UPDATE: Since writing this article, my views on the topic of an “open throat” have actually changed quite drastically. So forget about this silly article and hop over here to get the real skinny on this super-important concept. With any wind instrument, the rule is more air you have access to, the more “fuel” you [read more…]
For those of you who haven’t listened to the site’s complete library of podcasts (shame on you!), there is one tip from the Jon Irabagon podcast that really stood out to me. For those of you unfamiliar with Jon’s playing (again, shame on you!), I’ll assure you it’s obvious that the man can play in [read more…]
For any of us who find ourselves frequenting YouTube, Twitter, Facebook or really any social media site, it’s been hard to escape that buzz that surrounds the latest viral video to hit the worldwide. However, for saxfolk such as ourselves, the video I’m talking about was not just any old video, but no less than [read more…]
When it comes to art, unbridled passion is a good thing. Well, maybe not too unbridled – since none of us want to end up in a drunken bar brawl to release agression brought on by a missed chord change. What I’m talking about here is the good kind of unbridled passion. The kind of [read more…]
It’s really quite simple. In the words of legendary saxophone teacher Joe Allard: “To blow is to breathe, there is no difference.” How often we overcomplicate things. We should never twist, contort, and strain ourselves while playing. We (hopefully) don’t struggle and strain when we speak, so why all the painful effort while playing our [read more…]
Today’s post comes in response to a question by reader Chad Lamkin. Chad asks: I play Alto and I really just want to improve and just learn it all at the moment. I’m trying to get these altissimo notes down but the highest I can get F# and I can’t get it any higher…Would you [read more…]
The baritone sax doesn’t get as much love as it should, and that just plain ain’t right. There are a lot of reasons for this, but it’s always great to come across bari players who make the instrument burn and sing just as much as some of their most skilled counterparts on the smaller members [read more…]
For all of my years playing the sax, there are certain things that I’ve done just out of force of habit without really knowing exactly where that habit came from, or whether or not it was a good habit to begin with. The amount of mouthpiece I was taking in has been one of those autopilot aspects of [read more…]
OK, I’ll just up and say it: The “saxophone world” is not all that tech savvy as a whole. At the majority of saxophone shops, file cabinets filled with carbon paper triumph over computers. And ok, this one is going to get me into trouble – but most saxophone-related websites look straight out of 1995. [read more…]
Thanks to accomplished UK sax man Ben Castle, I recently came across what’s become a fabulous way to suck away precious hours of my life. It’s called “Virtual Sax!” and it allows any of us to put together a funkyjazzy solo by merely moving our mouse in rhythm to two different pre-recorded backing tracks. How [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!
