Jazz Saxophone Techniques

Oh sacré special techniques and these are techniques that we have to be able to go in the sectional to do all the jazz bass thing that we have that we're taught how to do hmm so the first one is you know this is getting the fat sound now Sam you were playing the really nice n together small sound but in the jazzman's course that's not gonna ever work a lot more power to be able to please lead Alto for example on top of that section the whole sack session so we probably move to these mouthpieces but there's some more to it if you're playing high in the pitch range we've talked to others on the clarinet way to Mike I really appreciated the clinic that I saw a long time with Oleg at a North American section lines conferencing there was a student who came in and played Stella it's a college student anybody oh is it no play everything five cents flatter play another five cents fire yeah what's happening I can get Domitian returns if I go too far saggy flabby stuff is not usable stuff but really we're kind of walking the line of how close can I get to that saggy step without growing her I want to walk I want to play as deep in the pitch as I can without actually going to that flabby sound that's where the sound opens up it really stings if you hear the difference on the older foam foam head is different everything about it because I'm playing deep in the pitch No what do I do if that makes me flap to the bands pushing you just have your saxophone section tuned using that kind of phone you have to work with them on this because this surprised even here in my college masterclass I had a student that came in a little while back playing that's worse things and it's damning into the pitch by the way now this is actually also true for even trumpet section you're on the other side I've had some success with fungal players who I could finally get their attention enough to blow it down in the sound like that and that's another problem players I talked about and I can't seem to get through each other bit if you you have to blow down in the pitch to get the sound yes is this also applicable to concert event or do you not know well we we still have to blow on that lower raise but we don't blow down and gut it the same way I'm doing here because I don't have the right equipment on to do that play classically right now for a minute I gotta be able to still I'm still blowing on war position but I'm not gonna be powering it so much then the jazzman we got to get a compete with all those brass players and we have to be able to power it quite a bit so this is one way that you can help your students to get a bigger sound and it will help the intonation in the section a lot because a lot of intonation problems we face are the ones from playing too high in the pitch spectrum and then the instrument doesn't respond to that and it seems like all the intervals rather tune with each other but you blow it down like that the intervals are in tune with each other I don't have to adjust every time I move my fingers things start to line up then we got a fighting chance of playing in tune with the section so it's a something you have to work at it and after you've read my article it was in their handouts about intonation that's good to read it about this time if you've read that then you know what I'm talking about down and it's a constant problem so when you're thinking about playing over the flat is it your air stream or is also like to be using the embouchure like if you have a sure it's going around so it's not pinched this way it's open but it's really firm from the side so that it's very focused still but it is well more open because I'm gonna put a lot more air correct so it has to have that opening if I'm trying to get this much air through a teeny opening but it's mostly what's happening in my oral cavity with my tongue positioning and the way I'm directing the air into the instrument a place wrong with that [Music] so I think somebody that's something like this but um to other the non example you're using just how you play in concert a setting like that is the way to hold on as a certain other exactly it's it's more how I play if I'm to clarinet influenced okay where I so you still won Miss Barrett and I have students have to correct even though they cause all they're applying with that flat shins on the clarinet spongy lower liver yes no bottom anyway to play jazz but when you're playing the big sounds you've got to be able to you got some power as a sexual time and we are set up in a recording session some years ago at la East and then instead of having the typical block set up in the Jasmine was trumpets from the background it was in the front they didn't want the trumpets bleeding in the saxophone mics and so they put the saxophones in the back and then the trommel's them and the trumpets on the front row reporting it was quite interesting and after a couple of minutes that trauma look like all you guys are loud made us do it we have to go for equipment that will help us let's go one vibrato we've talked about already done in the job in a jazz feel we don't borrow all the time for mainstream play if I'm playing classical almost a long nose but if I'm playing the jams thing there might be a brought her right in the end of one long note at the end of the phrase and no vibrato on must nose but the last number the phrase often get silver Bronto but not until the end of the development classical vibrato starts right in front of it now just on the end of that we call it a turnover not that it'll show you but it's it only on the termination of the note mmm right so tone this is kind of an older style it doesn't happen there most modern styles but then if I'm playing upstairs about G down I'm gonna do what we call sub tell me when do you sometime yeah generally that's gonna get used for when you play that look as a soloist and the problem is that a lot of times your second tenor player sacks one section is playing quite low on instruments so I mean why you might want to play sub tone he'll never be able to balance the section please sub to me he needs to play the real tone in this section but in the solo he could play with some time yes what are you doing to make that sense own is the sub job here I'm pulling the job back a little bit now if I pull the jaw back a little bit and leave it the same pressure what's gonna happen when I cut the reader to read off right so I pull back a little bit a little bit so that I can still have the [Music] [Music] it doesn't work well yes what's that doing when I do that on the clarinet its speed in the reed up I want to read if I write that fast on this instrument know how about when I'm that low on this issue that even works so that's what we call sub done' sometimes you know john shark will actually say sub tone over the notes and it's usually this kind of a background line where the sexes are going [Music] there's a play in unison you want the whole section that take all the edge off the sounds I said that mellow sound it may say is that time what's up also you may see in the gesture written MV miss me it's no vibrato and the rule is that we never forgot oh in unison I should have pointed that out number two here bit we don't provide on what we're in unison because Bravo in unison sounds like information problems now what about when we're playing the death in the contraband yeah now we've brought on just like the flutes and everybody else or over Broadway but in the jazz man if it's a unison line we typically do not with row let's look at this Du Bois effect do waz accomplished this way it's actually a dynamic effect I want the do to be soft or kind of choked some other a little bit and I want the water some of you why do so it's kind of like this how do I get do why again if I pull the jaw back get muffles to tell me pull the jaw back on the dude I do voodoo one we always use these syllables to try to indicate how we speak the language this is really is it on another language never pull the jaw back enough for me I hear young kids pull the jaw back and then down and then forward and then up which is scooping like that immature sounding you don't want that sound when I'm talking about college kids I call that high school scooping plugin my high school kids call it junior high school but it's not the mature sound you guys find these goofy things in there that's not part of the duo the do was actually not a pitch bending effect it's a dynamic effect it starts from very soft to very loud is there a little pitch thing in there well yes because Y is indicating that there's a some kind of a little pitch flange in there but what's causing it when I play set from when I play soft allowed my dynamic when I change dynamic do I look like that my pitch also changes now normally we try to compensate for that so that it doesn't change but in the new law we don't have time to compensate nor do we want to and so we get a little pitch aberration that comes as a result of the sudden dynamic shift but I never think about our pitch thing half ton effects yeah supposed to do just a septum is it what it's a do a sentence it kind of is in a way yeah I don't think of it as playing sub toned in a way it's done the same way as a septum in the half done effect I talk to my students about what I call the four degrees at tummy and what this is is four degrees of pressure from the tongue to the Reed when I'm stopping enough so in the first degree [Music] I'm not using my time I'm gonna go to the next possible least possible degree hmm now my tongue is on the wreath but it's touching it so lightly that it's only muffling it it's not actually stopping half tummy or the end tone isn't like a buzz of your tongue when you first do it dick might tickle your tongue you kind of get used to it feels like licking a deep battery it's like oil that's good involve you that way now but I know I can yes I'm actually I'm actually gonna use that some for dynamic contrast when I apply a bebop line the lowest none other contour if you if you draw a contour for how the note shapes are going the lowest note of the contour is typically what we call the ghost it and when I ghost check out in this situation just God knows the note in between this is the lore no ghosting simply means that no this object and I'm doing that with the end Tony instead of going with my hair my hair is the whole time and it's the tongue that's doing that so the tongue is creating a dynamic effect all right here's a Charlie Parker leopard well how do I get this tough now the other opposite of this is the top notes of the contours should pop out they should be accented so do you hear this desert notes that are popping that's what really pops the melody out and so I'm actually half tonguing notes just before those check I'm gonna do it slow motion [Music] [Applause] by half tanking that object before the pot no it really pops shakes Howard shakes different than trills and they look like squiggly lines over the notes like this shakes are wider than trills typically a trill is normally a second either a half set for a whole step a minor second or a major second a shake is typically a third more often than not a minor third but if it's not if it's not reasonable on the estimate then a major dessert because and it's imitating what brass players do what they call lip slurs and they do shakes with the lips between parcels right that what you doing the trombone I found that out like two weeks ago I thought you literally just shook the instrument yeah and so we're imitating that there are very few instances on the saxophone that are easy to do where I can actually do a real shape but this would be one I'm doing that I'm doing it like a brass player would do it because I'm using kind of a multiphonics I'm figuring out my mouth I'm playing two different pitches that's one of the few places I can do that in this one although if you're done men's that you can do it I know almost any moment but let's say I had to do it here to do this particular the G sharp key I'm gonna leave that meant down and playing F days left and I make it sound like it's a shame I'm gonna actually kind of mishmash my embouchure around so it kind of smears the pitch a little bit sounder one but if I just figure it this way to clean it doesn't sound like a shake and shakes aren't too fast they tend to be roughly we don't measure these but they can to be roughly the speed of triplets in the temple that you're applying it and they also changed a little bit with style the like a slowest wing thing is the shakes gonna be pretty widens not too fast and obvious if you're doing a shake and a really fast thing it might be faster you know narrower so I can go faster that's what a shake is I'm gonna show you some examples of all this imagine want to get through this balls and Deutz we have to be able to fall off it but now this is written with a squiggly line going down often no but see what I don't want is I don't want to sound like fingers yeah so how do I get it to smear so it doesn't just sound like fingers it's just a trick of blowing low remember this exercise we're talking about I'm actually gonna use that kind of technique to play my fault and then I keep blowing at that low level so that it's smears yeah my fingers take the path of least resistance and go just as quickly as well I never do hard fingering so they're doing that it doesn't matter what key you're in you don't have to follow the key of the piece you just play the path of least resistance with your finger you can really quickly and I'm going to make that the followers of diminuendo you shouldn't hear the last note of your mother's was sentences last time with the Deutz you shouldn't hear the top note it should be a diminuendo so where that ended this should be in your imagination and joints are just the opposite it's like falling up okay Easy's effect sometimes yes thank you use hi air for a toy what's that do you play on that upper I know I still blow below if I'm gonna do it from this note [Music] yeah actually start blowing it lower than it really is and I was blowing lower the whole time so there's smears everything together so that's an interesting art the dough is also a diminuendo you shouldn't hear the end of it sorry damages bands number eight when we're bending something you do a lot of bending the bending is done as a of a lot of it's in their oral cavity but some of its in the embouchure as well I can pollution and talk a little bit living and some of it is in the fingers I'm gonna bend in a let's say but maybe I don't push the buttons all the way down time so it's easier to kind of smear another one it's a big race now I don't want to sound like rosemary yeah that's what I've been is like it's really written you sir written with just a little Scooby looking thing into the and then list our finger defects this is where I connect to nose with a glass and I normally finger all the chromatic notes in the scale unless it's pretty light if it's small I'm gonna finger very romantic know that be able is if it's wide bliss I gotta close down I can't really finger every chromatic note I usually I often try to get a little chromaticism right as I'm going into the goal note so it sound like I got there really smooth but you have to kind of get take the family to the least resistance if it's a wide thing like that now I want to illustrate those effects the next page is let me point out example one is really just to indicate what it might look like on a jazz chart when you have to double and we skip double and there we go but there's two majors rest change the flute this is on a saxophone part this is the kind of thing you see quite often or change the plan can even be changed over all right example 2 this is just to show you what it looks like when you see these no sentences sub-accounts example 3 I already played for those like Charlie Parker being where I'm using the N done on the lower notes of the contours you're not using a hand in time to do them number four I already played for you also which shows we do wah the do wads written right at the end of the line and you notice how I wrote that that I often use the brass notation of the plus sign and the circle to indicate the do why what does it mean on the brasses from your right a plus sign stick your Bell stick your hand in the Bell could be a plunger stick your hand in the bell and close up the bell a little bit and then when you see the Oh open that up back back back back wow yeah and so I actually use that brass notation for myself for saxophones when I want to indicate a duo ah because it's just shorthand but it's not indicated in actual music usually not in the case that they are you have your this diaper what does that do law and adieu why is an upbeat note I do it longer no value then itself mmm which I won't underneath that so you can see it's actually a time sometimes you see other the skies wait with dots written as a donít know but the dotted note type dots and tie is do the same thing rhythmically and so it could have been written as a type of two eighth notes tied to a quarter instead of an ain't no going to a dotted quarter be the same is that issue and so is it it's nothing as slurred into the next note that's longer and we do a slur there we normally can never swear to an upbeat in jabs we have to talk if we do slurring we tongue out being sort of the downbeat cutting me up being sort of the downbeat we never swear down be toffee except in the duo this is an exception where I can I'm gonna go do my on a minutes worth one so I'll have a lead trumpet player that'll say to me man that partial is tricky and I don't think I can swerve okay fine tongue it but just tongue it no light and give me the dynamic and they'll still come in like doo-wop sorry say that again you can sometimes a highly tribe apart it might be difficult to I do that as an actual swerve nobody you slurry which case I know they just learn to upbeats and jazz oh you never swear it's end of these now see trauma Sam's a trombone player trombone players never swear anyway they always tell you every no but you have to imitate this sound that the sax wasn't the trumpets to where it sounds like you telling me how to be conserved a tell me even though you're tonguing you all the notes lightly there are a few this is a whole see if you're not in the jazz pedagogy class this is a whole other topic this whole articulation thing and you really should avail yourself to that sometimes in my new book that was published last Wednesday I have a whole about a twenty page chapter on all this let's look at number of example number five here this is from a Count Basie type char so I am talking all those those TP looking accents or dot something dot do not do die dude I'm by the way I didn't get through the four degrees of tonguing I only went to degree number two degree number four is that one maximum pressure of the tongue against the read the stuff enough so I go from zero to an is the least possible pressure of the tongue of the red to D which is a little more pressure and will actually stop the read from vibrating that doesn't smash it off just to the fourth degree where it actually smashes it off and it cuts off any kind of roundedness and we don't want the round sound we want square nose that would be the wrong sound for this wayne stuff if you need to know about this kind of stuff but I can't get into it all here looks like that's all slurred we're not gonna swear all that stuff you never swear like that in jail or what I'm going to talk about because for the next note everything else is done [Applause] [Music] to Annie so I figured an E flat and scooped into it with my with my mouth throat and fingers I could do that without my fingers but I usually use kind of a half finger then when it's gonna be having a finger eat it doesn't say TR and once on a mild will say TR and they gotta evaluate does they really mean drill or doesn't really want to shave yeah and usually it's not the case here where this is release like it looks like a drill it should look it should be wider the way the shape ought to be written is wider but you can't depend on notation okay look at no example number six see there's a little s I would finger totally chromatic [Music] okay look at number seven you mean that very first thing a good question I don't know what you go like this there's a whole national stage man camps have created a whole graph a whole page of what these things mean would be worth finding that some time look at number seven I'm gonna use my finger on the F sharp to play the G like this just my mouth I usually tend to use my finger [Music] that's not this way are you going hard enough on a saxophone the dough is so low there's a turn how we handle turn in jazz is not like classical classical up and down back knock back down back here we just go up and back it's only two additional notes instead of four visuals so that's illustrating are you gonna see this stuff on an actual chart of all the effects that we've been talking about hopefully that at least opens the door a little bit they're realizing oh various stuff I should find out about

Channel: Ray Smith

Views: 14,572

Keywords: jazz saxophone techniques, fat saxophone tone, the half tongue, du wah's on saxophone, glisses on saxophone, falls on saxophone, doits on saxophone, jazz effects on saxophone, saxophone

Id: Oi9iM-nZZy0

Length: 33min 35sec (2015 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 20 2019