prelude from lute suite IV for alto saxophone

J.S. Bach’s lute suites have been inspiring me lately, so much so that I’ve adapted BWV 1006 – Prelude from Lute Suite IV to fit within the range of the alto saxophone.  I’ve been working on this piece as a warm up and it’s been very refreshing and therapeutic.  Here’s a video of master guitarist John Williams performing it:

Below you can download both the original concert pitch version, and my Eb variation for alto sax in PDF file format:

considerations for saxophonists:

Try practicing this piece in several ways:  With a metronome, without a metronome; with a metronome in half notes and offset to every 16th note; slurred, tongued and 4-note articulation combinations thereof, and with dynamics.

For even more practice, try learning the piece in the concert key provided or try reading it backwards (in retrograde).  If you’d like a PDF for that, please feel free to contact me.

the octaves of rascher’s method

Sigurd Rascher (pictured) is one of the fathers of saxophone technique.  He paved the way for countless saxophonists by developing a timeless school of thought for sound development, balance and projection.  Where trumpet players have the Caruso method, we saxophonists have Sigurd Rascher’s Top Tones for the Saxophone.  Rascher revolutionized the range of the saxophone and brought a new standard to altissimo practice and development.  Even for seasoned professionals, these exercises are simple and yet hugely rewarding.  Each deal with the control over the harmonic series which demands a very precise control over air speed, throat shape and tongue position.

From the forward of Top Tones for the Saxophone:

“Without exception, the student who fails to comprehend the prime importance of the development of the ‘inner ear’ – ‘tone imagination,’ ‘concept of tone’ – also fails to produce, let alone master, the high register.  On the other hand, the student who realizes that mind (concept) and body (embouchure, fingering) must work together, will in due course success.  We too often underestimate the power of the active mind.”

The inventor of the saxophone, Adolphe Sax remarked that he designed the saxophone “as flexible as a string instrument and as powerful as one of the brasses”.

Often, us saxophonists rely too much on our octave keys which can possibly lead to range and sound limitations.  An amazing experience is to play the saxophone and never use the octave key! This is an incredible practice for sound control.  The octave key is  in fact a small crutch and is not necessary for playing the saxophone.  Brass instruments have no octave keys and the performer must to make the necessary changes with their embouchure and air stream  when in different ranges.

practicing with musician’s earplugs

Everything is loud these days.  Music on the web is mastered especially loud so that people listening back on internal laptop speakers still get that blast-effect on most commercial music.  This elevates the general, perceived standard for how much tolerance we give to something that is loud.  The more we adjust this standard, the more our hearing is at stake.  See The Loudness War.   As musicians, we often find our selves in small concrete rehearsal rooms, and playing venues with  mediocre sound systems cranked to the highest degree.  And if you ride public transit, I highly recommend wearing musician earplugs because train and traffic noise is some of the worst causes of hearing damage on a day-to-day level, but maybe that’s just a New York thing – screeching subway brakes are very fatiguing on the ears.

One of the best investments a professional musician or audio professional can make is in a set of musician earplugs.  These are custom-molded by an audiologist to fit perfectly within your ear canal, that will protect against hearing loss and tinnitus.  The sound quality heard while wearing musician earplugs is identical to sound heard when not wearing them, it simply attenuates the entire frequency spectrum equally.  The biggest challenge is actually wearing them and playing an instrument.   Wind players find them especially disorienting at first since they emphasize all the natural oral sounds produced by your mouth as heard through your jawbone.  Try plugging your ears with your index fingers and chewing a piece of gum to hear an example of what I’m talking about.  This is disorienting at first when all you’re used to is hearing your full, unattenuated sound.  Like most things, in order to perform with musicians earplugs, it is necessary to practice with musician earplugs.

For wind players, there are hidden benefits from practicing with musician’s earplugs:

1) Amplified Articulation: The sound of your tongue movement against the mouthpiece is very clear, which promotes a practice of clean, precise and intentional articulation.

2) Amplified Key noise: Opening and closing keys will produce a mechanical sound heard through your instrument and up into your jaw, revealing inconsistencies of the hand’s rhythmic precision.

It is a meditation to hear these nuances through musician’s earplugs.  Cultivating an awareness to the minutiae details in your sound production will only enhance your performance.  Best of all, it will save your ears from wear and tear.

circular breathing training

Circular breathing is one of those funny subjects among wind players.  Many vow never to learn the technique and see it as something rather distasteful.  It is commonly overused and often unnecessarily replaces a normal breath.  However, it may also aid in one’s musicality when used effectively for phrase flexibility.  I’ve seen many virtuosos circular breathe incredibly freely, namely flutist Nicole Mitchell and clarinetist David Krakauer whose seamless use blow me away every time.  Most importantly, it never took away from their performance.  Adding to its usefulness, the embouchure strength gained in the practice of circular breathing is very unique and invaluable.

I’ve read several articles and a few books on the technique, most of them involving blowing a straw into a glass of water to keep the bubbles going.  Nothing seemed to work for me.  Then I realized that circular breathing is what didgeridoo players do constantly!  I found this video  and instantly started seeing the benefits and pinpointed my weaknesses in earlier attempts.   This balloon exercise allows for incredible control of one’s airstream and develops embouchure integrity like no other, and it’s so simple! As you’re about to see, that it’s all in the cheek muscles…

seal a reed for maximum use

This post highlights a simple procedure designed to extend longevity of reeds.  My first saxophone teacher showed this to me and it is something that I have adopted as good practice for saving time, money and avoid reed headaches.  This is one way to gain a little more control over the consistency of sound a reed can produce.  Quality of vibration is what sound production is all about.   Best of all, it takes only few minutes.

Every reed has microscopic pores that are the veins of the cane from which it came.  To see these pores more clearly dip a new reed completely in water and blow on the butt of the reed and see the bubbles formed on the vamp of the reed.  In the image below, the vamp is the part of the reed indicated by the arrow.

Brand new reeds have these pores wide open which means they absorb all kinds of things like moisture, bacteria and other potentially disgusting things like bits of food, flesh, lip gloss, etc.  Acidic beverages like soda, beer, coffee, juice are the absolute worst. Sealing a reed limits the amount of moisture it can absorb, thus making it less susceptible to deterioration.  All it takes is the pressure of your thumb on a moist reed on a flat surface, rubbing down firmly from the file of the reed to the tip.  The key here is to apply downward pressure while rubbing upwards to the tip.   Repeat this several times.  Thumbs may get sore in the process.

Finally, you can check how much of a seal you achieved by once again dipping the reed completely in water and then blowing from the butt of the reed, observing how few bubbles are now forming.  Keep in mind it’s rare to completely seal all pores entirely.  Doing this procedure along with a  simple reed rotation i.e. not playing the same reed everyday, might just save the cost of buying boxes upon boxes of reeds unnecessarily, and gain a truer reed vibration.