Beginning Alto Saxophone Lesson 1

welcome to alto saxophone lesson one the first thing you need to do when you open your instrument is grab your reed make sure it is not cracked or chipped and it goes in your mouth you need to make sure that your reed is wet in order to create the vibration that is needed to make a sound on your saxophone so i'm not going to leave it in my mouth now because i need to talk to you you grab your saxophone comes in three pieces and does not include your neck brace you have the neck and the mouthpiece these go together just like this with the cork if it's too difficult on to put it on make sure you put a little bit of cork grease on there uh that you can get in the kit or it should have come with your uh saxophone you need to make sure that the here is facing the bottom when you're holding your neck like this also the screws will go up on the bottom this is what it looks like in order to put your read on remember to be in your mouth lift up the ligature this is called ligature you put your reed in there slide it down and you go all the way down to where your finger touches the mouthpiece make sure that your ligature is loose enough for example you can see here there's a gap there so that's not going to work if you're you can see there you can see the read that's not going to work so you push it down gently because they do break pretty easily see there's no gap there you go and once it's in the correct position you use these knobs to tighten it all right you can test the sound in order to play it you make your lip and shape it this way like this over your teeth your top teeth go on top of the mouthpiece and your lips cover that make sure you're not puffing out your cheeks it's not although it may look funny it's not a proper way to play keep your cheeks in if you're is not making a sound it's a couple of reasons why that would happen number one there's probably a chip or a crack in your reed or your mouth is too far in if your mouth is fine it makes this sound not the great greatest sound in the world if your mouth is too far out you're not going to make a sound so the best thing you could do is start make sure it's not too far and put it in slowly in order to find where the spot is where it creates the correct vibration for example if i pull it out it goes away and in order to separate the notes you're going to say two as your plane of course it's in your head all right now we're going to attach this to our saxophone you may need to wiggle it just a little bit this tightens your mouth neck and mouthpiece to your saxophone okay you need to make sure when you put your neck thing on your saxophone is going to be held to your right side so you see here this is not straight okay so you need to make sure you turn your mouth piece so that it's parallel in the correct position to your mouth okay all right and now stand up as you can see so you need to hold it over to your side here and the way you place your fingers is in the back you have a black usually black spot this is called a trigger you will need to use that for some of your notes i know some of your alto stacks look different they have four buttons or five buttons make sure you use the main button here second and third and the bottom fourth fifth and sixth it's a little easier to do this one your pinky will be used here or here depending on what note you're going to play but for now you can use these three and these three you notice i'm not pressing this but middle sometimes they have a button up here so make sure it's these three buttons here your saxophone is to the side the first three notes you're going to be learning on the saxophone are b c and d b is the third line on the treble clef the way we play b is this is very similar to recorders if you remember your recorder class is just the first button itself not the trigger you do not press the trigger in the back just the first button itself and this is what b sounds like try it yourself you can pause this video at any time to try something or to master a specific skill again if you no sound is coming out of your instrument make sure that your reed is on properly make sure it's not cracked or chipped make sure your mouth is in the right spot not too far in because it makes this sound not cool or make sure it's not too far out it makes absolutely no sound right in the middle remember put your lip over your teeth teeth on top of your mouthpiece and your lip top lip on top of that here here here look at song number one you see there we have a whole note which is worth four beats then you have a whole rest which is four beats of silence we're going to play number one together remember number one just has b b is only that first button again some of you may have a button up here it's not that one it's this one here all right let's play number one together one two three four rest two three four two rest two three four two rest two three four rest two three four for educational purposes i am taking my mouth off of the mouthpiece in order to count but normally you wouldn't do that you want to make sure you have your mouth pieced in continuously as you are playing and when you play you separate the notes by doing the 2 2 sound also make sure you are not puffing out your cheeks it's not this also it's important to remember to have your mouth all the way around and that there's no air leaking out of your mouthpiece so that is the note b if you look at number two you're gonna learn your second note which is c c is the third space from the bottom on the treble clef in order to play c this is b you're gonna release that first one and play the second button make sure it's not this one it's this one here this is c which is again the third space from the bottom on the treble clef listen to c also i need to remind you you don't take a breath every single note for example you don't play this way because the chances are you may come back to note and you may end up on a different part of your mouthpiece and it may sound not so pretty for example and make all kinds of weird noises you don't want to do that you want to make sure you stay in the right spot for your sound and also keep it there when you are playing your notes all right number two you're going to the same thing as number one you're gonna play c which is the middle finger right here remember it's not this one this one here you're gonna play it for four beats rest for four play for four rest for four play for four rest for four then in song number three you're going to alternate the notes your first note is going to be the b then you're gonna rest for four then c i am going to play song number three for you so you can hear what it sounds like one two three four one two ready see one two ready see one two ready b one two three four just to remind you this is b this is c the third note you need to learn is d which is the fourth note from the bottom on the treble clef d is a little more complicated because you're going to press one two and three and the bottom one two and three and here's the cool part you get to press the trigger here you go listen to that so you're having all the buttons pressed one these three down here these three appear and the trigger makes d so i want you to practice playing b c d the transition from c to d may be challenging at first but as you practice it i'm sure you'll be able to master that skill so i'm going to play b i'm going to stand up so you can see my fingering remember d is these three these three and the trigger in the back so make sure you press them down right i'm really looking forward to you uh to hearing you in class so make sure you're practicing songs number one through number seven and make sure you're paying attention to your notes and also the rest values and the note values are very very important all right have lots of fun we'll see you in class

Channel: Ramon Ocano

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Length: 11min 10sec (670 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 09 2016