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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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#102 ·
Al Stevens said:
Okay, I'll ask again as did a couple of other people. How, exactly, does one play a scale on a mouthpiece only? What is the objective? What note should you hear first? Which direction do you try to play, up or down? What do you change to change notes? Finally, does the success of this exercise program depend on being able to do it?
Play on the mouthpiece alone. On alto you should get about an A, on Tenor a G. Then without changing your embouchure, use the muscles in your throat to change the pitch. Don't drop your jaw, that defeats the purpose of the exercise. You won't be able to get much higer than Bb so play a descending scale. Start off by trying to match these pitches A G F# E D E F# G A. Your range will be limited in the beginning but with practice you can get a full octave (or more) out on the mouthpiece alone and then you just need to key in on the pitches of whatever scale your playing. It could be Bb major or A diminished, it really doesn't matter. The real goal is to workout these muscles in your throat.

Oh yeah, make sure you're alone when you do this. Needless to say, practicing on the mouthpiece alone is very annoying to listen too.
 
#103 ·
Could somebody post a clip of an octave on the mouthpiece only :)

Rory
 
#105 ·
speyman said:
What I meant by using the word "slur" was that I'm changing octaves without tounging. The note changes and you can feel "that thing" in your throat.
I see what you meant, just trying to clarify it as I understand it. And actually to some extent the top note slurs ("bends") downward a bit in the process. At least sometimes it does when I do it. Other times it jumps straight down the octave. I guess that's part of the exercise---controlling all that.
 
#109 ·
Phil Barone said:
Marty? Nova and lox are very different. Lox which I wouldn't be caught eating is the cheap mans nova which I eat as often as I can. I love that. Phil
You New Yorkers! Oy Guvalt!

I meant Nova, what else? I called it Lox so the rest of the Goyem wouldn't confuse it with a Chevy.

(Is your real last name Barron?)
 
#114 ·
gary said:
Phil - I still haven't gotten a clear answer. Are these octave slurs or octave smears -as in Rhapsody in Blue clarinet solo- with all the indeterminate pitches in the smear down being sounded? Thanks.
neither you should play the highovertone then make a smooth transition to the lower one. smooth transition means no sliding no gurgles no funkyness. just one note then the other. clearly and lovely with nothing in between. legato.
 
#115 · (Edited)
J.Max said:
I didn't misunderstand. Once I got with a GOOD teacher who seemed to understand correct tone production concepts, things came together. Now, all of that being said,I learned more by studying the French (Mule) and American (Teal) techniques than anything else, but that's just me.

And I can think of at least one book which purports to be a Joe Allard method book...and it sucks.
i don't really want to argue here i was just trying to do the ideas justice
i studied with George Lowry as my first saxophone teacher
http://www.joeallard.org/jsaxalums.html
and have been doing these exercises and playing this way now for almost 30 years. I have never studied another style of playing and i don't know anything about other styles.
what we are saying here in terms of tone production and joes concepts are very very shallow and basically missing the point in terms of the overall.
and no when you learn this style there are no method books.
you can't learn to imagine and invision music from a book.
one can also nott learn relaxation from a book and relaxation and visualization was perhaps 80% of the teaching.
you can only learn it from doing it and anything written about it including this thread has to by definition be abstract and confusing.
also might be worth pointing out phils name does not appear on the above list. You might also want to check if these people you say were students appear on the list.

Edit: i wanted to return to this for just a second because i want to be very honest about this as it is important to me.
first: a very significant portion of the teachings were about working reeds. try and try as i did at the time i just never really got it myself and while i remember alot of it i sadly do not use these technques today.
second: i said there were no method books and apon thinking back there was a book used it was - Top Tones for Saxophone by Sigurd Rascher. working out of the book was a very small portion of the overall.
otherwise try as i did to bring music to read to the lessons george would always take it away and can't remember ever playing more than a bar or two of anything i ever prepared for a lesson. The lesson would always turn immediatly to invisioning, singing, imagining,
relaxing. I would often end up being asked to do something crazy like play the two bars i got out before i was stopped while lying on my back with my legs propped straight up the wall like it was a yoga lesson.

I would aso like to point out to anyone interested that while it would be imposible to learn joes concepts from david liebmans book that has been mentioned here. that book stands as a beautiful reminder to those of us who know what the deal was/is and i personally think it is a wonderful preservation of most of the core concepts. It IS a good and accurate book concerning Joe Alladrs teachings and when i read it i found nothing not in line with the general concepts tought to me by George who sadly is n longer alive but was a monster clasical saxophonist and a really wonderfull guy.
 
#116 ·
Phil Barone said:
It's not missing. That stuff about the players build having to do with making the sound is bull. I'll give tell you why. I've seen every combination of people with very different structures sounding the same. One that always stuck out to me was Jerry Niewood and Sonny Rollins. Jerry can sound just like Sonny and he's build very differently than Sonny. the sound really starts at the reed and mouthpiece.

I think it's very important to stay focused here and just stay with the exercises because in a few weeks I'm going to give you an exercise that will change and improve your sound tremendously. Just focus on the exercises for now please and forget about everything else you think you know because you're going to feel very differently in a few weeks. Oddly enough I'm more excited about this post than any other because I think it will be very helpful. Once some of you have done these then you may be ready for a mouthpiece.
i did not say one single thing about players build. i was talking exclusively about joe allard concept of using the tongue to close off half the mouth.
something that simply can;t be done at all if your mouth is all full of mouthpiece.
 
#117 ·
Al Stevens said:
I do not understand how to play scales on a mouthpiece only. Can someone please explain that in more detail?
this can't be emphasised enough. you have to hear the note in your head fully and i mean fully before you play it. this includes the little squeeky tone of the mouthpiece but make it pretty and woden like a violin. start of by playing the highest note possible then try to imagine one note higher and play that. and as you move lower in the scale never allow your embouchure to change and make sure you avoid the tendancy to drop the jaw and deaden the reed as you go down. Imagining the sound will allow the same muscles you use when singing to take over and do their thing. try alternating playing the mouthpiece and singing. try singing every other note in the scale and playing evey other one with the mouthpiece.

the very best ilistration i can think of for this tecnique is there used to be this guy why played piano with Bella Flek and the flektones. He played a little 5 reed blues harp harmonica thing not a cromatic harmonica. on that little limited blues harp he could play flawless bebop and modern jazz as well as the most demanding clasical peices. he was just using the same muscles used for singing and controlling the harp reeds to the pitch he wanted.
 
#118 ·
Thanks Chitownjazz.

That clarifies things immensely!

I tried working on it for about 10 mins or so last night and I was able to get a decent descending 3 note scale on my alto piece--although the third note was a little sharp.

More questions:

I don't know if this is obvious or not, but what in general is the practical purpose of this exercise. I mean, with the trumpet analogy, the trumpet is different from the sax in that the trumpet player has to be able to produce the scales with her mouthpiece in order to play all the notes. Is this basically about embouchure control and visualization, or is the idea that you actually "play" your mouthpiece as you're playing your horn?

About Phil's first exercise: I'm confused still. Am I just adding more (higher) fundamentals (ie. Eb, E, and F) to my usual overtone exercises or is this something quite different?


Rory

Hey Gary, if you don't mind, could you explain what you mean by "working reeds"; this sounds important, but I don't know what you mean.
 
#119 ·
rleitch said:
About Phil's first exercise: I'm confused still. Am I just adding more (higher) fundamentals (ie. Eb, E, and F) to my usual overtone exercises or is this something quite different?
It is something quite different, but much more simple.

What Phil is asking you to do is to finger F without the octave key, but, to produce a note that sounds as if you had the octave key depressed, i.e. middle F. This may or may not be difficult for you and could involve you in altering your throat cavity, possibly by involving the back of your tongue.

Then, Phil asks you to allow the pitch to drop to the lower octave cleanly, solely by changing your throat cavity and NOT by changing your embouchure. (And that ideally includes without glissando, hiccup, burble, warble, or any other such sound extraneous to a pure F).

Phil asks that you do this repeatedly until you can do the excercise cleanly, but he does not impose any speed of execution - i.e. do it in your own time, the cleanness of execution is paramount, NOT the speed. He also asks that you use plenty of breath support, i.e. don't tickle the instrument, give it some stick.

Do this on F & E to begin with, have a go at Eb & D, and progress to C#, B & Bb (always using the long fingerings so that both octaves are produced by the same fingering) when you are ready.

Simply put, it's like practising octaves without the octave key.

Oh, and by the way, put LOTS of mouthpiece in your mouth, relax your face/embouchure and do not worry about the ensuing coarse tone which Phil says, will settle down in time.
 
#120 ·
Thanks to all for the clarification on playing scales on the mpc. I can do it now. About a half of a scale, actually.

Last night I played a full half hour of scales on the mouthpiece and another 15minutes of sliding from F2 to F1 without using the octave key and descending down to D with that excercise. I was proud of myself.

Only now I'm not allowed back into Birdland.
 
#121 ·
DaveR said:
Then, Phil asks you to allow the pitch to drop to the lower octave cleanly, solely by changing your throat cavity and NOT by changing your embouchure. (And that ideally includes without glissando...
Geez, this just shouldn't be this difficult. My understanding of a slur is that two notes are connected to one another without any extraneous sounds in between. OTOH, a smear, glissando, etc has notes in between the first and last tone of indeterminate pitch, sliding from one pitch to another.

So. I post this question, since it's not clear to me which Phil is intending:

gary said:
Phil - I still haven't gotten a clear answer. Are these octave slurs or octave smears -as in Rhapsody in Blue clarinet solo- with all the indeterminate pitches in the smear down being sounded? Thanks.
And get this answer, which means to me a smear:

Phil Barone said:
I don't know what to call them. You finger low F, while playing middle F and what I call SLIDE into low F.
Dave, you're saying slur, not glissando. Phil wrote "slide", so what's up? Are you misunderstanding his direction (like I might be as well)? Is it clear from his word "slide" that it's a smear? Or is his description ambiguous? Not being ornery, it's just that there's no use in doing the exercise if we are going to be reviewing our results in a few weeks if we do it wrong.

So, sports fans, which is it? A smear between two pitches or a clean slur? :scratch:
 
#122 ·
Gary, it's not a gliss or a smear as we understand them. It's just two notes an octave apart with as little space as possible between them and with no noise between them. I guess it's more like a slur in that the second note is not articulated. (Someone please step in if I got that wrong.)

The trumpet analogy is a good one because the octaves on a trumpet have one note between them when you're doing the bugle thing, and the tendency is to hear that middle G when you slur from C on the staff to C just below, for example. (Higher octaves have more notes between. G on top of the staff has E and C between it and G in the staff.) On a trumpet, you do it mostly with embouchure. On a sax, you do it with airstream control, according to the folks here.
 
#123 ·
Just to be clear:- clean slur is what I mean. If you portamento (ah yes, that's the word!) down to the lower octave it will be nastily flat because it invloves a different part of the throat cavity. The point of this exercise (as I see it) is to train the embouchure to remain still over the registers and to accomplish the drop by throat and breath alone.

My favourite quote about the embouchure is this mantra: "My embouchure is merely the visible manifestation of my diaphragm"
 
#124 ·
Al Stevens said:
Gary, it's not a gliss or a smear as we understand them. It's just two notes an octave apart with as little space as possible between them and with no noise between them.
This is it right here but doing it is more a function of your diaphram than your throat. It may take ten seconds but when it happens you'll notice something happens which if you keep practicing it will occur at will. Phil
 
#125 ·
What a fascinating (and helpful) discussion! Opens doors I never knew existed, thanks everybody (especially Phil). But - now to expose myself as a real novice - how to avoid dropping the jaw? I really have to do it to get the bottom notes to speak, whether alto, tenor or Baritone. (Maybe I'm working with too many horns for a 2 year beginner but different situations seem to require it). Sorry for the dumb question but the jaw drop seems to be a necessity. Am I doing something wrong?
 
#126 ·
fred12 said:
But - now to expose myself as a real novice - how to avoid dropping the jaw?
I'm a relative novice to sax, too (just over three years), and I've read a lot about it and talked to many players.

There are two schools of thought among experienced players about the jaw. Some say the jaw must never change position; others say they drop their jaws to ensure that they sound the lower notes with precision. Both camps are equally convinced theirs is the one true way and that the other camp is all wet. Both camps comprise respected players. The main division I've observed with exceptions, of course, is that classical players say don't move your jaw, whereas jazz, big band and show band players say do what's necessary. Many classical players eschew subtone playing, so that might explain the differing opinions.

Phil says don't drop the jaw for this exercise, so that's how I'm trying to do it.
 
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