I've been trying out my new soprano sax and it's fabulous! I'm trying to sort out a teacher and am waiting to hear back from someone. In the meantime, what shall I do???

Learn the fingerings? and can I use the octave key straight away or is that for later, like crossing the break on clarinet?

Practise scales? classical or jazz?

Long note practice?

Teach myself some tunes by ear?


I'd like to treat my sax differently from my clarinet - I'd like to use it for jazz and learn to play more by ear rather than notation.

Any thoughts anyone?

One thing you should learn, absolutely, first thing, as you've played clari for a while now...

The soprano sax is not a slightly different shaped metal clarinet!

It requires a slightly different embouchure. You'll also need to listen carefully, you may have tuning issues otherwise.

Well worth learning fingerings, and having a bit of an explore of your instrument. Start around the middle line B sort of area. What I heard of you at Anglesey was promising.

You'll get to the octave key on the sax very soon I'd think, and certainly earlier than you would generally on the clarinet.

Good luck, enjoy your new acquisition!

Amen!

When I got my first tenor about 12-13 years ago I started to teach myself (having got up to about grade 7 clarinet at school). The tenor is quite a different shape and feel to clarinet, but that was all I knew and it was before the wealth of information that's now available online, so I had nothing to tell me any better. It took me a while to find a sax teacher and by that time my clarinet-style playing was firmly entrenched. I could get the notes, and I had sufficient manual dexterity but the sound was always disappointing. I wanted that smooth, rich tenor sound and I got something that was a bit thin and not at all the sound in my head. I was pretty much always playing sharp as well (increasingly sharp the higher up I got). I tried changing mouthpieces, reeds etc but that didn't help. Eventually it slowly dawned that it was me and I'd have to put in some serious effort to put things right if I really wanted to play sax properly. So I did. Lots of long notes, technical exercises in the tricky areas, playing in front of a mirror etc etc. It worked, and I'm now, most of the time, reasonably happy with my sound (not always happy about everything else, but that's a different issue!).

You're one step ahead of me - you know that you shouldn't play the sax like a clarinet. I'd advise consciously checking every 10 minutes or so that you're using a more rounded embouchure, the angle of the mouthpiece in your mouth is slightly different too - a little more forward rather than down. Get hold of a copy of The Art of Saxophone Playing by Larry Teal, maybe Developing a Personal Saxophone Sound by Dave Liebman too (superb soprano player). Listen to plenty of soprano players and get the sound fixed in your head so you know what you're aiming for.

GET WORKING WITH A TUNER!!!!!

Even the best sop in the world won't play perfectly in tune, so i'd try the range of the instrument to see which notes are the most 'out' .

Long slow melodies for added intonation practice (with a backing track etc if possible to make the tuning stand out).

It's pretty easy starting out on sax - fingerings etc are very straightforward, and (IMHO) it doesn't have as many squeaky issues as clarinet. HOWEVER many doublers are satisfied with a pretty ropey tone - getting a good sax tone takes a lot of regular practice. And don't treat it like a 'musical typewriter' (Eddie Harvey) - pushing down a certain combination of keys will not infallibly give you an in tune note (same is true of clari though...)!

good luck
Nick

BTW - what did you buy in the end?

nick

This is all really good advice, thank you.

I'm trying to find a teacher who specialises in soprano and also plays clarinet so that they are familiar with the different embouchures required. I've got a choice of straight or angled crooks, not sure if that makes a difference to the embouchure. I'm conscious that at the moment I probably *am* treating like a metal clarinet because I don't know how to do it differently, but hopefully I'll get sorted with a teacher soon. I've ordered the Larry Teal book and I'll experiment with different embouchures, although I still won't know if I'm doing it right until I get a teacher.

I've got a digital tuner but I've never quite got the hang of it Hopefully it's something my teacher would be able to help with.

The fingerings are wonderfully straightforward compared with clarinet, and I haven't squeaked either. But the tone obviously needs a *lot* of work...

Nick, I got an Elkhart SXSOP-2C, a straight one with two crooks and I'm really really pleased with it

Thanks again for the good advice everyone.

I don't know why you say you haven't got the hang of it but it might be the tuner and not you. I had a cheap digital tuner which I had no problems with but my younger daughter managed to keep knocking it off the piano and eventually it stopped working. I bought another one without really thinking about the make - as far as I was concerned all digital tuners were the same but the new one was unusable with the oboe. It won't even identify most of the notes (telling me I'm playing an E for example, when I know I am playing a B); it works marginally better with the cello but still can't identify all the notes so is not really useful. The only instrument (that we have) whose notes it will reliably identify is the piano - which of course is the only instrument which doesn't have an intonation problem. I then read various threads on here and bought a clip on korg one which was considerably more expensive but well worth it.

Another book I'd recommend is the Cambridge Companion. I found it an interesting read about the history etc of the instrument but there are also some really good tips.

As with most clarinetists when I started on sax my tone was thin and I was always sharp! One exercise I found really helpful was to take the mouthpiece alone and play it into a tuner. I can't remember the pitches now (I think alto mouthpiece is an A but not sure) they are given in the Cambridge guide. Once I could reliably hit the right pitch I started playing around going between different intervals and matching different notes. I found this much more effective than just long note practise at breaking my clarinet embouchure habits as I could only get the flexibility once the corners of my mouth had come in and the lip under the reed become more bunched up and cushion like.

Re-reading that I'm not sure it makes sense - I'll try and clarify another time as I've got to dash to a meeting.

You're right, alto pitch is an A. B flat instruments should aim for a B (i.e. sop sax or tenor sax). This website is quite useful and explains the same idea (scroll down the page to "Method"): http://www.saxontheweb.net/Learning/tone_production.html

It shouldn't make a difference to the embouchure, but you might find that using the angled crook will position the mouthpiece better in your mouth without having to hold it out from your body so much.

It's a Korg TM-40 digial tuner metronome. It's a long time since I looked at the tuning side of it but when I tried to do it when I first got it, I couldn't get the hang of it. Probably best if I don't dig a deeper hole, I don't want to sound more dim than I probably do already



I've had a look at the write-up for that and I recognise the names of many of the contributors - I'll probably get it after I've read the Larry Teal book that I ordered the other day, thanks for the recommendation.



That's a brilliant web site. I had a look at some of their other pages as well and this is what they said about embouchure:

Can you suck your thumb? Of course you can! Put your thumb in your mouth (about ¾") with the pad of the thumb touching your top teeth just as the mouthpiece does. With about half of your bottom lip folded back over your lower teeth (this is subjective, less lip if your lips are fat like mine, more if you have thin lips), simply suck your thumb. Now, notice that the chin is flat the cheeks are not puffed, the lips are drawn around the thumb in a circular pattern... like a rubber band. For the saxophone, simply blow instead of suck. The rest is the same. Simple? You bet! That is all there is to it.

That seems an extremely simple and understandable way of explaining the embouchure required and I'm proposing to try this, would others agree?



That's interesting, I'll try that, thanks.


A teacher I contacted hasn't come back to me so I'll have to approach someone else. In the meantime I think I'll start another thread in the Jazz forum. Thanks for all the advice on this one, it's been a big help.

good page of the saxontheweb site.
Quote:

"For alto sax, have the student match the concert A, 880 Hz that you play on the piano or keyboard (this is the A one octave and a sixth above middle C). For the Bb soprano clarinet, match the concert B one step above the A, 880 Hz. For the tenor sax, match the G one step below the A, 880 Hz. For baritone sax, match concert Eb. For soprano sax, match Db two octaves and a half step above middle C on the piano."

The book has arrived today and it looks excellent - very detailed descriptions and diagrams. Thanks for the recommendation.

I've just found this clip on Youtube - it's the South Side Jazz Serenaders with Thomas Winteler on soprano. They used to go to the Whitley Bay jazz fest and they were brilliant but they've stopped coming to this country now

Thomas Winteler on soprano sax