Hello Saxophone 

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© 

Massive Creative – Books & Novels 2012.

All rights reserved. 

This edition was published in 2012 by Massive Creative - Books & novels. 

Aurikelstraat 63, 

1032 AS Amsterdam, 

The Netherlands, www.MassiveCreative.nl

ISBN 978-90-818691-0-2

It is illegal to copy, distribute, or create derivative works from this book or it's extra’s i

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Tips on how to use this book:

This book can be read from start to finish as a novel but you can also use it as a kind of encyclopedia. 

It works best if you print out all the extra tools so you can review them quickly. The best way to use the book, is to work it through once from start to finish. After that just select the ideas, skills and techniques that work the best for you and keep reviewing and practicing them. 

Keep in mind that this book will take some time to work through. Some of the exercises will take several days or sometimes a week or more to complete. It's best not to rush things. It’s fine to read ahead but it’s better not to do so and focus on completing every exercise a 100% first. 

Some musical skills, like for example: "being able to hear very subtle differences" take time to develop. Always expect your progress to take some time and never worry. Learing to play an instrument is something you just have to keep going at for a while. If you stay on the path you will succeed eventually! 

This book is very structured. Many of the later exercises only become meaningful once you’ve really mastered the earlier stuff.  

Always feel free to add other songs that you like to your exercises. The more you play stuff you love, the better!

This book makes use of a special website where you can watch (or download) the videos and charts that go with the various exercises. Go to www.Hellosaxophone.com/exercises.html to access the movies and download all the extra materials included with Hello Saxophone.

First things first!

Congrats! You’ve probably just bought your first saxophone. And I bet you can’t wait to start playing like John Coltrane in this movie: Go to the special website www.hellosaxophone.com/trybook.html and watch video nr 1.

Now you probably won’t sound like him for a while, but this book was written to help you get started and give you a solid and effective starting foundation that will help you make progress on the saxophone fast.  

Let’s begin!

The saxophone is a very simple and intuitive instrument, but when you look at all those shiny knobs and keys it can look kind of intimidating. All I can say is: ”Don’t worry about that!” 

The complex machinery is only there to make it easy for us to play. Over the years the machinery on the sax has been refined and adjusted many times and once you get yourself in the saddle (so to speak) everything will start to come naturally.  

Now we’re going to move right into playing your first note in a second here, but there are a few important things we have to take care of first. Trust me when I say: "These will make your life much easier!" 

Try to at least get:

A comfortable neck strap.

This will save you so much pain and discomfort! Good neck straps aren’t expensive, you can get a good one for about € 20,- The neck straps included with new saxophones are usually not very pleasant. Realize that your saxophone will be hanging from this thing for a full hour (sometimes up to 3 hours during a gig). Comfort is very key!

A cleaning kit (usually it’s a long rope with a wipe on it + a smaller swab for the neck) 

It’s important to keep your sax clean, because if you don’t it will soon start to stink (very nasty). Not cleaning is also very bad for your pads (the leather insides of the tone holes). Revising or fixing a sax because of damaged pads can cost up to € 600,- so better to just clean it regularly and save yourself the money.  Also it’s not a brilliant idea to drink alcohol or eat spicy foods right before playing. It gets in your breath and thus in your saxophone. As part of your cleaning kit it’s also a great idea to get some "powder paper". This is special paper you can use to take the moister from your pads after playing. It leaves a powdery residue that helps to keep your pads in prime condition.  

A box of reeds

The saxophone is part of the “woodwind instruments” family. Meaning the sound of the sax is created by vibrating pieces of wood (called reeds). For a beginner it’s usually fine to start with a 1,5 (thickness) reed. Just ask someone in a music store what goes well with your mouthpiece (take it with you to the store) and you will be all right. Also ask someone to show you how to put it on your mouthpiece the right way. I’ll show you in a video soon, but it’s never bad to see someone actually doing it right before your eyes at least once. There are a huge number of reed manufacturers. Personally I like ‘Vandoren Jazz” reeds on both Alto and Tenor. Over time you just have to try a bunch of brands and types until you find the one that gives you the sound you want. 

A saxophone standard

If you want to become a real hero on the sax it’s necessary to practice regularly. It helps your process a lot if you don’t have to go through the hassle of getting your sax out of the case and putting it together every time you want to practice. You can help things along by putting your sax on a standard in your living room (or wherever it is you usually practice). After practicing just clean it, put it back together and then leave it on the standard so you can grab it quickly the next time you feel like playing. Leaving it in the open will dry out the pads a little quicker though, so it’s a good idea to have them powdered with powder paper regularly.

A good saxophone 

It may sound obvious but I can’t stress this one enough. There are lots of very cheap saxophones out there (€ 300,- / €  500,-). It’s fine to start on one of these if you’re not sure if the saxophone is the right instrument for you or if you don’t have a lot of money, but if you can....get a good one straight away! It’s good to realize a few things about these cheaper instruments. Usually the high notes are slightly out of tune, the low notes are more difficult to play, you need to blow into them harder to get a good sound, they’re often “leaking” or breaking (which means that some of the tones might not work at all) and often no repair shop will fix them if they break or get damaged (and they always do eventually). A cheap sax will often only last a few months before something breaks on it! So beware of the choice your making here. There is an upside though. I started on one of these very cheap saxophones myself. I Practiced hard on it and I could play a bit when I first got my hands on a really good saxophone. Since I was used to playing on a very poorly made saxophone the good one was suddenly surprisingly easy to play. I could appreciate the better one (feel/hear its quality) very well. The bad sax had forced me to develop solid technique and because my particular sax needed heavy pressure to produce a steady sound I had also developed a strong embouchure very fast. Of course the choice is yours! Just know that a cheap saxophone can make things a bit more difficult and time consuming to learn. As a rule we could say that: More expensive generally means: this makes things easy, Cheaper means: this makes things more difficult. A good saxophone will cost you at least a €1000,- but with good maintenance it can last a life time. For beginners I personally recommend "Le monde" satelite saxophones. They are a great price for major quality (better then many old "Selmers" in my opinion).  

Saxophone friends:

This is important for several reasons. There are many subtleties to playing the saxophone well and there are many cool techniques to learn. Make sure to get some people into to your life who you can ask questions and who just love to help you make progress. Just because they like it! A payed teacher can help you, but they can cost a lot of money and you can’t always call them up when you’re having a problem or when you want to try something new. So make friends with people who are playing the sax and who are ahead of you on the learning curve. Most people who are exceptionally good at something are very willing to help others become better. This goes for sax players too! If you know someone who you can call for advice and who you can practice with on a regular basis it will easily drive the speed of your progress up tenfold. It will help you take chances and it will show you in which areas you can make progress. Also, it will continually provide you with something to aspire to. As you’re friends become better so will you!     

Putting your saxophone together

Step1: The first thing we need to do is put your sax together. It’s easy. Pick up the horn (the largest piece). Pick it up by the horn so you don’t damage any pads or keys and put it on your stand or put it between your legs. Then pick up the top (neck) piece and Insert it into the horn of the saxophone (see pic below). Make sure the large metal ring falls over the metal pin on the back. This pin must be at about the middle of this metal ring for your octave key to work properly. Now use the knobs or screws to fasten the neck. (lightly!) Don’t screw it on super hard. Turn it just tight enough so it’s nice and secure.

Step 2: put the reed on your mouthpiece using the binder (the metal thing that came with it). It takes some practicing and trying to find out what sounds best. Take this seriously but don't take it too seriously! If it looks to be well alligned it's fine!

It’s important to avoid touching the tip (the thin end) of the reeds! These tips are very sensitive and they break and crack easily. A reed works the best when it’s wet. Put the tip (about 2,5 cm) in some water or in your mouth for about 30 seconds before you put it on the mouthpiece.

When you fasten a reed the important thing is to make sure that it’s lined up exactly with the mouthpiece at the tip (as in the picture above)! If you look at the mouthpiece from underneath (the side with the reed) the tip of the reed should be a tiny bit lower than the tip of the mouthpiece (as is shown in the “LIGATURE” chart from the materials page on the website). The difference should be no more than the width of about a hair. A quick tip: The closer you put the tip of the reed to the tip of the mouthpiece, the easier you play. If you place the reed a little lower (away from the tip) it will make the reed feel a little harder (giving more resistance). Over time you will discover the best position for your own mouth.

In general this works the best: 

1: First put the binder very loosely onto the mouthpiece so there is still plenty of space for the reed. The binder should be at about the middle of the available space. 

2: Put the reed up against the mouthpiece a little bit too low. 

3: Push the reed up slowly from underneath with your thumb until it’s lined up properly at about a hair's distance from the tip of the mouthpiece. 

4: Then fasten the reed securely with the binder. Don’t screw it on ultra tight. If its secure then its fine! Some people screw the mouthpiece on to the neck (Step 3) and then secure the reed. Others put the reed on the mouthpiece first and then screw the whole thing on to the neck. It’s up to you to find out what makes you happy..  

Step 3: Screwing the mouthpiece onto the cork. 

You can do this without greasing the cork but it’s much easier with some cork grease. Gently screw it on until it’s about halfway onto the cork. You use the mouthpiece’s position on the cork to tune the saxophone .The more cork we leave visible, the longer the length of the saxophone and the lower our notes will be. This way we can make all the notes on our saxophone about half a note higher or lower (this is called "Tuning" and it's used to make sure you are in tune with other instruments in a band situation). Don’t worry too much about tuning right now. This will come later. If your mouthpiece is at about the middle of the cork then it’s fine for now! 

Step 4: Putting the saxophone on your neck. Put the strap around your neck first and then connect your neck strap to the instrument (there should be a small metal eye on the back of the saxophone).

Step 5: Adjusting your neck strap. Stand up straight. Keep your neck straight and adjust the length of your neck strap until the mouthpiece falls into your mouth naturally. Watch the first part of video lesson 1# on the website to make sure you got it right   

Placing your hands on the keys

Ok great! You have now successfully set up your saxophone. Here comes the fun part. Placing your fingers!

It’s not always very obvious where they go so use the picture below to make sure you have them all in the right places. Take extra care in getting nr 2 right. Sometimes the key above the nr 2 key comes as a round (pearl) key as well, so make sure you put your number 2 finger on the right key. 

On the lower back you will see a metal “hook-like” contraption. You put your right thumb underneath this (diagonally) so you can support and control the saxophone with your right hand.

Blowing the mouthpiece

Getting a basic sound out of the sax is easy but there are a lot of details to it that will become more important as you develop more skill. It’s the mouthpiece that produces all the sound! You can actually play the mouthpiece without the sax. The saxophone only amplifies the sound and creates more tone possibilities. now we will start by playing the whole saxophone. 

Let the lower part of the saxophone rest comfortably against your belly. Put your upper teeth about halfway on top of the mouthpiece (see the picture above and video lessons 1#). It’s important that you don’t push your teeth onto the mouthpiece. Instead you gently push the sax up against your teeth! You do this by pushing the sax forward very slightly with your left thumb and by making sure the length of the neck strap is correct. With the mouthpiece in your mouth; push the top part of the saxophone away from you gently with your left thumb. When you do this you will feel some pressure on your upper teeth. The saxophone becomes kind of stuck between your right thumb and your upper teeth. This will leave your lower jaw completely free so you can breathe in easily without the sax bumbling about in your mouth. Also this allows you to control the vibrations of the reed more precisely. Experiment with holding the sax while having the mouthpiece in your mouth until you have found a comfortable way to hold it steadily. You can try to walk around with the sax a bit while having your mouth on the mouthpiece. If you can keep it steady while walking around slowly…You’re good! Always keep in mind though that you don't want to lift it up. It should rest comfortably against your belly! You just use your thumb very lightly to keep it steady!

Make sure not to bend you neck! Your neck and body should stay straight. 

Putting your lower lip up against the reed. Curl your lower lip a little like you would do if you were biting your lip or try to say the “B” in the word baby very clearly. This way the lower lip becomes like a cushion between your lower teeth and the reed. Now the pressure for holding in the air should come mostly from the muscles in your lower lip and not from your yaw. If you use your yaw too much you’re going to bite your lip from the underside. You don’t want to be doing that. Of course there will always be a small part of the pressure that does come from the yaw, but it should never hurt, or feel like your biting yourself. Having said that. You probably will bite a little too much in the beginning and it wil hurt a bit but this is ok. Just know that this is not what you want and try to minimise biting yourself as much as possible. All saxophone players develop some thicker skin under there upper lip over time. So will you. In a few weeks all pain will be gone. It's just something we all have to work through when we start playing the sax. 

The key to producing a good and steady sound is strong and proper breathing. Pretend you’re laughing very hard for a second. Feel what your belly does when you go HA HA HA. You'll feel your belly contracting powerfully pushing all the air out of your lungs. This is why we tend to get out of breath when we get the giggles. Also try bending over forwards and then breathing in deeply. When you’re playing the saxophone you should be very aware that the strength of your breath comes from these muscles. We call it “the Breath support”. This gives us the power we need to create strong and steady tones. 

Now stand up! (because this makes breathing the easiest). Put your tongue in the EEEE position (EA as in Eat). Put some pressure on your lips from all sides so the air cant escape, keep your cheeks firm and straight, push keys number 2,3,4 down (Like in picture below), breathe in deeply and blow out into the saxophone from your belly. The pressure from your lips should be minimal and just enough to keep the air in. The power for the note should all come from your belly. 

Don't push any keys and blow!

Congrats! You have now made your first tone a: C# (Meaning a C-sharp) We will get into what "Sharp" means later

It may take a while before you succeed in getting a steady sounding tone! This is all completely normal! Don’t worry if it takes you an hour or more to get just one nice and steady tone out of the sax. Keep practicing with just this note until you really feel very comfortable and are producing a nice long steady tone. Watch video lesson 1# on the website to make sure you did all the above right. 

To insure that you teach yourself a confortable and effective way of holding your lips and throat it’s best to ask a teacher or an experienced player to check if you’re doing it right. How you use your lips on the sax is called “embouchure” which is French for “mouth pressure”. It’s different for each person, takes time to develop, and there are many details to it that will become important later. Do get someone to check your embouchure if you can but don’t let anyone tell you that you should first develop a perfect embouchure before you can start playing seriously. There is no such thing as perfect embouchure and it will take about a year of practice to refine and adjust your embouchures to create a truly stable sound. That’s just how it is. 

Now watch the embouchure workshop on the website to understand more about creating a great sound for yourself.

In this books you will also learn about:

Saxophone Pushups

Let's try our first simple tune! 

Building the habit

Hello octaves and the octave key

How a musician looks at music. 

Let’s try another song!

Starting to get the “Feel”

Important tips for this exercise and practicing in general!

Reading notes

Saint James Infirmary Blues:  

Creating a clear mental picture of the saxophone

The basics of Music

Understanding scales

Mercy Mercy Mercy

Basic music writing:

Writing a melody yourself

The low notes and the high notes 

Hey Jude

Simple improvisation

So let's review everything one more time:

Specail thanks to:

Floor Wittink: 

Floor Wittink (1976, the netherlands) studied classical saxophone with Karel Bruin en Johan van der Linden (sopranist of the Aurelia Saxophone Quartet, member of the Dutch Wind Ensemble and freelance musician in various Dutch Symphony Orchestras).

During her study, Floor has had masterclasses from Arno Bornkamp, Claude Delangle and various other teachers. After earning her Masters Degree in 2002, the Henri Fock Fund enabled her to study three months at the Banff Centre of the Arts in Canada where she recorded a solo cd. Floor played for seven years with the Esquire Saxophone Quartet. Currently she freelances in orchestra's such as the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and in various other projects playing chamber music or music theatre.

Floor is saxophone teacher at the Music- en Dance school at Amstelveen and the Utrechts Centrum voor de Kunsten. When I first saw you play I was very impressed with your skill and fortunately for me you quickly became one of my most prominent teachers. Your open and honest critique helped me in perfecting many things in the book. I’m glad you were there to help me and I hope were going to have fun playing the sax together for a long time to come. More @ Floorwittink.nl

About the author:

James Dóxx was Born on the 23th of April 1983 in the small town of: Capelle aan den IJssel (The Netherlands). He’s currently based in Amsterdam and he hopes to enjoy the saxophone and contribute to its music for many more years to come.      