No Saxophone Required
One way to improve your tone in a way that exercises just about every muscle necessary to form a great sound is the practicing of overtones. But there is something else we can do before we even put the entire instrument together.
And what is that, you may ask?
Of course, I’m talking about playing on nothing more than the mouthpiece and a reed.
The first thing to practice would be to simply hold out a a single note. When you’re first learning to do this, the note you start on can make a difference. Here’s what saxophonist and clinician Paul R. Coats recommends:
For alto sax, have the student match the concert A, 880 Hz that you play on the piano or keyboard (this is the A one octave and a sixth above middle C). For the Bb soprano clarinet, match the concert B one step above the A, 880 Hz. For the tenor sax, match the G one step below the A, 880 Hz. For baritone sax, match concert Eb. For soprano sax, match Bb two octaves and a half step above middle C on the piano.
