Try listening to jazz artists and you could even play along with some of them.

Test

Hello Dave, If you don't have any Lester Young records you should go out and buy some. I recommend "The Lester Young Story" it is a four CD box set on Proper records. It is about $35 and is a great collection. Lester Young had an incredible swing feel, I know the more I listen to the greats like Lester the more you will know when you are swinging or not. I think it is a great tool to record yourself playing a passage that you are working on and listen back to yourself to hear what you think you need to work on. I try to listen to my practice session and/or conerts to critique what I don't realize I am doing at the time. If you hear yourself you will understand what your teacher is trying to tell you. About tonguing, I had a clarinet teacher that had me blow through the sax without tonguing a note (open C# is a good note to try this on). Then he had me use my tongue to stop the reed, while still letting the air go through the horn. In other words, you are blowing like you normally do, but you have your tongue on the reed just enough to stop it from moving. This will let you know exactly how soft you can tongue the reed. You don't need to shut off the opening of the mouthpiece, just stop the reed from vibrating. This helped me a lot in understanding how to tongue. Also, use the sylable " Di " (like you say Disney) to hit the reed from below instead of head on. Practice major scales while thinking " Di Di Di " as lightly as you can. I hope this helps, Good luck, B

Hey Dave, I forgot to tell you something regarding tonguing. I like to play the old surf song wipe out to work my tongue out. Take any note or sequence you want and play the drum part with your tongue. You have to hit it nice and light with the double tonguing technique. I use both T and D sounds. Besides that it's fun :) Terry