How to practise long notes (and stay awake!)

[Pete Thomas]

How many people know they really ought to practise more long notes?

And how many people don't do enough because they get bored, or even if they do, they suspect the practice is not as effective as it would be if they had been concentrating more?

I found that when I was learning, I could do 4 hours a day of just long notes, but these days unless I use some tricks, I am lucky to manage 15 minutes of focussed long note practice. In the end sometimes I just practise ballads, but I find doesn't provide enough discipline or control in all areas.

After some interesting debate about this on here a couple of years ago I devised a Visualisation exercise to help, but I recently did a lot of work on a new set of exercises to help not just tone improvement though long notes, but also control of expression. And it's a lot more easy to focus on than just plain old long notes.

This exercise ends up being a combination of various important factors, but initially I have split it into 3 exercises. This is easier to learn and especially better until you have developed a bigger lung capacity. If you find you can do any of them very easily in one breath, then either move on to the combined exercise at the end, or repeat the single ones. This is because it's important to be able to use that last bit of breath without dropping the airstream and weakening the note.

Before attempting this you do need a reasonable command of vibrato, but also be able to hold a tone as straight and wobble free as possible, don't worry if you aren't yet great at this, it will come. Oh yes, you also need the ability to tongue. (Even if your tonguing isn't great, this should help).

Suggested tempo is 90BPM, play on all or as many notes as you can fit into your time. I start on B as it is a comfortable note.

Tonguin
Tonguing is important, it has been said many times here that much of what you perceive as good saxophone sound is based very much on the initial start to the note. (Some people, would say "attack", as that is the technical term to describe a sound's "envelope" or shape, but that sounds a bit aggressive to me). Don't play staccato, don't even think of this as separate notes. Think one long note but with your tongue (tip of ideally) just lightly touching on or near the tip of the reed. Some people have other ideas about tongue/reed positions, that's fine)

Ex 1 Long notes with controlled articulation


Vibrato
No, you may not want to have a tone that has a constant vibrato, but a really useful expression tool is to be able to control how much and when, ie vary speed, depth and also have the ability to turn it on and off smoothly:

Ex 2 Long notes with controlled vibrato



Pitching and intonation
Obviously important anyway, but this is also an crucial part of a perceived good tone.
To help with this within a long note regime, I suggest slurring octaves. (Also other intervals but to begin octaves - and fifths - are useful as they seem to be the easiest for us to hear when they are right or wrong. I suggest you do this with vib, (that is the way I was taught this but this was initially from my flute teacher). No reason why you shouldn't do it without vib or with the legato tonguing instead. It all adds variety.

Ex 1 Long notes with controlled pitch slurring


Putting it all together:



For added interest, either the individual exercises or the big combo can be done with different dynamics. In fact, they should be done that way. Do them loud, do them quiet, do them with crescendi and diminuendi.

Also you can try combining with the visualisation exercise.

Who said long notes are boring?

[alsdiego]

Thanks, Pete..........

[G-dawg]

I'll have to try this. Thanks!

[tenor and soprano]

Pete, thank you so much for this exercise! When I do long tones, I get VERY frustrated because it's very hard for me to play staccato in the low register (from about F# down on tenor). I can do the legato tonguing (like in your exercise) pretty easily, but playing staccato is almost impossible. How do you suggest I can work on that?

[patchmo]

...mmmuummmbbbllleeee.....What was that?

[bluesaxgirl]

Nice...I'm printing this one out.

My band folder is stuffed with articles like this, mainly from you and your website.

[ismail]

you have a talent for exercices that are extremely straightforward but somehow motivating, useful and variable. same goes for the (Cmaj): c e g b a g f e d f a c b a g f e....- exercise. hope you know which one i mean.
bye!

[Jazz Is All]

Ismail, Pete probably does, but but others like me don't. So could you please describe that one for us? Thanks

[Pete Thomas]

Ismail, Pete probably does, but but others like me don't. So could you please describe that one for us? Thanks

It's here

http://www.petethomas.co.uk/saxophone-exercises.html
(no 1.1)

Also on video:

[Jazz Is All]

Thanks Pete. You're the best.

BTW, love the new avatar photo

[Bebopking]

Cool, thanks Pete. I was starting to loose focus with my long tones. Like you said- when I first started playing sax I was doing my long tones for 30 to 40 minutes and loving it. Now I'm lucky if I get 5 minutes in and I rush through it!! So thank you for the exercises and the reminder that I need to get back to my long tones.

[Pete Thomas]

I just noticed, the image links in the first post were broken, have fixed it now.

Sorry about that.

I've added some more to this exercise here:

http://tamingthesaxophone.com/saxoph...e-control.html

I'm very happy to get feedback, whether you agree or disagree with this idea.

[davecoldron]

4 hours daily just doing long tones - Respect!
I use your longtone exercises every day but only for about 10 mins as I only have an hour or less to practice a day.
Theres lots of great info on your site.

[JL]

Great stuff, Pete. Here's another variation on that warm up exercise. Once you get those arpeggios down in each key moving from the I chord to the IIm chord, IIIm, etc., start playing the same chord arpeggios but with cycle movement, starting on the IV chord (note, this exercise only uses the chord arpeggios, whereas Pete's also uses a scale fragment descending):

IV-VII-III-VI-II-V-I It's still all diatonic, so in C it would be: Fmaj7-Bm7b5-Em7-Am7-Dm7-G7-Cmaj7

Important: To smooth out the line, play up one chord, then down the next, voice leading to the nearest chord tone:

arpeggio up- F A C E (Fmaj7). arpeggio down- D B A F (Bm7b5), arpeggio up- E G B D (Em7), arpeggio down- C A G E (Am7), etc.

This gets you playing along the lines of typical chord progression movement. It's all diatonic above, but try changing the VIm7 chord to a VI7 chord (on A7 above, use a C#) and see what happens.

Sorry if this is confusing. I don't know how to write it out with notes on a staff on the computer here (I'm still pretty computer illiterate).

Edit: I should add, that as a warm-up exercise, the one Pete outlines is better. This is something beyond a warm up, more related to the cycle of fourths.

[Bebopking]

Wow, JL, your exercise sounds interesting! Can't wait to try it! I am lacking in hearing basic chord movement. Your exercise looks like it will help me

[MADLOU]

More videos! More videos! More videos! Great job, Pete!