Sax on the Web Forum banner

Tone Production

305K views 662 replies 159 participants last post by  CaillouSax 
#1 ·
I'm tired of mouthpiece makers lying to players telling them that they can get a potential customer to sound like someone, that's a bunch of BS. I'm laying out what I learned from Joe Allard, Herk Faranda, and Vick Morosco here and I’ll elaborate if some of you guys practice them and report back to me. My feeling is that the books and exercises available for sale are unnecessarily complicated. So, here's some stuff just to get started.

Play middle F without the octave key and using your throat, "slide" it down to low F. There’s no rhythm so hold the note for as long as you have to until it sounds low F but do it with the air stream and while opening your throat and supporting your diaphragm. It should be CLEAN and don't use your embouchure. If there's a gurgle or some distortion in between then keep trying until it's CLEAN. Use your diaphragm and open your throat more as you go to the low F and keep the diaphragm SUPPORTED. Do this exercise chromatically down to low Bb. It gets harder as you go down but the benefits will come by just practicing it. You should probably do it on F and E before you venture further down the register but trying to do it on D or Eb won't hurt because it's harder and may give you insight as to how to do it but if you're not successful then stop and take a break because you don't want to reinforce bad habits.

Also, practice scales on your mouthpiece when you can't have your horn with you. Remember, use your throat. The embouchure should be as loose and relaxed as possible.

Joe Allard used to tell me that the only pressure should be from the bottom of the mouthpiece using your teeth. Just enough to FEEL the reed through the bottom lip with your teeth using the muscles in your JAW, not your facial muscles and this "posture' should remain FIXED. The jaw muscles are much stronger than the facial muscles thus easier to control. This doesn't necessarily mean that you won't use your facial muscles at all but it’s just meant to lead you in the right direction.

Also, from now on, don't think of the extreme upper register as being hard to get, think of it as being easy, it’s in fact so easy that one thinks that you have to “try” in order to get them to play. The change in your embouchure stature should be SUBTLE, understand? I can get a variety of notes out using just one fingering but I don't change my embouchure, I alter my throat cavity and I hear the note a moment before I play it. Also, this is VERY important, take as much mouthpiece as possible. This may feel uncomfortable at first and the sound will be unrefined but in a few days it will feel natural and you will find the place where the mouthpiece will give you the optimum results.

I've watched many great players and the great majority of them take huge amounts of mouthpiece. Do this stuff for a few weeks then get back to me and I'll give you an exercise that along with these will enable you to play any mouthpiece and essentially sound the same. YOU will be the maker of the sound and not the mouthpiece or horn. By the way, do this as much as possible but if you don't have a lot of time just do them for a few minutes when you start your practice session and a few minutes at the end. If you're having a long practice session the try and do it in the middle too.

Phil
 
See less See more
#227 ·
gary said:
................. I'm rarin' to go and curious about what you've got in mind to follow.

.....................I would like to request that, ....... you respect his wishes and focus on his specific exercise............If anyone feels compelled to go off topic and keep it there, might I suggest another thread to keep all of that conversation in one place?

Thanks :)
Agreed & Agreed. :)
 
#231 ·
Phil, Why don't you just put the lesson somewhere on your website and post a link in a thread here. Then people who want to flame away can do so without distracting from the information.
 
#234 ·
Okay, did you guys see the post where I say to buy a real open mouthpiece? So if you're willing to do that then go a head. Another thing you can do is warm up with your top teeth off the top of the mouthpiece. Do that for a week or two when warming up. I'm not getting enough feedback on how everyone is doing. When I hear more I'll post another more complex exercise, okay? Phil
 
#235 · (Edited)
Phil
I have ben doing your exercises since the start and noticed that i started to play 30+ cents sharp through out the horn. but have since rectified that. my tone has improved considerably and has become far more complex.

FWIW i could always play The middle register without the octave key and still occasionally forget to use it but the notes come out fine,
Cant play the low register with the ocatve key though:D

My teacher taught me to practice without my top teeth on the mouthpiece for long tone exercises. so im doing that already.
 
#236 ·
Phil Barone said:
Okay, did you guys see the post where I say to buy a real open mouthpiece? So if you're willing to do that then go a head. Another thing you can do is warm up with your top teeth off the top of the mouthpiece. Do that for a week or two when warming up. I'm not getting enough feedback on how everyone is doing. When I hear more I'll post another more complex exercise, okay? Phil
Top teeth off - do you mean a dble-lip embouchure? Or...???

Thanks, Phil. Appreciate the suggestions and words of wisdom.
 
#239 ·
Phil, been working hard on the first exercise, and notice a "bigger", more complex sound after just a week........... also, the exercise encourages good breath support............ thanks.

Ah, for top teeth off the mpc............. that's easy, I'll just take my upper denture out..........
 
#245 · (Edited)
Phil Barone said:
I'm not getting enough feedback on how everyone is doing. When I hear more I'll post another more complex exercise, okay? Phil
Here is where I am with the exercises (I'm doing these on my tenor as the bari is in for repairs):

Play middle F without the octave key and using your throat, "slide" it down to low F.
It gets difficult going further down than middle C to low C, but until then it's easy. Clean switch going down the octave.

Also, practice scales on your mouthpiece when you can't have your horn with you. Remember, use your throat. The embouchure should be as loose and relaxed as possible.
I get a F# naturally, but with only a sligh correction (more like paying attention) I get a G. The A and A# come out too, just like the G an octave up. I can't get any of the other notes, so I guess I'm not using my throat enough??
Perhaps I'm tightening up my normally loose embouchure to get the higher notes instead of using my throat?

The change in your embouchure stature should be SUBTLE, understand? I can get a variety of notes out using just one fingering but I don't change my embouchure
No problem here.

I alter my throat cavity and I hear the note a moment before I play it.
I think I need to work on this...

Also, this is VERY important, take as much mouthpiece as possible.
I already took in a lot of mouthpiece, but for the sake of the exercise I experimented with taking in so much that I was actually putting my top teeth further up the mpc than where the biteplate stops. Made the low notes harder to play, but still possible.
Now I've gone back to the spot where I feel comfortable (I admit having settled on still taking in a bit more than before ;-)

Another thing you can do is warm up with your top teeth off the top of the mouthpiece.
To my suprise, this turned out to be easy. Even the lowest notes come out without an effort and with only a slightly more wobbly tone (because it's more difficult to keep the mpx/sax steady without the support of the upper teeth).

Thanks for the exercises, Phil.
It took away my doubts about perhaps taking in too much mpc (and about going in the right direction as far as my embouchure in general is concerned) and made me realise I need to work on using my throat more!
 
#246 ·
Bernards20040 said:
Phil
I have ben doing your exercises since the start and noticed that i started to play 30+ cents sharp through out the horn. but have since rectified that. my tone has improved considerably and has become far more complex.

FWIW i could always play The middle register without the octave key and still occasionally forget to use it but the notes come out fine,
Cant play the low register with the ocatve key though:D

My teacher taught me to practice without my top teeth on the horn for long tone exercises. so im doing that already.
The idea is to play flat and then push the mouthpiece in. Joe's theory was that he horn sounds better when the mouthpiece is pushed in as far as possible. I think it's true too. Phil
 
#247 ·
Its much easier to adjust & play the pitch "down", than "up". I had a teacher who used to say that the sax was invented to play that way.

What does that mean?

If you are sharp, to lower the pitch you could drop your jaw--but that would be pretty extreme.

Just to relax you lip, open up the throat/laranx & play with a relaxed, but firm embrachure, will result in lowering the pitch. It will also add harmonics & color to the tone.

But how would you raise the pitch?

By biting, and tighting up your lips & throat...i.e. doing all the things you shouldn't be doing, according to the Allard approach.
All that stuff results in a thin, reedy, tone, with few harmonics.

So, "pushing in" is a natural result of applying these concepts--in other words, if you have to do it, don't worry, you're doing something right!!!
 
#248 ·
As a beginner of 1year+, I've been working through this thread .... even understood a few bits :D

However the funniest quote for me was :
"Oh, your piece is done. It just has to be plated but it came out so good I was thinking about keeping it for myself. Don't worry though, I'll make you another. Phil"

So it's too good to send to you, Al.... Phil will make you another, which is, hopefully, bad enough for him not to keep :eek:

Just kidding, Phil... it just read that way to me;)

I'll start the exercises tomorrow... promise :)
 
#249 ·
Phil Barone said:
Do you guys know how to play scales chromatically? Phil
Phil, do you mean play a series of scales moving up or down a half step from one scale to the next:

For example, Cmaj scale, C#maj scale, Dmaj scale, etc. in various configurations such as ascend on Cmaj up to C#, then down on C#maj to D, back up on Dmaj to Eb, and so on.

Or do you mean playing the chromatic scale starting and ending on different tones?

Or something else?
 
#250 ·
Selmer's_glu said:
Just to relax you lip, open up the throat/laranx & play with a relaxed, but firm embrachure, will result in lowering the pitch. It will also add harmonics & color to the tone.
this is how i rectified the problem.

I had noticed that doing Phil's exercises i was subconsiusly tightening my throat when playing normally.
Once the problem was found it was easily fixed:D
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top