Had my first Sax last Wednesday, first time in over 2 years….

[Michael Bishop]

Hey guys,

Last Wednesday was my first Sax lesson in over 2 years, it felt awesome! 🙂 I have my lessons every Wednesday at 4:30 pm.

We worked on Pentatonics and finger position on the Saxophone. For Pentatonics, he wants me to start thinking about them on a ‘chord-by-chord’ basis–play Major Pentatonics over a Major Chord, minor pentatonics over a minor chord, etc.. He said this was a stepping stone of things we’ll be doing later.

He also told me to be mindful of keeping my fingers closer to the keys. Fingers should be in a natural, curved position and touching the keys. As a default, the pinky on my right hand should be touching the low Eb and my pinky on the left hand should be touching the G# key. Keeping our fingers too far out from the keys is wasted motion, and it’s a common mistake with student players.

For the next 6 months, he asked me to downsize on the tip opening of my mouthpiece. I used to play an 8*-9* MP on the Tenor, but will be playing a 6* for a little while. MPs with smaller tip openings are easier to play in tune. As my embouchure gets back to where it was, then I can gradually work my way back up.

[Pete]

Well done Michael, glad you are getting back into the feel of the sax again.

[john]

sounds good Michael, good luck with everything!
my teacher used to hold his hands over my hands so I could never touch his while I played…this was his way of getting me to hold my fingers close to the keys. ya gotta always think about it at the beginning but like most other things we should get used to it. we are limited in speed if our fingers are flying 3 inches above the keys so this is a very important technique to learn.

[Michael Bishop]

Your teacher put his hands over yours? Wow, never thought about that. With me, I haven’t mentally forgotten how to do anything. It’s just getting everything else to respond. It’s one thing to think about it, but another to do it. I still don’t have any problems with Altissimo, but he advised me to back off that for just a few months 🙂

The one thing he cautioned me about was to avoid keeping my fingers postioned straight out over the keys vs in a curved position. He said if we keep our fingers straight out, we’re more likely to keep them too far away from the keys. I’ve been playing chromatic scales, slowly, 1 note at a time, and really paying attention to my fingers.

This Wednesday, we’re supposed to work on practicing blowing Long Tones as loud as I can because playing loud is one of the best things we can do to get a good, strong tone. Once I start feeling good air support on a steady basis, then he said to practice long tones as quietly as I can–which is even harder to do 🙂

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