was reading a post on Sax Station today called “Beginner’s Mind Child’s Mind for Saxophone” and it reminded me of a book I read recently called Zen Guitar. It’s a fantastic book, and I think anyone playing an instrument would find it useful, to be honest the book could probably apply equally well to just about any endeavour in life. The book focuses on the whole approach to playing an instrument, and perhaps more importantly a myriad of aspects that we may not think about in our normal day-to-day practice. It’s not expensive and I think it has a little something for everyone, check it out, and as always would love to know what you think.
[amazonshowcase_8a0ac9b2fda8f8df45b643d91a079bc4]
I’ve spent the last week or so practicing my subtone technique, and I must say that it’s coming along quite nicely so far, with substantial quantities of Lee Konitz, Stan Getz and Paul Desmond on the iPod and Hi-Fi (is that term even relevant any more??) I’m getting plenty of inspiration. I’ve gotta say though, my technique is a far cry from that of the aforementioned greats, I wonder how long it’ll be before I can get this technique down sufficiently to pull it off in public? Hey, back to the practice we go 
Any other subtone listening recommendations are warmly welcomed
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.
One of the first posts I wanted to write was about a little known saxophone brand; Bauhaus Walstein. This is a Chinese made horn (although I believe the higher-end models are made in Taiwan?), which has been getting a lot of press lately and quite rightly so. I first came across these when professional saxophonist Pete Thomas mentioned them as offering a lot of horn for the money, and a few conversations were springing up around them on his forum over at the breakfast room.
To be honest they seemed a little too good to be true, because let’s face it, how can you possibly buy a great saxophone for less than £400 ($600 US); all this talk was followed shortly thereafter by some sound-clips played by Pete (the one played in this clip is a high-end model that comes in at around £1,000), and a review by a well known UK saxophone tech called Stephen Howard, followed by a side-by-side comparison with an equivalent Yanagisawa. The evidence appeared overwhelming, so when I was looking around for a new tenor I decided to jump in feet first and give them a shot.
I wasn’t disappointed at all!! The instrument is well balanced with a beautiful warm dark tone, it’s made of phosphur bronze so it’s really pleasing to the eye as well. The mouthpiece that came with mine was a plastic thing that went straight in to the bin (although I understand that they ship with Yamaha mouthpieces now); I replaced it with an Otto-Link Super Tone Master which finished the tone off nicely.
I can recommend these unreservedly, and as has been pointed out several times by others, they make a perfect gigging sax, or beginners sax, because of the price of the instrument. Arguably you get a horn that’s (arguably) almost to the standards of a £2K+ horn for a quarter of the price, not bad going at all!!
If you’re interested in finding out more you can see them on the Woodwind and Brass UK site.
Bauhaus Walstein Alto Saxophone