Saxophone Exercises & Patterns
In This Section:
Taming the Saxophone
Exercises & Patterns:
- Fingering Exercises (1)
- 1|1-1|1-2|1-3|1-4
- Fingering Exercises (2)
- 2-1|2-2|2-3|2-4
- Cycle of 5ths
- 3-1|3-2|3-3|3-4
- IIm7-V7-Is
- 4 |4-1|4-2|4-3|4-4|4-6
- Chromatic
- 5-1|5-2|5-3
- Studies in 4ths
- 6-1|6-2|6-3
- Diminished Patterns
- 7|7-1|7-2|7-3|7-4
- Whole Tone Patterns
- 8-1|8-2|8-3|8-4
All of these in full (and many more) in the book:
FINGERING EXERCISES (1)
This is a great warm up exercise for the saxophone as well as being one of the best exercises for learning harmony. It consists of an ascending four-note (7th chord) arpeggio and a scale down which brings you neatly into the arpeggio built on the next scale tone. You should practice this in every key, I have written roman numerals rather than the chord name to help you get used to thinking about the function and structure of chords built on each tone of the scale. As you play the exercise, think of the root note names for the arpeggios as well as the numeral: chord I = C major 7, Chord II = D minor7 Chord III = E minor 7 etc
I shall be putting this up here in more keys soon. Taming the Saxophone Vol 3 has the exercises written out in all keys (as well as all the other exercises and more), but I recommend that as soon as possible you practice this from memory or by ear. This will help you get an understanding of the chord shapes rather than just exercising your fingers and sight reading
Video demonstration:
Articulation
Try this with various articulations:
- legato
- legato tongued, (soft tongued)
- staccato
bebop
You can use straight quavers (8th notes) or varying amounts of triplet feel. Any speed but you must keep a steady tempo throughout. Don’t slow down for tricky passages then speed up, you should start at a slower tempo. Practise any difficult bits on their own until you can play them as fast as the easy bits.
