NAMM, NAMM, NAMM. What a great time. I got to try out a gaggle of saxophones, and best of all, I was able to meet in-person so many super-cool folks who I’ve come to know through starting this website. Folks like Charles McNeal, Tim Price, Bob Reynolds, Adam Larson, and Zach Sollitto, along with long-time [read more…]
This guest post is from Sam Sadigursky of SamSadigursky.com Here’s a list of my favorite records that feature multiple saxophonists locking horn-to-horn. By my definition, a blowing session tends to be a minimally written affair, usually featuring the horn players playing over standards and generally minimally rehearsed. As far as I know, most of these [read more…]
Regardless of your horn, mouthpiece, or reed, the truth is, to the outside listener, you sound pretty much like...you. It's not that gear doesn't affect your sound at all, but your biggest and richest sound will only come by developing the skills within both your body and mind to sound great on any setup.
So if you're willing to move beyond having your day ruined by a lousy reed, then sax legend David Liebman's course, Ultimate Guide to Saxophone Sound Production is where you're going to want to go next.
Broken down into bite-sized lessons, this streaming video program covers just about every single aspect of saxophone sound production. It represents his entire life's work teaching the techniques and concepts that were handed down to masters such as Michael Brecker, Bob Berg, and Harvey Pittel (among many others), and then refined over the course of decades teaching countless lessons and masterclasses worldwide. Click below to see for yourself why so many professional saxophonists consider David's thorough, methodical, and practical approach the "real deal" for players at any level.
SAXOPHONETONE.COM
The Ultimate Guide to Saxophone Sound Production
What if I were to tell you that by using your tongue properly (and yes, I realize that sounds kind of creepy), you can boost your tone quality up a good notch? You might think, “Well that doesn’t make sense! What about the embouchure, throat, air support, tonal concept, reed, mouthpiece? Aren’t those the things [read more…]
Many musicians end up choosing the wrong mouthpiece or a specific brand of mouthpiece because their teacher or band director tells them that is what they have to play. From my experience in listening to video lessons from saxophonists such as Bob Reynolds, Don Menza, Bob Sheppard, and Antonio Hart along with the lessons I’ve taken [read more…]
Let’s face it – saxophonists are known for playing out of tune. Well, not only for playing out of tune, but suffice it to say that the saxophone is anything but a perfectly tuned instrument. Simply pressing down the keys while blowing ain’t gonna cut it. And if you play alto or soprano – forget about it. You’ve really [read more…]
Ligatures- do they make a difference? I have heard and read many reviews about the saxophone ligature and whether or not it had an effect on one’s sound. From my personal experience, I think a ligature has two goals. The first goal is to simply hold the reed on the mouthpiece, and the second goal is [read more…]
Regularly-updated saxophone blogs are few and far between. But recently, I came across another site at the web address, Saxophonistisches.de that is hopefully part of a trend towards modern and vibrant saxophone-specific websites. A German site run by Bremen-based saxophonist and educator Tobias Haecker, this online saxo-hub is chock-full of saxophone news, product reviews, instructional content, and even [read more…]
This post is part of a special column titled “Ask a Saxophone Repairman” with answers supplied by our resident repair whiz, Matt Stohrer of Stohrer Music. Disclaimer: Saxophone repair is a complicated business, depending not only on the skill of the repairer but on the reality of the situation at hand. The advice given here is given without [read more…]
I love Cannonball Adderley and Sonny Rollins. But instead of writing yet another article for an audience of sax players about a sax player, I thought I’d hop on over to the side of the hippity-hop, since sometimes the best way to drive a point home is to look at the subject matter from the [read more…]
Normally I like to include your names and links to your sites when I use your questions in my articles, but in this particular case, anonymity was requested. You see, what we’re talking about could be a bit embarrassing to discuss, but since we deal with saliva and cane working together, it’s not at all [read more…]
Tips and Techniques from the pros PLUS free access to the Sax Lessons with the Stars archive - 10 years worth of interviews and exercises featuring the likes of David Liebman, Bob Mintzer, Ben Wendel, Bob Reynolds, and many more!
