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How to do an altissimo pitch bend up/squeal

1K views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  xoknight 
#1 ·
Just seeing a few examples of this, I haven't mastered this technique at all. If anyone is kind enough to explain anyway this can be accomplished easier, please enlighten me.
and one at 4:18
this one is cleaner
 
#2 ·
The fingerings for altissimo A up to D are the more-or-less the same as regular A to F (using the palm keys), so it's easy to smoothly slide through the notes by slowly changing your fingering. Going up from the F, fingerings are less important, since you're now essentially just blowing through a long pipe :), so I use mostly my throat, and a bit of embouchure. I put together a tutorial explaining this here: https://www.jazzteddybears.com/altissimo3
 
#3 ·
It's called "bugling". The fingerings are a way to add a mild separation to the pitches as they're shifting up or down the scale. It's a combination of overtones and soft palette manipulation. It's also far simpler than what it seems to be. Finger a low Bb and just shoot for any overtone. Then keep pushing in order to get a "squeak". Hold the squeak, change the pitch of the squeak with your tongue and throat, and then merge that squeak with the overtones. If you're still having issues getting into that upper overtone range, you can use the aforementioned fingerings to create a leak that will get you to that squeak easier. The whole technique is more akin to whistling than it is playing the saxophone in a traditional sense.

Here's another excellent example.
 
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