Saxophone Mouthpieces with Johnny & Wayne

My friend Wayne turned me on to the Dave Guardala mouthpiece I’m still using today, but unlike myself, he’s a bit of a mouthpiece junky and is always looking around for more and more different saxophone mouthpieces…

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4 Different Fingerings For B Flat

How Many Ways Can You Play Middle and High Bb?

There are actually 4 different legitimate fingering positions for it.

Do you need to use them all in your playing?

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Saxophone Sheet Music

Whenever I found some saxophone sheet music  for a pop song I really liked, it always seemed like a joke. The way it was notated was just so simple and uncool and and really straight, no soul at all.

Still, sheet music like this was helpful for at least giving you the right notes of the melody, but as I soon discovered, the rest would be up to me.

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Looking To Increase Your Range On The Saxophone?

The Saxophone Altissimo Range

It’s natural for anyone that’s been playing sax for a year or two to want to hit those really high notes… they’re so exciting and can be one of the most expressive things to play on a sax.

But unfortunately, extending your range on the saxophone above it’s normal two and a half octave range is more than just learning the fingerings for the notes above high F and F#. The reason is because these notes that fall out of the horn’s normal range are derived from the natural harmonic overtones of the sax.

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We’re Over One Year Old!

Hi sax fans and members! It’s been well over a year now that we began this website HowToPlaySaxophone.org. This is just an update to what’s happening, what’s coming up and your chance to chime in to what you’d like to see and learn.

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Favorite Saxophone Solos?

I once went to see the great rock, R&B sax player Jr Walker. You may know some of his Motown hits like What Does It Take and Shotgun. Jr Walker could sing and he could play some nice riffs on his sax, and his altissimo range (super high register) was second to nobody.

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How To Hold Your Saxophone

Ok, so lets take the sax out of its case without wrecking it. Its very delicate so you put your hand in the bell just like that and support it with your left hand out side of the bell as well. Once you get it there you can put the body there under your arm, hold it with one hand like that.

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All About The Saxophone Neck Strap

There are so many different types of neck straps available today for the saxophonist because we all look for different things in a neck strap: durability, comfort, looks.

I’ve used everything from the soft comfy ones to a shoe string and a re-shaped coat hanger when my regular one broke and there wasn’t anything else around. Let me tell you, no matter how good the band is you’re playing with, if you’re using a coat hanger for a neck strap you really want the gig to be over quick! Note to self: carry a back-up strap.

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Saxophone Neck Stories

The first time I put my saxophone together I screwed up!

I remember renting a horn and signed up for summer school that taught how to play saxophone and the guy says “ok, put your sax together” so i took it out of the case and sure enough I put it together like this…

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Saxophone Fingering Lesson #2 Part 2

Now there’s technique involved here, even without blowing you can practice your technique. Go to C B now I’m raising my fingers really high so you can see what I’m releasing and not releasing and covering and not covering. But really when were playing we shouldn’t have our fingers flapping really high off the sax like this so don’t get into a habit of that, I’m just doing this to show you.

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