Saxophone Tone Control
Improving your saxophone sound for more expression in your playing
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I am often asked what is the best way to get a good tone (or sound) on the saxophone. The usual answer is "practise lots of long notes". Some people find long note playing so boring that they are unable to concentrate and so they just play long notes while thinking about something else. This kind of practice may have some slight benefit, but unless you are concentrating on what you are practising, you wil be missing most of the real benefit.
Elsewhere I have mentioned a way to help this with the chapter on visualising the sound, but on this page I am going to look at a set of very disciplined exercises which should help in many areas of tone production, as well as not being as boring and hard to keep focussed as merely playing long notes. These exercises address three areas of tone production (and with, that very valuable musical commodity: expressiveness. Practising pure long notes will help with your basic core sound, but these will add just that extra little bit of magic that makes the difference between a good sound and a great sound.
For those of you more experienced, I suggest you go straight to the combined exercise at the bottom of the page. This can take quite a lot of breath (so good for breathing as well), but I find this one the best way to practise this concept, once you are sure of the individual exercises.
For all exercises I chose the note B to start on as it is a comfortable note near the centre of the range. Work up from the B as high as you can, then start again at B and work downwards.
- Articulation
- Vibrato (being able to "turn it on or off")
- Slurring up/down octaves
A note about articulation
Another reason I bang on about legato tonguing is that as well as helping with your perceived tone due to a nice beginning to the note, the ability to practise runs or scales using legato tonguing on every note will help you keep a good even timing, as the tongue has a tendency to be more regular in regards to tempo than your fingers. Even if the phrase will eventually be played legato, practising it with your tongue will really help with the accuracy and precision of the note timing.
Articulation
You may have heard it said that the way you start a note has a big effect on the way your sound is perceived. If you read that page you will see I emphasise the use of legato or soft tonguing. The tongue is used to make the note start cleanly, but most players find it very difficult to tongue a note without the tongue sound being very obvious, either too explosive: sometimes more of a noise than a musical note. Before doing this I suggest you first read the page on articulation. In this exercise do not think of separate notes, think of one long note but with just the lightest possible touch or flick of your tongue at regular intervals. If possible try to use the tip of your tongue on or as near as possible to the tip of the reed.
I suggest you try this at around 90 beats per minute, use a metronome, tap your foot or just count to yourself.
Ex 1 Transition from legato tonguing to (vibratoless) long notes:
Vibrato
(And What if I don’t like Vibrato as part of my Tone?)
There are people who believe that the use of vibrato is corny. Of course it can be when used in a corny fashion (e.g. a very fast wide constant "nanny goat" style vibrato), but nearly all (non-classical) players, past and present, use vibrato to quite some extent. As with singers, the vibrato can be a continuous part of the tone or else it can creep in towards the end of a note - and this is the important thing - being able to turn the vibrato on and off smoothly. Again, before doing this you should have first practised vibrato!
Again, I suggest you try this at around 90 beats per minute. The vibrato should be at the same tempo as the legato tongued notes, ie quavers (1/8 notes).
Ex 2 Transition from vibratoless to vibrato:
Slurring Octaves and Other Intervals
You might be wondering what this has to do with tone production. It serves two purposes. First, it will help to focus your mind on playing the octaves in tune, you should listen at for the "centre" of the sound and evert time try to hear a good in tune octave. Second, you will rarely find yourself in a musical situation in which you are just playing a long note, then another one. This will help you with transitions from one pitch to another. In fact, there is no reason why you need to stick to octaves, try other intervals as well.
Ex 3 Slurring up/down an octave:
Of course once you can do these easily in one breath, then you can play the long (combined) version above and repeat some of the sections, eg. novib - vib - novib - vib then slur up the octave. Or else slur up - down - up - down. Basically, you can adapt this to whatever works well for you, for example you could try slurring up and down a perfect fifth instead of an octave.
Putting it all Together - The Combined Exercise
I believe if you master this exercise, you will be well on the way to developing a great sound with a good core tone and articulation plus tasteful and controlled vibrato. You may have noticed there are no dynamic markings. I doo not want to force too much on you at once, but of course it would be useful to try not only different dynamics, but also try varying the dynamics through the exercise.
If you have enough breath, you could also repeat any of the individual transitions within the combined exercise. Always make sure that as you finish the exercise, try to hold the note right to the end of your breath but without weakening - this requires good diaphragm control.