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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
 
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#463 ·
Well two things I have gotten from reading this WHOLE thread
bleeding eyes and a headache :cry:

God knows what is going to do to the rest of me IF I try the excises with so many differing opinions I don't know if I wanna, I don't like being shouted at :( even if he is the same age as me and as grumpy :D


* now should I go to part two or learn the Cello *

Yours
Founder member of Grumpy Old Men Inc

Edit, part two is much nicer :D
 
#464 ·
I just went onto a kali from another mouthpiece and i believe these mouthpieces have a longer lay.... anyway, a few times after i had been playing for a while it was like the reed bent or something... i think it was raising up and a gap was forming where the rails come to meet the table... anyway suddenly if wouldnt really play... squeek easy and was muffled.... I have a feeling it was because i wasnt taking enough mpiece and the reed was warping... and that a percentage of the space between the reed and the rails stood outside of my mouth...or reed swelling??? any thoughts??? I have been practicing a position further down the mpiece since reading your posts phil, it is definatley the thing... I project 80% more when i do this... but yeah it takes a bit of getting used to... I realised too i can play a much harder reed on the kali 7star than i could on my lamberson SB8
 
#465 ·
I haven't really been watching the thread but when someone puts up a thread I'm not so pushy as to assume that I know more than the poster but it would be rude anyway. I studied with both Joe and Vick and I just posted exactly what they told me and from a mouthpiece makers perspective it's perfectly okay to take lots and lots of mouthpiece and to pass the break is just fine. Doesn't it occur to anyone that both of these guys changed their ideas during their careers?

Also, oral cavities never came up at all but I've seen every combination of everything you can imagine and Gerry Niewood comes to mind. he's very small in stature but can sound just like Sonny R and just as loud and huge. All human varieables end where the mouthpiece and reed begins so any physical differences between players is negated. Phil
 
#468 ·
I just started playing my tenor again after not touching a sax for 7 years. I am trying to do this exercise but I can't get the middle F overtone while fingering low F, am I doing something wrong?

Please help, I am using a '74 Buescher 400 and a selmer soloist D.

-Nick
 
#469 ·
Also, when taking in that much mouthpiece I can't play any octive notes, even middle D with the octave key is extremely hard to play. I can hit all those notes fine when I go back to the tip of the mouthpiece, so am I doing something wrong or is it just a hole in the player? =)
 
#476 ·
Also, I notice that it is easier for me to hit the overtone on the low Bb than on the F, it seems like when I was reading you told someone that the lower notes should be harder to do?

BTW, I really appreciate your help and the time you've put into these posts!
 
#479 ·
Yep! I feel that! I had my lig cranked on there, old, bad habit. I loosened my ligature to the point that it just barely holds the reed on there and now everything seems to be jiving.

But, yeah, I felt that humming move from one part of my throat to another, up and down, I think that's what your talking about right?
 
#481 · (Edited)
After I loosened up my lig (it was way too tight) it started to feel right and I started to get the same kind of responses that others have posted, I will keep at it and tomorrow if I have troubles I'll take you up on your offer =)!

Thanks again Phil!

-Nick

Edited on 09-12-2008: Nevermind about the ligature thing, it was placebo for sure. I just needed to keep at it!
 
#482 ·
After I loosened up my lig (it was way too tight) it started to feel right and I started to get the same kind of responses that others have posted, I will keep at it and tomorrow if I have troubles I'll take you up on your offer =)!

Thanks again Phil!

-Nick
Nick,

First of all I never played anything but a normal, conventional two screw ligature that I ended up playing for good. Every time I always came back to my old trusty selmer ligatures. So I used to like to tighten them down pretty tight then after I played for a little while I would back out the rear screw, then tighten it back again but not all the way then I'd do the same thing to the front. I don't know, it just seemed to do something that I liked. Maybe it was psycological. You should really call me though because you don't want to find out that you've been doing them wrong six months from now. Everyone is welcome to call me but wait a feew days, I just had surgery on my throat and I can't really speak. Phil
 
#483 ·
Right, I'll give you a call later this week.

I also switched from using the 2 Java to a 2 1/2 Van Doren, the harder reed helped me get those higher notes. I am back and forth between this HR Selmer Soloist *D and this Metal Berg Larsen 100 3 M. Since I am basically completely starting over, I really don't know which one of these I should get farmiliar with. Per your suggestion earlier, you said play your most open, I'm pretty sure the Soloist fits that description best.

To be honest, most of my difficulty is probably coming from my weak embechoure so I probably need to just keep at it and like you said "Man, don't over analyze it. Just do it". I got better results tonight after I had let my chops rest a bit. I'll be on it again tomorrow, I can feel some muscles in my throat right now that seem to have gotten some use =) that should be a good sign. I could hit every overtone except the D# and D, I was able to go below to the C#, C, etc with no probs. I had a little struggle getting the Bb overtone to drop down but eventually it fell.

I also drove around all night tonight with my mouthpiece and practiced scales just on it. It's hard to tell if I'm affect my pitch by using only my throat. Sometimes I can really jump up to some high notes, almost feels like an octave change and I definately can feel that in my throat, but when I step down I eventually get to this point where my reed really starts flappin' and it feels like I'm doing a growl, sounds like a scream. Sometimes I can breakthrough that to get to a lower set of notes.

Let me know what is a good time to call. :) In the meantime, I'll keep at it!
 
#486 ·
Phil,

I made 4 recordings in MP3 format on my laptop, 1 is of the overtone excercise, 1 is the mouthpiece exercise and 2 more are of the upper register problems I have when taking in so much mouthpiece. Is it ok to email those over to you?
 
#487 ·
It's been 5 days (I think) since I started doing these exercises, I can hit all of the overtone notes now and I can drop down to the root notes fairly easily, though I am still working on the control part of it. I still have small problems while playing scales and what not around the high G and G# when I take in a lot of mouthpiece, but I have noticed a marked improvement there too.

I have noticed a huge booming fullness change to my tone so far, and as the days go by I am getting better and better control with this new embouchure setup. I am really enjoying these exercises as I feel like it is undoing years of poor embouchure habits and I am learning to do things with my throat that has really opened up my sound and helped me to understand what people were talking about when they mentioned "opening your throat" with regards to sax playing. Before, this had always been lost on me.

Anyway, thanks again to Phil and other contributors here, I'll post the sound clips that I am recording periodically of me doing these exercises in a couple of weeks, hopefully others can listen and not feel too bad if they sound like I did and do ;) And hopefully we can see the progress! =)

Peace!
 
#488 ·
I've been trying these exercises for a few days and something doesn't quite feel right--my embouchure to be exact. The pitch change "feels" like it's coming from my diaphragm and throat while my embouchure stays stable, but my embouchure feels too tight (not biting, but using too much facial muscle). If I take any more mouthpiece or loosen up, the overtone won't speak at all, regardless of what I do with my larynx. Any ideas/suggestions?
 
#494 ·
Really great article. I've been using too much of the facial muscles and not enough of the jaw muscles, and it looks like I haven't been taking enough mouthpiece in either. I'll definitely use your advice in my establishment of new (good) habits on alto sax (which I am just know getting back into with my new YAS-475 alto, I had been mostly bari before this point).
Thanks again.
 
#498 ·
So, you try try to help people and then, after several months and out of the blue, somebody comes along and calls you arrogant and unprofessional.

My respect to you Phil, you're a bigger man then I am. I don't think I would have handled it so gracefully.

And thanks for this 'Tone-production' tread
 
#499 ·
So, you try try to help people and then, after several months and out of the blue, somebody comes along and calls you arrogant and unprofessional.

My respect to you Phil, you're a bigger man then I am. I don't think I would have handled it so gracefully.

And thanks for this 'Tone-production' tread
Ah it's okay. I just came on strong because I see so much poor advice and I wanted to discourage anyone from contesting what I learned. Anyone with differing opinions can start their own thread but it looks like the people using the exercises are getting good results. I guess it's a NY thing but I've chilled out a lot. Phil
 
#500 ·
Phil, I have a few questions. First, I'm having trouble playing scales on the mouthpiece. You said not to move your jaw (instinctively, I'd obviously drop the jaw to lower the pitch.... I'm not doing that). Instead, is it okay to manipulate the pitch by arching my tongue in various manners? Or should I attempt to manipulate the pitch on my mouthpiece in another fashion...


Also, why is your drop down exercise so much easier on a Selmer S80 C* than on a link? I can easily do it all with perfectly smooth transitions on my C*, though I find it much more difficult on the link STM 6
 
#502 ·
Phil, I have a few questions. First, I'm having trouble playing scales on the mouthpiece. You said not to move your jaw (instinctively, I'd obviously drop the jaw to lower the pitch.... I'm not doing that). Instead, is it okay to manipulate the pitch by arching my tongue in various manners? Or should I attempt to manipulate the pitch on my mouthpiece in another fashion...

Also, why is your drop down exercise so much easier on a Selmer S80 C* than on a link? I can easily do it all with perfectly smooth transitions on my C*, though I find it much more difficult on the link STM 6
First, the mouthpiece exercise may require you to move your jaw some but try not to but you should be able to nail the drop down exercise first before you try playing scales on the mouthpiece and remember, with all these exercises it's in PRACTICING them that you'll benefit, not necessarily from doing them perfectly, okay? I think what Joe was trying to get us to do was get us to not use our facial muscles and to use the muscles that control the jaw. Remember, you want to FEEL the reed through the bottom lip with yor teeth so using your jaw muscles is probably okay as long as is very minimually.

Second, the Link takes a lot more air because it's more open and the chamber is much bigger so sustain the middle F until you're about to run out of air and you'll find that it will drop down to low F on it's own. It will sound sloppy but you'll get the result you're shooting for. When that happens try and notice what is happening within your body (throat and diaphram) and then try and repeat it yourself at will.

Playing scales on the mouthpieces is very hard so don't bang your head against the wall. Anyone that has trouble with these exercises can call me at 212.686.9410 Eastern time please. Phil
 
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