Chromatic Scale, Arpeggios and Octaves with MP only…

[Michael Bishop]

Hey Johnny,

The exercise of using the MP only is really helping me to get my tone back! In today’s practice session, I played an entire chromatic scale in C, as well as Arpeggios and playing a C Note in the lowest register all the way up to Altissimo with the MP only, so definitely starting to feel good 🙂 I’ve noticed when I really push the air from my diaphragm, and keeping the neck/shoulders/oral cavity open and relaxed, that a lot of ‘warm’ air blows into the MP and out. When I get the Warm air coming out, that’s when I’m hearing the biggest sound come out–almost feels like the entire MP is ‘full’ of warm air–I hope the ‘warm air’ description makes sense, it’s the best way I can describe it.

Trying to hit a low Bb with the MP only is pretty tough! It came out a few times, but gonna take some more work. Using the MP only is an awesome exercise, and it’s really helping me 🙂 🙂

[Anonymous]

https://www.bestsaxophonewebsiteever.com/wp-content/uploads/Saxophone_Mouthpiece_Pitch.pdf

[saxomonica]

Wow @Michael Bishop you’re really honkin’ and manifestly ya cooking the goose soon!
I remember @Johnny relating try to blow warm air from a fat throat – like steaming up a window, somethink likea that ..
i can really notice the diff too in tone
Yet i am far from the tonal mastery you can now exhibit, but i’ll keep at it step by step!

So. nspirational on the MP mate, i hope your oral comeback helps rock the joint in a bar near you soon!
An interesting sax journey you tread. 🙂 Great workout. And insights.

And thanks for the link James we’ll just use the same interval pattern on a wavelength near us soon.

Roll over Beethoven, yo Rockin’ Goose is in town: ah agh ah agh
Cheers Mark

[Anonymous]

I used to do a lot of mouthpiece exercises a couple of years ago. Once i got a reasonable tone and pitch then i stopped doing them, mainly because there’s so many other things to concentrate on and i just had to prioritise what i could do and could not do on the sax in terms of just spending an hour a day of serious practice.

The only thing i do now, is a warm up on the mouthpiece just connected to the neck and not the sax, as it tells me if i’ve got the reed in the correct place on the mouthpiece (a tiny fraction out messes up the sax sound). With the mouthpiece connected to the neck, you can only play one pitch properly, whereas just playing the mouthpiece you can play a range of pitches), and on the alto the pitch is around concert f for the mouthpiece only connected to the neck. All i do is aim for a steady clear non stop pitch lasting between 40 and 50 seconds to make sure i’m breathing properly with my diaphragm.

The reed always sits in the same place on the mouthpiece.

Where you position the mouthpiece on the neck (towards you or away from you) makes the overall pitch flatter or sharper.

where you position the ligature along the reed (closer to you or away from you), makes the pitch and tones far better suited to classical or rock music environments.

If you haven’t got the reed lined up properly with the rails of the mouthpiece, or the ligature not line up properly on the reed in relation to the rails of the mouthpiece, will completely mess up the range of various pitches from playing properly.

From all that, you can get everything adjusted properly before connecting the mouthpiece/neck to the sax, saves time taking everything off and messing about with mouthpiece adjustments.

[Anonymous]

correction alto f, not concert f, i have my tuner set to show Eb pitch instead of concert pitch. lol

[saxomonica]

Nice one
i love my tonal energy app
and the other great apps you’ve put us on to

[john]

thanks for the share…
I was well aware of kate bush but i never heard this song before. real 70’s alternative kinda sound.
I don’t think I woulda listened to it back then!

[Author]

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