How to develope a relaxed embouchure?

[solflare100]

I've been a clarinetist for... well, let's just say, quite a bit longer than I've been playing Tenor sax. One good thing about that is that I can play in tune very easily, along with getting used to playing sax fast...

HOWEVER... my embouchure, coming from playing clarinet, is too hard, as I have discovered. I am trying to train an embouchure that is softer, so I can play in a more relaxed fashion, as well as having an easier time in hitting the altissimo notes.

Are there any tips out there for learning how to do that? :?

[colibri]

You embouchure should be loose enough that you can stick your pinky into the side of your mouth while playing high notes on the sax. It's shown to me by David Liebman.

[ronaldodn]

Very interesting tip. Do you have a email address ??

Tks

Ronaldo

[Lyle]

Try lifting your upper teeth from the mouthpiece (now and then) to get a feel for a losser emb. I am a sax beginner coming from clarinet and I find this helps.

Perhaps a more experienced sax guy/gal will agree or disagree to this method?

[Anonymous]

Two to three ounces of Old No.7 per set will keep that danged jaw loose!

[asian sax]

i 2nd lyle's tip. i borrowed an eric marrienthal video from someone to watch. that was one of the things he did, i guess to counteract biting or making your embouchure too tight? but yeah, just sustain a note and while holding it, bring your upper lip off and on the mouthpiece. pretty tough at first but u'll get the hang of it.


colibri, can you explain more on what you said? :D

[stitch]

bring your upper lip off and on the mouthpiece. pretty tough at first but u'll get the hang of it. :D

Do you mean lip or teeth asian sax? Lyle said teeth, which sounds OK - surely if you raised your lip all the air would escape?

[Ritchie]

No, it is really the upper lip. But I'd see it more as an exercise for focussing the airstream than to develop a loose embouchure.

[stitch]

No, it is really the upper lip.

so teeth on, lip off and stop the breath escaping ... that's some challenge :!:

[colibri]

Sorry for coming in so late.
It's very easy, just play a palm key D, then stick your right pinky into one corner of your mouth. If you can't jam it in, your embouchure is too tight and should use softer reeds. 8)

[Razzy]

That's strange... the correct embouchure should have very tight corners and loose vertical pressure from the lips. Strong horizontal, loose vertical (nothing more than enough to seal the airstream on the top, and cushion the reed on the bottom). I think this kind of invalidates the pinky thing... did you ever see how much the guys who advocate that exercise push from the lips and chin? You don't need that, it dampens the tone. I've always heard Liebman especially as having a characteristically thin, dry tone. His skill is in his technique... same goes for Coltrane, but to a greater extreme!

Also what is this upper lip thing?? I can't get a darned sound out of my horn if the airstream isn't sealed, I don't know anyone who can, either... but whatever works for you :roll:

[asian sax]

the upper lip thing is kinda weird, lol. i saw it when i borrowed this eric marrienthal video.

anyways, here's how it works. just play say, a G1, and concentrate on bringing your upper lip off the mouthpiece. i think eric marrienthal mentioned something about it being called a bucktooth exercise or something cuz when you bring your lips off the mouthpiece your teeth show. air does escape, but not enough where your whole sound will go away.


i think it's supposed to help in counteracting pressure from your upper lip? somethin like that...lol

but i've also practiced playing some long tones w/my upper teeth off the mouthpiece as well.

[Ritchie]

With only the top teeth on the mouthpiece and the lifted upper lip, air will escape of course. The challenge is to play a sound with the part of the air that goes through the mouthpiece. It's just a mean exercise for the shed... :twisted: :wink: and I agree it's weird. Still it may have some benefit for focusing the air stream.

[Lyle]

IMHO: Lifting your upper lip distracts you from your goal of a proper embouchure. I see no value to the exercise. However, my opinion is humble, and flexible.

[FunkySax]

side pressure is extremely important for a correct embouchure

[jeanniep412]

Related topic: How do you learn to develop a relaxed throat cavity when playing the sax? I have a big problem trying to relax my throat and embouchure. I will try the posted suggestions for embouchure, but do you have any tips in training your throat to relax instead of tighten up?
Thanks

[Razzy]

The trick here is to play in such a way that you are almost formulating your oral cavity to voice the word "old" or a similar one in which the throat is very open. Then, do not try to blow the air as if you were whistling; this raises the tongue, an improper practice in classical playing (but which can be used with some success in jazz). Instead, envision yourself blowing the air from the bottom of your diaphragm, and then accelerating it from the bottom of the throat. This requires a great deal of breath support to sustain (try practicing it away from the sax), otherwise the air will simply escape very quickly. Breath support will control the stream. Up to this point, your mouth should be open and wide. Now draw the corners of the mouth in but do NOT change your tongue position. And this would be the correct way to play the sax.

Simple apply this to the sax by drawing the corners into the sides of the mouthpiece, sealing the upper lip, and using the lower/side lip tension to seal off the reed. You need to use breath support, always be aware of it; this is the key to relaxing the oral cavity and playing in tune! Play your long tones the full range of the instrument and constantly be aware of these things.

My teacher said something to me a while ago that I will never forget: "fast is slow, slow is fast, low is high, and high is low." Here you need to apply: low is high, and high is low. Meaning, in the low register, do not let your embouchure and oral cavity become so relaxed that the sound spreads; instead think higher, as if you were playing the middle register (low is high). It works in the reverse: in the upper register, do not squeeze tigther and tighter with your embouchure and oral cavity as you go up, this will cut off the tone and cause it to be thin and anemic; instead think as if you were playing in the middle register (high is low).

I find that playing the low long tones to the piano pitch an octave higher, and the high long tones to the piano pitch an octave lower, helps greatly with this concept. Instead of thinking "darn this note is low", if you are trying to match it to the note an octave higher, you will be thinking it is in the middle and thus play it correctly, without the sound spreading and the like. And playing the high C and above to the piano pitch the octave lower, will cause the same process to occur in the reverse: instead of thinking "darn these high notes are tough, I need to tighten up" you will be thinking as if they were in the middle register and play them correctly. The latter there requires a bit more effort, as the notes become more difficult to control in both quality in pitch as the register ascends.

[jeanniep412]

Razzy, it sounds like you have an excellent teacher. Thanks for the advice. I was also interested in your other post on this thread about embouchure. My problem with embouchure (or one of the many) is that I have way too much vertical pressure instead of horizontal pressure. I'm having extreme difficulties finding a firm but relaxed embouchure without my chin muscles bunching up, or my sound choking off. I use those black oval rubber pads on top of my mouthpiece and I cut a hole in them with my teeth in two weeks or less. and sometimes my lower lip gets sore. Tonight I tried pulling in the corners more and it did sound more open, but I had trouble with the lower register. :?

[j44breaker]

I was always told to check every once and a while after a lick, to check to see if I could move the skin on my chin side to side with ease. If not, you've got the embouchure too tight--the skin's being tighty retracted on both sides, causing too much strain. That's the tip that I got at a masterclass--take it or not, it was a college professor, and I've found it to be quite useful.

[shauli]

I don't know, tell me,
I'm playing alto, when I was a beginner I've used a Meyer 5 with rico 3, and i had a good embouchure, the lips didn't sore and so on, than I moved to Beechler n.7 and i liked the strong - solid tone it produced but after almost two years I figured out that I'm playin to loud, and my dynamics wasn't in control, so my teacher advised me to take a Meyer 6 or 7, or an Ottolink with the same num. I took Ottolink *6 for a test-drive, and I'm now suffering from the period with the beechler. I'm trying to loose my embochure on the high registry and it works only when i'm focusing on it and thinking about it, but when I'm in a gig, 15 min. after its over my lower lip really hurts. it happens when I'm practicing more than 4 hours a day too. BUT, the sound from the ottolink is great, but what should i do with the high register? I can be loose only to the high C, after that i can't controll it to be loose.

so my teacher told me to get a meyer 6-7 and to use a 2.5-3 reed, I'm now using Vandorn Java n.2 with the ottolink *6.

What do you say?

sorry for the bad grammer.

[shauli]

My teacher tought me some good stuff on how to open the throat:

1. Take an A4 page, cut it to 1/4, take the 1/4.
stand by a wall in a distance of your foot. hold the paper with your hand to the wall, than remove the hand and blow air so that the paper will stay in its place on the wall, its dificult at the begining but don't give up!, after a while try going a little further distance from the wall.
This excersise is for focusing your air float.

Now for the throat excersises:
1. Bark! :lol: like a dog, I would recomend a San-Brenard it has a good bark tone don't try a Spanyell or smaller :) , at least 10 times before you start your practice session. If the other dogs in the hood join you its a sign you're doing the excersise properly.
2. Excersise long tones chromaticly with "saying" HO.
3. Excersise long tones chromaticly with "saying" KO.
4. Play KO-KO (not parker's :)) with chromatic scale, then KO-KO-KO (triplet). The important thing is not to stop the air floating between a KO & KO. its like a throat muscle excersise.

IF YOU FEEL A PAIN, STOP THE EXCERSISE

5. Play any scale you want with the tounging (AND "KOING") of :
TU-KO-TU-KO....

If you have any question about these excersises let me know!
good luck

[benjamin1979]

shauli, i think the reed ur using is too soft. for me, soft reed make me thighter in high note. i need to grip more and mess up my playing.

for a otto link 6, i advise u to use a # 3 java or 2.5 traditional vandoran.

try it.. u will be suprise.

[benjamin1979]

sorry , wrong name. not shauli, is solflare 100.

[Razzy]

Some things I've found work for me and lots of others that I pretty much discovered on my own:

-Play your long tones, starting each tone with a "he", rather than tonguing. This forces the throat to open up, and the tone will be very full. But definitely don't tongue, that's the point of this exercise. Just let the air start the reed. Once you're comfortable with this, alternate "he" with the normal tongued tone, and note any differences in the throat formation. It should be exactly the same for both. The tongue needs to be well-developed to be able to hold that big air flow back!

-Play long tones at a whisper, pianississimo, and try to hold the pitch for as long as possible! Really focus on pulling in the corners. Soft dynamics call for more embouchure and less air, so the embouchure needs to be correct. Starting these also with a "he" sound is a great combination exercise to get the throat AND embouchure working correctly together. But don't do that until you're comfortable with each individually.

These have really done wonders for me in the past week in terms of tone and bringing my embouchure closer to where I want it.

[Paul Coats]

The saxophone embouchure is more circular... that is, the forces are the same in all directions. The amount of embouchure tension may be learned by following my Tone Production article accessed from the home page of Sax On The Web. It is NOT necessary to be able to freezed the needle of a tuner exactly on pitch, and this is not the goal of this method. The goal is to be able to feel the approximate correct tension of the embouchure, and find the positioning of the mouthpiece that allows maximum resonance AND control.

One thing that I have found helps many players is vibrato studies. From this the player will intuitively find the center of tone from going to the extremes that are necessary at the beginning of this study. This is the standard method of teaching vibrato, and is described in Teal's The Art of Saxophone Playing, and my Vibrato article. Please, take this step by step, as described.

http://www.saxontheweb.net/Coats/

[Razzy]

Good stuff, and just to clarify, I don't mean you need to freeze the needle on the tuner. I mean that you should not lose a concept of where the center of the pitch is in your mind. Piano helps with this, even if it's not perfectly in tune. I use an electronic keyboard.