Ezio asked about Saxophone Embouchure -
I am 52 and I just started learning the sax tenor.
I had my first lesson last week.
My previous music experience amounts to 1 year of studying the piano 20 years ago.
As expected I am finding the embouchure very hard so much so that I am trying different ways like with the lower lip sticking out rather the folding over the teeth.
Do you know exercises to strengthen the muscles around the lips?
By the way my teacher is clarinet player who also owns an alto sax.
Is there a difference between the embouchure for the clarinet and the one for the sax?
Any suggestions are welcome.
Regards.
Ezio
Hello Ezio,
Good to hear from you. That’s great you started learning saxophone, you should have a lot of fun with it. I have played just a bit of piano myself, but mostly I do saxophone. How did your first lesson go?
For embouchure….. you might be okay sticking the bottom lip out a bit more, but don’t put your teeth on the reed at all. I started playing clarinet before saxophone myself- the difference is that you need to be a bit tighter on clarinet and it requires more control. Therefore it’s better to go from playing clarinet over to saxophone rather than the opposite. If you’re not planning on playing clarinet, I wouldn’t worry about that though.
You’ll develop the muscles naturally as you play, but one thing that really helps is long tones. What I do is take a breath, start on low E and play it as quietly as I can then move up to F. You use one breath for two notes and go up chromatically. I go up one octave and then come back down. Does that description make sense? I was thinking about making a video of myself doing it…. so I could do that this week sometime.
-Neal
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Hi Ezio,
I’d really avoid sticking out the lower lip too much. In fact, one shouldn’t really talk about “strengthening” the embouchure. It has nothing to do with “strength”. “Playing the saxophone should be just as relaxed as talking.” – that is what Joe Allard had relayed to me with studying with at the Manhattan School of Music.
The lower lip is not designed to take a lot of pressure, and is surely not there to support the pressure applied to the reed. You need the support of your lower teeth through the lip in order to produce a decent sound. That requires NO pressure from the lower lip at all.
To form your embouchure, just think of saying the letter “A” or say “Hey!”. This tauts your lower lip against your lower teeth, raises your tongue in your mouth (tongue position – often ignored when it come to intonation) and when you blow, this prevents the cheeks being puffed and forms a steady, focus pathway for the air to ride over the tongue and directly out between the teeth.
Above all things, avoid lowering your jaw to play the low notes, and avoid pinching to play high notes. This will only hinder your performance, not help it.
Well this is encouraging, i never really learned properly but played and faked in the early 80s with a handful of pop bands. At 52 myself, I am going to relearn the right way, i haven’t played in close to 20 years and I’m excited. The resources available now in comparison to the 80s are amazing. Great site here as a matter of example!
Thanks Otis, glad it’s helping you!
I’m off on a long trip and bringing my sax is not possible. Other than bringing a mouthpiece (and annoying everyone with my duck calls), is there any exercises I can do to help me keep my embouchure muscles in shape? There must be some product or devise out there that can help.
Hey Charles,
which I have heard some good things about. I had a generic version of it that didn’t work too well, but people I have talked to seem to like the xaphoon.
I actually saw a ’silencer’ for saxophone – Xaphoon
-Neal