Tips on starting out with Sop for student?

[SaxParent]

Just curious if anyone has any tips or advice for a high school student adding a soprano sax to being primarily a clarient player so far? Obvious answers...practice and work with your teacher. :) :!:

I'm just looking for any other comments to use as encouragement for this new instrument as we start out. I'm a brass player and really have limited assistance to offer for woodwinds. Note: student is a very dedicated & talented keyboard player but keeps expanding interest with woodwinds being the choice. Soprano sax is the 2nd being added after 6 years of dedicated and succesful clarinet efforts. Thanks for this forum and any comments. :wave:

[singlereed]

My daughter began on soprano sax after a couple of years on clarinet. A student will probably take to the soprano sax easily enough, but even very good player can forget which they are playing. Although the size of the mouthpiece is similar, the embouchure required for saxophone and the airstream are quite different from clarinet. A good teacher is well worthwhile - preferably someone who majors on saxophone as opposed to one of those guys who plays a sax as if it were a clarinet. It can be hard if tou are regulalry playing both to remember which you have in your hands, but unlike some doubles, it will not mess with the muscles in the embouchure. The clarinet requires a 'smile' whereas the sax embouchure is bunched and circular, like a cat's bottom!

[Dave Dolson]

Saxparent: I started on sop sax when I was 16, with little if any musical experience. I did that because I wanted to do it.

My oldest daughter started on sop sax when she was in junior high school after years of piano. It can be done, and I for one have no problem in beginning children on soprano.

Buy (or rent) her a good horn and find a good teacher who supports her goal. If she is musical, chances are she will love it. DAVE

[pknight]

the sax embouchure is bunched and circular, like a cat's bottom!

Thanks for that image! ;)

[Tom Goodrick]

Make sure she starts with a mouthpiece having a tip opening of about .047 inches such as the Selmer S-80 C* ($66 at weinermusic.com) or the 4C piece that comes with the Antigua Winds horns. More open tips should await development of the emboucher. I tried more open "jazz" pieces and they have not worked as well even though I had tenor and trumpet chops to begin with. I also recommend using a strap and a straight sop with a "bent" neck that creates enough angle for the strap to work. You don't want her dropping the horn when she plays C# (all fingers up). There are many other opinions on this but that's mine.

It might be better to start a student on alto sax. She won't be forgetting which horn she has. The horns all cost about the same. I speak as the father of a former alto sax player who grew up to become a scientist who plucks acoustic guitar for fun.

[SaxParent]

Thanks for the feedback. We are doing our best to properly prepare for this effort and have just begun working with an actual instrument. The tips and input are appreciated, as the encouragement. Our intial effort is going ok and I'm sure over the next few weeks more questions will arise. We acquired a "new" OLDS brand instrument model NA60M1-1 with both straight and curved necks. Don't know much about this horn...made in Taiwan "to their specs" as the OLDS brand name has recently been revived in the country. So far it seems to be pretty good quality....we are evaluating intonation and ability to keep in tune, but when starting out this will take a bit of time. Not knowing much else about what to look for with keywork, pads, etc. should we be looking at any other features while the horn is still in its evaluation time period? The mouthpiece that came with it is hard rubber it appears and I need to ascertain some measurements to see if the tip opening is as suggested or not. Reeds selected at this point were Rico 2.5??

Thanks again for any suggestions. :) Great to have this forum as we begin :!:

[DirkW]

Here's a good resource when you're first starting with soprano. It helped me tremendously.

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

[gary]

...whereas the sax embouchure is bunched and circular, like a cat's bottom!Oh man, that had my eyes watering. (With some of today's posts, you sure can tell it's Friday.) That's funny. Thing about it is, I don't know who I can use that with as a teacher, but it's about as perfect a discription as I have ever read.

"...ole one-eye."

ROTFLMAO!!

[A Greene]

Being a Middle School Band Guy - There's a couple reasons why we don't start kids on soprano

1) The quality and consistency of sopranos is very wide. Although the rest of the saxophones are getting just as bad. Just image starting 20 soprano saxophone players - in the same room no doubt. WOW - talk about making your eyes water.

2) There typically isn't a part in a standard band arrangement for soprano.

That doesn't mean that a dedicated and committed student could not begin on soprano but to have EVERYONE start on soprano would be challenging.

But that's just my $.02 Good Luck

[Fred]

As a clarinet player learning saxes, I find that I can play with decent intonation as long as I play soprano like a saxophone. When I play it like a clarinet, the intonation across the range of the instrument goes wild. So I suggest practicing with a tuner - it will help with learning the instrument as well as embouchure issues.

(Yes . . . I know. Tuner is a crutch; we need to use our ears to play in tune. Still like the tuner. BTW, my group is led by an electronic keyboard playing A440, so I don't find myself trying to adjust up or down to match the pitch of the day.)

[SaxParent]

:)

Thanks for all the ideas and input. We are very impressed with the quality of the instrument from OLDS (Model NA60M1-1 Intermediate). Don't know who makes it, but well done! Their upgrade models feature "tone boosters" and perhaps better keywork, but for a beginner this seems like a good choice. It came with both straight and curved necks and mostly up to now we are using the curved neck.

Practice is moving forward each day. We borrowed a tuner and all seems to be in order with the instrument for the most part. Sure, a bit of adjustment needed on certain notes but seems to be doing fine. It seems as if the curved neck intonation is fine and no more challenging than the straight.

We have also borrowed 2 intro sax books and all seems to be making sense so far and moving rapidly through things. Hope to begin some work with a teacher soon.

Nice addition to begin work on this. Any feedback on care and maintenance of the instrument is appreciated. :wave:

[SaxParent]

Just wanted to say all is going well with the addition of soprano for this high school clarinet/keyboard player in our family. She loves it and it sounds really good in a short amount of time. The tips received are appreciated and the resources this forum offers are excellent.

Looking to the future she may also want to add an alto. For a beginner alto option we are considering something from Dave Kessler based on all the positives SOTW forum offers for his house brand horns. Anyone have any experience with the "tone enhancer" he suggests that I believe is custom fit into the neck?

Keep up the good work with the forum and thanks for the help to get a new soprano player up and running very quickly!! :cheers:

[Tom Goodrick]

Now that she is into the sop, I would recommend she try tenor sax for two reasons: 1) it plays the same B flat music as the sop and clarinet and 2: its sound complements the sound of the sop very well. I enjoy playing through a song on one and then switching to the other and going back through, using each in its low to mid range. You learn to appreaciate and use the best aspects of each horn instead of stretching one into the other. Blowing one is as easy as blowing the other. I have medium size hands and my finger stretching is harder on the sop than on the tenor (pinky for low B flat or concert A flat). For the tenor I use a padded strap. I would shop at Kessler's.