October 2025

Thank you to the Rocky Mountain Concert Band Saxophone section for being so welcoming! It was a pleasure spending time with you all and I hope we are able to work together again. :)

The information you are about to read is on the topic of technique enhancements and blending. These ideas come from my personal experience - which has been influenced by every musician who I have met, and the musicians that those people have met.. etc.

 It should be made clear that I am not a master of the saxophone. I too am on a learning journey as much as anyone else and I am not perfect. Though I sincerely hope that what you read here is applicable to your journey in music in one way or another. 

Of course, this is not everything that could possibly be said on this topic, so please send me your thoughts on the subject matter. 

Technique Enhancements

• Keeping fingers close to the keys. Watch out for..

  • Pinky flare

  • Transitioning from regular keys to palm keys, vice versa.. 

• On the topic of fingers: Consider alternate fingerings for efficiency (Chromatic fingerings, the different types of Bb's)

• Understanding that the way we play saxophone is a dance choreography with our fingers

  • Practice challenging "dance moves" in sllloowwwww motttionnnn

  • Memorize sections of the music and watch yourself in the mirror 

  • Fingers should dance in the style of the music! 

  • Repetition is key. Once a challenging excerpt has been mastered, add context. Start one or two measures before it to make sure the transition is secure. Do the whole 'dance' when ready

• Refraining from any extra movements during practice

  • Be still so your mind can focus all energy on fingers, air, and articulation

  • Once the music is ready, add body choreography if you wish 

• Efficient practice 

  • Focusing on the most difficult excerpts will enhance your technique in no time. Save the fun stuff for rehearsal! 

  • Practice the difficult excerpt at a realistic speed. Most of the time, we know when we're about to make a mistake, so let's try to stop it before it happens. It's better to get it right slow than wrong fast.

    • Whether we like it or not, when we play something incorrectly, we are programming a new habit into our brain. With each mistake we repeat, we make it twice as hard to revert it to the correct version. 

• Use a metronome every once in a while to:

  • Check whether we can play the song at it's intended tempo

  • Notice areas where we might be rushing or dragging. (You may need to record yourself and listen back to notice this)

• Clap and/or sing difficult rhythms/melodies before playing them on the saxophone

  • To make absolute sure we are doing a rhythm correctly, ask someone we trust for feedback (preferably someone who is comfortable judging and criticizing if needed), or compare a recording of yourself to the actual song. 

• THE ULTIMATE TECHNIQUE ENHANCEMENT... Practicing scales and arpeggios.

  • Focus on scales and arpeggios that are showing up in your music to really master them. 

    • (If your song has 3 flats for example, search Google: "What is the music key with 3 flats?" It's Eb major/C minor. Then, google Eb major/C minor scale/arpeggio to play along with) 

    • Scales and arpeggios become more satisfying to play over time. There's something addicting about performing a pattern repetitively! (Routines we do, like our morning/evening hygiene routine and playing sports. Or something as simple as singing the ABC's song very fast..) 

  • Every once and a while, let's challenge ourselves to sightread something that is difficult for us (AT A REALISTIC SPEED. It may not sound like the song, but that's not the point of the exercise! We are reading an academic paper when we are only used to reading "The boy walks home". Let's be kind to ourselves when we attempt to perform at a higher level and be patient with the learning process 

Blending

• When we tune to Concert A, We should be warmed up and playing the way that we usually do. 

  • About 5-10 minutes of light practice that warms up the instrument, gets the reed to its usual moisture level, etc.

  • We should not be bending up or down to get our Concert A in tune.

  • Look away from the tuner or close your eyes. Blow. Check tuning after blowing for 3-5 seconds. Notice if looking at the tuner changes your pitch. 

  • If the note is sharp or flat, that is okay. That's what the cork on the saxophone neck is for! Adjust the mouthpiece and repeat the process until the Concert A is in tune. 

  • A lot of the time, we tune while being relaxed, and then tense up or become fatigued during the rehearsal/performance. So although we may be in tune at the beginning, we should check how our tuning changes over time. Repeat the tuning process during a break to confirm if this is be happening. 

• To really, truly blend, we need to understand how our voice on the saxophone is being created in the first place.

AIR

• Our air should be unwavering and constant, like the air passing through a jet engine. 

  • The air stream should feel powerful and directed - we could blow out a candle that is placed far away from us.

• We want to sing through the saxophone. 

  • We. Shouldn't. Sound. Like. This. - that means the air is stopping, or our tongue is getting in the way too much.

  • OoooORrRrrrrRrrrR TtthhhiiIiIiiSssssSs ~~~~. The air is not constant and pressure of the air is changing too much, causing volume changes.

• We shouldn't use a reed that can't handle our air (not enough resistance), nor a reed that doesn't accept any air at all (resistance overload). It's the Goldilocks principle. This is why we need to find a reed that works best for us personally, not someone else. 

  • There should be some resistance created by the reed, but not so much where it's causing problems (quick fatigue resulting in tension, soreness, etc.). Think of reeds as barbells at the gym: If we take a break from playing saxophone, we may need to use a lower strength reed for a little while, and that's okay. 

  • Experiment: Try playing on a softer and harder reed. How can you find the sweet spot without testing the extremes? 

• Our air doesn't come from our shoulders or elbows. When we inhale, let's keep the work within our mid-body (rib cage, diaphragm, lungs, etc.) 

TONGUE

• The back of the tongue should be as high as possible *(most of the time...)

  • Think of the cat hiss to get your tongue in the right position. This keeps the air tunnel in the mouth as small as possible, keeping the air pressurized inside the mouth. Now that we are sending more air pressure towards the reed, there may be some new sensations: Sound quality, intonation, 'mouth-feel'.. 

  • * Of course, for certain styles of music, or for extreme high register notes, we may need to choreograph certain vowel shapes with our tongue to get a specific sound. For now, focus on stabilizing one specific tongue position. Once that has become comfortable, do what you need to do. 

• When we articulate, we want to keep the back of the tongue in it's high position - only moving the tip of the tongue. 

  • If the back of the tongue wobbles around while the tip of the tongue moves, the air pressure changes. Thus, the resulting sound changes. Imagine a whole choir singing the vowel "ee" while one person sings "ah". Not the best blend. 

• Articulation is easiest when the air is constant and unwavering. 

  • When the air falters (usually because we are thinking about our tongue too much, or we're playing at a quiet volume that lets us get away with low air pressure), the tongue will struggle to keep up. 

MOUTH

• At first, try to only use enough pressure to seal the air from escaping anywhere other than into the saxophone. By changing to this way of playing (with a constant stream of good air pressure as always!), we may notice that our pitch is lower or higher. Or we may feel that our reed is too weak/strong. Play around with this and adjust during practice, as it will take time for us to get used to (unless you just started playing saxophone). Don't mess around with this too much right before a big performance. 

  • To help with the seal, we should make our lips firm. Do this by pressing the lips together (Make the kiss face)

• Once we establish a mouth position, we need to hold this 'setting' as constant as possible

  • We need to act as if we're ventriloquists and we don't want to give away that it's actually us speaking. 

  • If we are not stable, our pitch will go up and down from the changing lip pressure on the reed.

  • In the beginning of learning saxophone (or when getting used to any new type of facial positioning), you may experience muscle soreness with prolonged playing. Listen to your body and take breaks when needed.  

THE ULTIMATE AIR, TONGUE AND MOUTH TEST

Learning to play on the mouthpiece alone. 

• • Through speaking from a very young age, we have trained a strong relationship with our air, tongue, and mouth. We need to build an equivalent relationship of air, tongue and mouth on the saxophone, that, once mastered, will become muscle memory and feel similar to speaking with our voice. 

  • If we are able to complete the exercises suggested here, many of our difficulties playing saxophone will go away. 

1. Consider how we first began using our voices as babies. Yup, we just cried a lot. So first step: blow hard into the mouthpiece like you're a screaming baby. Before moving to the next step, learn to keep the note vibrating for longer than 8 seconds. 

2. Learn to control your screamy baby voice. With a tuner, blow into the mouthpiece. Whatever pitch that comes out, sharp or flat, hold it as steady as possible. Keep the note in one spot, without the tuning needle moving, for as long as we can. With this step, we are learning to stabilize and hold a specific tongue and mouth position steady. Aim to hold this one note in that position for one entire breath (8-15 seconds) before moving to the next step. 

3. Time to say dada. Well, we're not going to say dada, because the 'ah' vowel shape puts our tongue into a low position and drops our jaw. We are going to think of articulating dee. Blow a steady note while saying dee-dee-dee at a moderate speed. Continue to use a tuner, and notice if the pitch moves up or down with the articulation. If it does, then focus your awareness on what's happening with the back of your tongue and your mouth. If we are saying da by accident, our jaw may be moving up and down with each note, changing the pressure of the lip on the reed. 

Aim to hold one note in position for one entire breath while articulating at a moderate speed. 

4. Learning to inflect. Now try changing your pitch a little bit lower (Ex. If it is close to a B, try making it a Bb). Get comfy in this new position. Hold the new note in position for an entire breath without any pitch movement. Have fun with it - try switching between the two different positions! 

5. Articulate in this new position at a moderate speed for an entire breath. Remember to keep the air strong and steady and keep the mouth in a stable setting. 

6. Now that you have the basics down, we will now practice playing on our mouthpieces recommended pitch. Here are the recommended tuner pitches for each mouthpiece: 

(All notes are in concert C pitch) 

Soprano Sax - C 

Alto Sax - A

Tenor Sax - G 

Bari Sax - D 

Learn to hold and articulate on your mouthpiece on the recommended pitch. By playing our instrument at its recommended setting, the notes on the saxophone will feel effortless compared to before.

To increase your control of the mouthpiece (and thus the saxophone) further, professionals recommend learning to play pitches even lower than the recommended. Some players can go close to an octave below the recommended pitch of their mouthpiece!