Chromatic scale instructions for the saxophone - Chromatic scale step by step

hello and welcome to this next lesson in the Hello saxophone starter's guide I mean this lesson I'm going to teach you to play the chromatic scale which means playing all the notes on the saxophone from the very lowest to the very highest and back so we'll start with the low B flat the lowest note on the saxophone you start by pressing down all the Perl keys and I'll show you what to do with your pinkies breath this key like this and this key like this now it might be a little bit tricky to get this note out at first but that just takes some practice just make sure that you use the O sound so you're blowing like all so your mouth is very open and big to play this note now we're going to go from the low B flat to the low B so one half-step up all you need to do to make this transition is take your pinky that's here and slide it up like this now remember this low B is also one of the hardest notes to play on the saxophone so this particular transition this first one from the low B flat to the low B is very hard because you're using both of your pinkies and if you're just starting it's a little bit difficult so don't worry too much if that still gives you a bit of trouble it just takes some practice to get it right so let's move on to the next note we're going to move from this low B to the low C like this now to make this transition all you do is let go of this pinky like this now we can move from the C to the C sharp note that through all this time this pinky is still pressed now to go from the C to the C sharp this time you're going to put your pinkie down here on this part of the platform like this so now we can go from this C sharp which by the way is sometimes also called the D flat it's the same note but it can kind of have two different names so it will be confused by that for now let's just call it the C sharp so we're going to move from the C sharp to the next note up which is the D like this now to do that you're going to simultaneously let go of this key and this key now from now on the notes in general will get a little bit more easy to blow and at this point you can start to use less of an O sound and more of an e sound so boy your mouth gets a little bit smaller that way and that gets it gives a bit more support for these notes that need a bit more power in that way so use more of a kind of an e shape from now on now we're at the D and we're now going to move from this D which means that you now have just all the pearls pressed down to the D sharp also sometimes called the E flat is again one of those notes that it's the same note but it can go by two names and it sounds like this so to go from the D to the D sharp this time you press this pinkie now let's go from this D sharp to the e now this can be a bit of a tricky one because you have to lift up both your lowest fingers at the same time really simultaneously like that now the next transition is very easy just look at the charge here next to me like this from the e to the F but then the next note from the F to F sharp is a little bit more tricky goes like this and the tricky bit is that from the F to the f-sharp you have to switch these fingers so you're going to do this and you really have to time that right so it really has to go very fluidly otherwise that won't work so well sometimes the f-sharp won't come out if you sort of watch that up so you want to make a really clear switch between those two from F now the f-sharp itself sometimes can also be a bit harder to play for beginners so if it's been harder for you to get that F sharp to really sound that's okay usually after a week of 2/3 of playing it'll be much more easier to get that no doubt it'll work just fine but don't be surprised if it's a bit tough for you in the beginning so now we're at the f-sharp and we're going to move from the F sharp to the G hmm very easy just look at the chart you just let go of your lowest finger hmm then we go from the G to the G sharp or also called the a flat like this and we go from the G to this G sharp or a flat by adding this purl pinky here like that so now we can move from the G sharp to the a like this now this brings us to a similar situation as what we had to do with the lower hand because you're going to have to take both your lowest fingers on your upper hand of course off at the same time like this so both fingers come up at the same time to go from the G sharp to the a like that very smoothly so we're playing the a right now and we're going to move up to the a sharp or sometimes also called the B flat like this and we do that by adding this key and you play that with your palm so like this with the kind of the inside of your hand you press this key to the side yeah it's the lowest one of the three like this then we go from the a sharp or B flat to the be like this and that means you're going to simultaneously let go of this palm key again like that and at the same time you're going to let go of the a key like that now we're going to go from the B to the C and it's actually very similar to playing from the F to the F sharp like this now similar to when we were playing the F to the F sharp you're going to have to make a switch here so you're going to go from the B to the C and you're going to have to learn to really effectively and cleanly switch between those two to make it sound right so very quickly from B to C to D so now we're going to go from the C to the C sharp and that basically means that that last final Pearl that you're still holding down with your middle finger here in your upper hand you're going to let go of that so that actually only your thumbs on the back are still supporting the saxophone but you'll have none of the keys pressed so like this so now that we've reached the c-sharp we're ready to move up another octave on the saxophone so we're going to now add the octave key and we're going to play actually exactly what we've done so far from the D upwards but this time with the addition of the octave key so you can after the c-sharp closed all the pearls again but with the addition of the octave key then you'll go from the c-sharp to the D one octave above it so like this now at this point I'd like to mention that we already changed our mouth shape with the lower notes from o to e and now it's a good idea to start changing it again from E to more of an e sound so a because that tightens your throat even more and focuses the pressure of your breath and the note that we're playing from now and upward really need a lot of very good solid pressure to come out good so this is something to keep in your back of your mind if you have trouble getting the notes from here up on out and having them sound really well you might want to really think about for saying or singing E and thinking you know e with your throat when you're blowing through the saxophone that will help support your notes from here on up and so now we will literally repeat exactly the way we played before from the up to C sharp again but with the addition of the octave key so you can just follow the chart here and play along with me you know how to move your fingers now like this so now that we have reached the c-sharp on the upper register we can go into the really high notes on the saxophone so we're now at the c-sharp that means that you have only the octave key press but none of the Perl Keys like this and now we're going to move from the c-sharp to the high B like this so we have these three so-called palm keys on the upper side of your saxophone and you're going to use this first one and you're going to press that with your palm so this is where your thumb rest is it's the first one from the thumb rest and you're going to use the inside of your hand like this I hope you can see it to press that so this is C sharp with the octave key pressed and then you're going to go up to the D by pressing that but now we can move up from the high D to the high D sharp or the high E flat again it's a note that can have two different names but we play it like this here we go and we do that by adding this second pearl key so you already passed the first one with your palm and now you're going to use the inside of your finger here your index finger to add the second one so I'll try to show you from the different side the first one here and then the second one like that yes so again from the other side the first one here goes like this and then the second one like that of course normally my hand is a bit curved like this but just so you can see what I'm doing and if I do it naturally like it really happens inside your hand so you can barely see that that's what you do the first one so here you're playing B and then we go D sharp like that yes then we move from the D sharp or E flat to the e like this so you're just going to keep the two palm keys on your upper hand pressed and you're going to add the upper one of these three side keys you remember when we were playing the B flat you press this with the side of your palm so now you're going to do the same thing but with this higher one so you have your your sex for like this and you're going to press it like this with the inside of your index finger upwards like this now we can go from the high E to the high F so keep everything you have pressed down breasts or the lower palm key and those two higher palm keys and of course your octave key and then we're going to add this third palm key here with your middle finger I'll show you in detail later but it sounds like this so in detail you have already this one press with the inside of your palm and with your upper finger and now you're going to use the middle finger the press this last so the third one this one down like this of course you have this one sort of wrapped around the hub the two but you're going to use this and when you're when your hand is naturally bent it's very easy but it takes a little getting used to so that's the first two and then this one with your third finger with your middle finger you're going to press them so now we're ready to play the highest note on the saxophone the high F sharp barring me all dismal register of course but that's a big for another video because it's much harder and really for him for beginners impossible to play so you keep your fingers where you got them you keep playing the same thing but now on the lower end we add the high F sharp key like this now this XML that I'm playing actually doesn't have an F sharp key because I can simply play the note altissimo and it makes my saxophone a little bit lighter and it makes it total ittle bit more big to not have that key on your saxophone but you probably have a long shaped key in this space here so you have these three buttons then you have this pearl or sometimes it's a longer shaped pearl here on the side and in between here there will be another key and that's your high F sharp key so press that with your like with your with your with your middle finger here to activate that high F sharp so that's how you play all the notes on the saxophone from the bottom to the top now when you want to play them back down you make the exact same movement just you know you just reverse your movement so like this and and the most important thing when learning this is precision you want to really do this very slowly and precisely and then you can slowly start to increase your speed as you get better with this but if you were very sloppy with this and if you try to increase your speed kind of too fast then those little mistakes will go into your playing and that will make much harder for you to really reach high speed when you want to play jazz for example or bebop you'll have to play this chromatic stuff sometimes really really quickly and so this learning this scale it's not just learning this scale but it's learning to play all over the saxophone and it's learning to transit from one note to the next so the most important thing with this be very very precise and practice it slowly and then gradually increase your speed as long as you can keep it precise than you do with right so I have fun with this and I'll see you in the next lesson here in the hello saxophone starter Skype you

Channel: HelloSaxophone

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Rating: 4.9153481 out of 5

Keywords: Chromatic scale on the saxophone, Playing Chromatic scale on the saxophone, Saxophone Chromatic scale, alle the notes on the saxophone, fingering all notes on the saxophone, saxophone fingerchart

Id: 5YNDxGeMoZY

Length: 15min 21sec (921 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 15 2016