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Biting going up

7K views 29 replies 13 participants last post by  Jarmoti 
#1 ·
I was practicing some patterns in the palm keys the other day, focusing, as I pretty much always do, on not adding any extra bite to those notes.
All of a sudden this occurred to me:

One of the reasons I developed a kind of instinctive bite when going up into the palm keys is because when I finger those notes, my hold on the horn becomes (or at least feels like it has become) more precarious.

I'm not sure if this is true for other players, but it really seems to be true for me...I'm actually trying to hold on to the darned thing with my mouth!

Am I crazy?

One take away might be to try to consciously position the horn more securely when moving up into the palm keys as a way to counter act the biting instinct?

R.
 
#2 ·
Actually not crazy at all. If you know me, you know how I like to kid around, and when I saw the first line of the thread by moving the cursor over the link I automatically thought of joking that when I do it it's to keep the damn sax from escaping from my left hand and falling over to the right on the strap from the push on the palm keys.That's because it happened to me a few times some years back when I didn't play those keys so much and was therefore not so adept. It's really pretty funny when you think about it. However, I don't think that I bite any more for those notes than for any others. Besides which I don't bite at sax, I suck at it. :mrgreen::bluewink2:
 
#3 ·
I can absolutely relate.......I've been playing for nearly 50 years (just never got any better after a short while :) ) and my horn still feels like a "loose cannon" when I'm in the palm keys. I have to concentrate on not biting up there for the same reason as Rory!
 
#5 ·
I try to always keep my fingers on the pearls or at least very close. I'll have to try to pay more attention when it's not so late. On slow passages I do okay.......but I've been practicing a Fishman etude with a couple of bars of sixteenth notes up there and that's when I feel like the "loose cannon"!
 
#6 ·
I just played some palm key only lines to see what it is I do now, because truthfully I hadn't thought about it until reading this thread last night.

It's not keeping your fingers over the pearls that stabilizes the horn, because you aren't pressing them down anyway. What does it is you right thumb under the thumb hook pushing the bell towards the right so the palm keys are forced against your left hand to counter balance the pressure on the upper body by playing the palm keys. The sax is a fulcrum, the axis of which is the strap hook. If you push the lower part towards the right with your right hand, then the upper part has to go towards the left and will not be able to fly out of your mouth when the only keys being played are the palm keys, no matter how hard you press them.

And that's another thing I just noticed: I don't press the palm keys very much at all because just a little pressure opens them if their action is set right. Ideally you should be able to play left handed only without your right hand playing anything. I believe someone has students do that in his master classes to show them how much they can play just with G1 to D2 and G2 to G3. The only thing the right hand is stabilize the sax for this exercise.
 
#7 ·
There is absolutely no need to keep fingers on the pearls. For me what stabilises (pun intended) the horn is my top teeth.

However this doesn't need to mean biting to achieve the palm key notes. Those notes probably need more breath support, and possibly a tighter embouchure but not too tight, which I think is what people men by biting - I'm never quite sure what that actually means as some kind of biting action is needed to play the saxophone at all.
 
#8 ·
Bite, just don't overbite, right?

So I suppose that means that people whose dentists have said they they have an overbite, have to get their teeth fixed forthwith. All the dentists with saxophonists for patients will be rubbing their hands in glee with thoughts of their new embouchure-financed yacht.
 
#10 ·
I should have added the smiley.

Doesn't everyone have the same size tongue?
 
#27 ·
Ummmm..... no.

Mouth Smile Jaw Art Font


When was the last time *you* could lick your eyebrows?
 
#17 ·
You are right, of course.
What always surprises me is that some can play horns without using a neck-strap.
Quite how they support the horn is, to me, a mystery....but I wish that I had that physical control of the horn.
 
#13 ·
I have the same problem and am working out of it. (Entirely caused by not having lessons when young.) When I complained about this exact problem to my current teacher, he recommended adjusting the neckstrap so that the horn naturally touches my mouth when I let it freely pivot on the neckstrap hook.

In my case the neckstrap was too long and the mouthpiece would hit me below my lip. You don't say what size horn you are playing, but with my alto, I can no longer rest the bell on my thigh during rests with the tighter neckstrap. A small price to pay.
 
#14 ·
I don't think it matters what size horn you play. If the sax is not prevented pivoting to the left on the axis of the strap hook when you play the palm keys it will twist around that point like a spinning top, and an alto being shorter will just do it faster. But the alto on the other hand is much smaller in diameter so you can wrap your thumb around to the left side of the body tube under the thumb hook and thus have a tighter grip. That way it won't matter if you even take your mouth off the mpc because the horn can't move with that force pushing in the opposite direction.

On the tenor you can still press your thumb against the body towards the right and exert enough force to keep the horn from swinging loose. I don't think I have ever bitten the mouthpiece harder to play the palm keys any more than for any other notes. As long as it's in your mouth with your lips around it and your teeth on the bite plate normally it shouldn't go anywhere.

The "biting" I think many people do is squeezing to try and get the high notes out when they haven't got their chops together enough to learn to play the upper range of the horn and the lower altissimo with a normal embouchure. That's why beginners have such a hollow and shrill sounding upper register, because they are keeping the reed from vibrating by squeezing it in the belief that that will get those notes out.

Of course the problem is not playing a hard enough reed, but they don't because they haven't got the lower register developed enough to play it at low volume with anything but a soft reed. Long tones and more long tones up and down the entire range of the sax, along with learning breath support and control of air speed and direction is what develops that and helps you stop squeezing and doing embouchure gyrations to get both ends of the range. I remember reading about 3 years ago that you should work on long tones so that you can play the upper register notes so they sound just as full and rich as the lower register ones. If you bite or squeeze you ain't gonna get there, no way no how.

This was brought home to me 2 years ago at the grand opening of Sax-On, the best shop here. They had canapes, champagne, and live music. One of the people who performed was a woman who mostly plays classical alto. I don't remember the piece she played but aside from her excellent playing of what was quite a complex piece of music there was no difference in the quality of any of her notes from low Bb on up to the top of the horn. Every note was perfectly formed and as full and rich as all the others. There was no hollowness, shrillness, vapidness, booming down low, screeching up top. It really made a strong impression on me and instantly brought to mind that article I had read about that being the goal to work towards.

Naturally, the articulation and quality of classical playing and jazz, rock, r&b are different, but still I believe you have to have the ability to blow perfect notes first and then go and do to them whatever you want afterwards. Just like in painting, you can't break the rules or alter them if you neither know what they are or can control them to perfection first.
 
#15 ·
The "biting" I think many people do is squeezing to try and get the high notes out when they haven't got their chops together enough to learn to play the upper range of the horn and the lower altissimo with a normal embouchure. That's why beginners have such a hollow and shrill sounding upper register, because they are keeping the reed from vibrating by squeezing it in the belief that that will get those notes out.

Of course the problem is not playing a hard enough reed,
That might be the problem, but it might not be. Using a hard reed to make the top notes easier is not as good (IMO) as using a soft reed and be able to still get the high notes by using good breath support and control over your embouchure without overtightening.
 
#18 ·
Some people can play a baritone and dance around with it. I put one around my neck last week with the Saxholder no less, and it almost pulled me through the floor. That effectively scotched any fantasies I had been entertaining about wanting to try playing one to see what it's like. That was all I needed to "see" ....i.e. my face down at the level of my Nikes. LOL



Oh to have the testosterone, adrenaline and energy I had when I was that age!!:(
 
#20 ·
Interesting comments everyone...thanks!

I think my take away is that bad habits can often have more than one cause or origin. It follows that to correct them, you might need more than one focus.

I think what I was noticing was that a kind of biting happens for me when I'm playing notes in the palm keys due to feeling the horn is insecure. This feeling doesn't happen when I'm just playing overtones and long tones, because the feeling of the horn slipping isn't there.

R.
 
#22 ·
I think what I was noticing was that a kind of biting happens for me when I'm playing notes in the palm keys due to feeling the horn is insecure. This feeling doesn't happen when I'm just playing overtones and long tones, because the feeling of the horn slipping isn't there.

R.
Polydent on the bottom edge of your upper teeth might stick the mpc there and make it feel much more secure. I'm only half joking, because who knows but it might work.
 
#21 ·
I missed this one for some reason but here's my .02

Besides agreeing with What Pete says.....

I think there is a natural tendency to bite as you move up the range of the horn. It took me a good 6 months to break the almost decade old habit at the time. I just did this every day for about 10-15 minutes. I still use it as my long tone practice.

And it improved my intonation a ton as well.

When I was 21 through 23 I completely bit through an Otto Link NY Bite plate. Any ventures into the altissimo would require me to bite as I was playing through a beater of a horn and couldn't get much sound out otherwise.

I also use the softest reed possible to get my sound now. I get reeds that are markedly too hard and work them down until they are just right for me I used to think I needed to play on at least a 3 to get my sound or to be heard but now I've come around.
 
#26 ·
I use the thin shiny ones that are impossible to perforate with your teeth.
 
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