(Part 2) Best products from r/Saxophonics

For what it's worth, I'll tell you what I used to teach myself to play sax. Hope you find this information useful.

I already played clarinet since I was a kid, and had wanted to learn to play sax for many years. Finally picked up a used alto a few years ago, and I taught myself the basics entirely from "Play Alto Sax Today!". I bought what they call the Beginner Pack, which comes with a DVD, a book of sheet music (Level 1), and an audio CD -- currently about $15 US on Amazon. It's published by Hal Leonard. Here's a link...

www.amazon.com/Play-Alto-Today-Beginners-Pack/dp/0634052993

I liked the Level 1 package so much that I when I finished working my way through it, I bought the Level 2 book. It's currently about $10 on Amazon...

www.amazon.com/Play-Alto-Sax-Today-Level/dp/0634028928

It's also worthwhile to pick up a cheap electronic metronome (get one that also has a chromatic tuner, maybe $15 or $20 -- Korg has some decent ones). You can find free metronome and tuner programs for computers online, if you don't want to buy one -- as long as you can sit in front of your computer when you practice.

Spend a week or two just practicing with the mouthpiece, without the sax, just to get a workable embouchure and good air support. You want to be able to blow a nice steady concert A (880 Hz), for about 60 seconds or so, before even thinking about putting your sax together.

I saw a good description of correct embouchure on a sax website. Insert mouthpiece, and then try to saying, "EEE" - "YUU" (pronounce like "you"). It's like your lip and face muscles are doing a tug-of-war between the EEE's and the YUU's. You've got the correct embouchure if you let the YUU's win, with the corners of your mouth pushing in against the sides of the mouthpiece. Hope that makes sense!

There are a few really great websites you might want to look at -- Sax on the Web is a great one, as is Best Saxophone Website Ever.

Finally, I'll mention one really great classic book of sax exercises. It's cheap, and it's worth having. It's called "25 Daily Exercises for Saxophone", by H. Klosé. You may very well be able to find a PDF somewhere, but I think it's worth buying.

As many others have said, the black cushions do tend to wear out quickly and I stopped using them years ago. The thin, clear plastic ones are much more durable. And don't listen to the haters, it's totally normal to have a firm grip with your top teeth: biting with your bottom teeth is definitely not good for your tone and intonation, but just about every good player I know wears through mouthpiece patches eventually. And through the black rubber ones pretty swiftly.

That being said, I hate paying a bunch of money for clear plastic with an adhesive back. A mouthpiece maker friend of mine tipped me to a pretty excellent life-hack: use Scotchgard paint protector film and just cut off a little square every time you need a new patch on any of your mouthpieces. I bought one roll five years ago and I've barely made a dent in it. It'll last you for, like, ever. To me it's just as good as the clear Vandoren patches but for a penny a patch instead of a buck a patch.

My buddy owns one of these things. Has multiple ways to carry it, but it's easiest to just roll it like your luggage; it's heavy as a sack of bricks (despite the claim of "lightweight"). It's built pretty well, though, and he loves it. Back when he was looking, it was the only soprano/alto dual case he could find, so he was pretty glad it worked out.

The problem is that whatever you use, you'll keep hearing your horn relatively loudly because of bone conduction. Mouthpiece vibrations are transmitted through your teeth, skull and into your inner ear. Deep, custom molded in-ear monitors will reduce this effect, but it will still be there.

For a relatively cheap solution, get a set of drummer's headphones like THESE or THESE.

However:

> I'd like to monitor the input to get a better idea of what I actually sound like, since obviously it sounds very different from what I think I sound like.

this won't really work anyways. A lot of information is lost when recording a saxophone. That's not only true for professional studio recordings (which use top of the line spaces with carefully controlled acoustics, and very expensive gear), but even more if you use a cheap mic in your home. I've had the opportunity to hear Chris Potter, Donny McCaslin and Ben Van Gelder up close, unaccompanied, and none of them sounded like how they do on tape.

If you want a more "true-to-life" recording of your horn, place the mic as far away from your horn as possible so it picks up a lot of room sound and resonance.

It's obviously going to all come down to personal preferences, but if you're looking for more modern, recognizable stuff (particularly if you're looking at busking), you might take a look at Chromatik -- they've recently rolled out a subscription-based plan, so I'm not sure how "free" it is at this point, I think if you're willing to sit through the advertisements, you can still get at all the sheet music.

I've generally had good luck using Google Image search to lead me to places to find the sheet music I'm looking for, just search for <song name> tenor sheet music, and in general, you're pointed to either a free or low-cost option for finding that song.

I haven't made a serious search into finding duet music, but I have been using the Rubank Saxophone Duets book with my daughter, who plays clarinet, while I play my tenor. I also play in the Horn Players Jazz Jam at my local Sam Ash store on Sundays, that seems to vary by location, but at ours, we use primarily the Hal Leonard or Jamey Aebersold play along books & backing tracks.

I have noticed a big jump in quality when buying Vandoren reeds in comparison to daddario and rico. I have heard that these are solid brands but at least for me I get a far better sound out of vandorens. The 'blue box' vandorens are a good choice for classical, but if you play jazz or really if you have any excuse for a more fun sound, i recommend trying a variety pack of Vandoren jazz reeds.

I think people generally prefer the 'greens' or 'reds'.

Use a metronome and play the root chord tones in time through out the entire tune. Then roots and 3rds. Then roots, 3rds, 5th. And then the 7th chords. You want to be able to sing/play roots of the entire tune by yourself, in time, with a good feel. Do this with every tune you play.
Make sure you have a solid foundation when in comes the basic ii-V-I and their resolutions.
Also some of their extensions and how they resolve.
This will give you a start on how to construct a solo through changes.
Some books that may help
http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Jazz-Language-Developing-Improvisor/dp/157623875X
http://www.amazon.com/Patterns-Jazz-Theory-Composition-Improvisation/dp/B008LX27OU/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1345573762&sr=8-9&keywords=jerry+coker+patterns+for+jazz
Start listening to a lot of players who play with more melodic feel to the solos. (Stan Getz, Dexter Gordon) and not necessarily just sax players. (Miles Davis, Chet Baker)
If you do purchase transcriptions, be sure you can analyze what they're doing.Then take that idea and transpose it into 12 keys.
Charlie Parkers Omnibook is great cause it has the chord changes above the solos. Pick a few or all of the ii-V-I's from that and take them through all 12 keys and work them into your solos.
Most importantly. This will take you where ever you wish to go as an improviser.
SING EVERYTHING!!!
If you can sing it, you can play it!
This simple concept is kinda hard to grasp at first, but once you fully understand it, it unlocks so much.
Good luck!

No. It will wobble on the smaller peg and fall within the hour. I have and recommend this stand for portability:

https://www.amazon.com/15290B-Soprano-Sax-Stand/dp/B0002F7JGG

OR if you need an alto/soprano doubling stand, I also have and recommend the Hercules Alto/Sop stand: https://www.amazon.com/Hercules-DS533BB-Alto-Tenor-Sax/dp/B0019ABOO6

The latter is a good stand, but certain weights can unbalance it for short times. I'd recommend buying some small bag weights or something like that to keep on the legs to ensure that moving the instrument on and off doesn't make it tip. Really I'd recommend that with any instrument stand.

I could not agree more, Top Tones serves purposes beyond simply accessing your higher register. The exercises help you conceptualize your sound from new view points and helps you discover how to control your involuntary pharyngeal (and oral) muscles, or voicing muscles, that are needed to help proper intonation control and tonal control and consistency throughout all registers. The fingerings in the book are actually for Rascher's old Buescher alto and are not really the point of the book, simply an early jumping off point for discovering useful fingerings for yourself.

I also suggest looking for Donald Sinta's book "Voicing" and Paul Cohen's "Altissimo Primer" Both books have different and useful approaches to tackling one of the more challenging areas of technical control for the saxophone.

Good luck

A mouthpiece that's highly regarded among alto players is the Morgan Excalibur. Rovner is the lig that's pretty affordable and would be much better than what comes with the horn. Reeds can be whatever you're used to but I've found it's easier to play on Van Doren Java or ZZ reeds.

As for playing, make sure your embouchure is proper. What I mean by this is that a proper embouchure of a clarinet player, as you would know, is making your mouth in the same shape as if you were saying "eeeeeee". Sax should have an "oh" mouth shape when played. I only know this because when I was in college my sax instructor would keep telling me things that are different from clarinet and sax as she was a clarinet player primarily.

Edit: It's spelled embouchure. Also, why the downvotes?

I don't have any direct experience with reed making but as nobody is answering the question, and from what I've read online: it's not worth it. Reed making tools are really expensive, as is good quality cane and you'll more likely need at a lot of time to learn the skills and yield consistent results.

If you're interested in this subject, I would recommend you buy The Saxophone Reed: The Advanced Art Of Adjusting Single Reeds by Ray Reed and start working on factory reeds first (maybe buy a 1/2 or whole strength up and "shape" their profiles down).

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00E2D9HAA/ref=cm_cr_arp_mb_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8

Invest in a quality pair of earbuds. You’ll still be able to hear everything while you play and quality of sound won’t be affected, but the harshness of the sound will drop considerably. This will protect your eardrums from further damage with you still being able to play as you wish. Best of luck to you!