Saxophone Forum


by YanagisawA-901
(312 posts)
20 years ago

This might be a tuffy

hey guys, ive been workin hard the past few weeks on my tone, and technique and whatnot, i just dont feel like im getting anywhere. my yani, has given me this bright ass sharp sounding tone, and i know, that if i just mess around with my embocher a lil bit the tone will be absolutely round and beautiful..HOW!?? haha, I mean, i know the basics, but still, any ideas?? tone excersises that will help it develop quicker? also, im workin on "swinging", up untill like, 4 oclock today, i had no idea how to swing, not that i sorta found out how, i need to expound upon that theory. i kno that swinging is all about feel, and to follow what the leader is doing, but i still need to know how swingin comes from you, into your sax, and out of hte bell. 1st i looked at the music and it was a 40 jazz feel, meening i thought of it like... dop, doobee dop, dooowaaa! and stuff, then i picked up my horn, and as i was playing, i was running that through in my mind, and it magically came out of my horn.. any thoughts? ideas?? haha

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  1. by stutrane
    (15 posts)

    19 years ago

    Re: This might be a tuffy

    Play on just your mouthpiece. Aim to get a strong even full tone that doesn't wobble, then work on bending it down and up, like a duck call. For more info, do a web search on "The mouthpiece exercise" by Shoosie (it's linked to a great site called SaxFAQ) Also, work on your overtones, and tone matching (BEST THING YOU CAN DO). A good book is the Dave Liebman book "Developing a Saxophone Sound". It covers everything.

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    1. by golferguy675
      (600 posts)

      19 years ago

      Re: This might be a tuffy

      Ha, you know who you remind me of? Hope this isn't offensive, he's a bit off but he's an amazing saxophonist. Jim Carrol. That's a great book, by the way, Dave Leibman is the man.

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  2. by chiamac
    (586 posts)

    20 years ago

    Re: This might be a tuffy

    1) open your throat... that may solve any problems you have. 2) buy some jazz cd's and listen, maybe play along with them. 3) usually things don't go well late into the morning. This goes for just about anything. (even drinking and partying, or at least you don't feel well the next morning) If it's getting late and you still havent got anywhere just say f*ck it and get some sleep. No sense stressing yourself and body over something that can be done tomorrow when you're more awake.

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    1. by golferguy675
      (600 posts)

      20 years ago

      Re: This might be a tuffy

      Not only open your throat, but openyour mouth too. A lot of younger players play with a closed inside of the mouth. Open the inside of your mouth, and your tone will be a lot warmer, and breath out very warm air, like you're just exhaling, don't blow cold air, you have to blow from down in your stomach, if you blow from your mouth, the air will be cold, and it will sound like crap.

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      1. by Spike
        (248 posts)

        20 years ago

        Re: This might be a tuffy

        Yeah, do you know how to do subtones? It's a lot like what golfer guy said except more so. Also, there's a difference between mouth open, and tongue placement. Your tongue is really where air speed changes should come from. as for swinging, i was lucky to have been raised on swung 8ths, but try listening a lot, and trying to imitate what you hear. It's important to be able to do a lot of swung styles, ranging from bassie to binney. try for hard swings, light swings, back tongueing, and eventually a style where you have even 8ths in terms of time value, but accents create a swing feel(think modern jazz and hard bop) If you want to know good examples to look for, lots of people here including myself can help. oh yeah, great point from golfer guy, your air support has to come from the bottom of your lungs. Try to match the sound you get from the overtone series to their lowest partial counterparts.

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    2. by schellerj
      (6 posts)

      20 years ago

      Re: This might be a tuffy

      Hey man, props to you for takin' the time to work on that stuff. It's difficult!! Swinging, in a technical sense, goes something like this. If you are swinging 8th notes, for example, play a like of 8th note triplets. When i said "line"n i meant play them continuously for a good bit a time. Next, just remove the middle note of the triplet and it should sound like a passage of rolling 8th notes. Hope that helped!! The best advice after that is just to listen to the greats swing and mock that keeping that modified triplet thing-a-ma-jigger!! Later.

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      1. by YanagisawA-901
        (312 posts)

        20 years ago

        Re: This might be a tuffy

        iinnnnttterrrressstiinnnggg... .... hmmm..

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        1. by golferguy675
          (600 posts)

          20 years ago

          Re: This might be a tuffy

          jmsax......NO! That modified triplet idea has got to be the BIGGEST misconception in all of jazz rythm. If you're swinging modified triplets, are you going to have a full beat with two eights notes? Lets do the math. 1/3 + 1/3=2/3 2/3 < 1/1 In english... two swung triplets does not equal a beat, it equals two thirds of a beat. So if you really swing like this(which most people technically can't, because 2 triplets at a time would be confusing as hell), you are going to rush every beat. Just play long short. Keep it simple. Sorry jmsax, this is just a big pet peeve of mine I guess.

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          1. by Spike
            (248 posts)

            20 years ago

            Re: This might be a tuffy

            some might suggest that 2/3+1/3=3/3=1... just a thought, i don't swing that hard

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          2. by chiamac
            (586 posts)

            20 years ago

            Re: This might be a tuffy

            hahahahaha!

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          3. by golferguy675
            (600 posts)

            20 years ago

            Re: This might be a tuffy

            Yeah, 2/3 + 1/3 would sound really corny unless you were playing some really heavy dirty blues stuff, and even then, it might be a bit much.

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          4. by peter090
            (155 posts)

            20 years ago

            Re: This might be a tuffy

            Not corny at all. Most slow blues are played with a 12/8 feel. The amount of swing is a function of time and tempo and style. A good drummer will set up the subdivisions with the skip beat on the ride symbol. The corniness doesn't come from the relative length of notes it comes from accenting the wrong beats and articulating the wrong notes.

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          5. by chiamac
            (586 posts)

            20 years ago

            Re: This might be a tuffy

            " A good drummer" good point... actually it would be hard to swing the wrong way with a good drummer. or does that only make sense because I'm buzzed?

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          6. by peter090
            (155 posts)

            20 years ago

            Re: This might be a tuffy

            Doesn't need to be a GREAT drummer. Just a drummer who has a sense of how much "swing" the 8ths should have given the style and tempo. If you have a BAD drummer you're probably still best served by folling his subdivisions. Its better to be tight than "right"/

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          7. by divesta
            (11 posts)

            20 years ago

            Re: This might be a tuffy

            I think you guys got entirely to technical on the "swing eighth" notes. The only way to really learn how to swing is to play with the greats. . . Transcribe. Not just one person, find out how everyone swings. When you listen to Trane play his eighth notes are almost straight, but he swings hard. Swing is about groove, not just the eighth notes. So my advice listen and transcribe as much as possible.

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