progress

[jake]

Another benefit of knowing different positions would be for eases of playing different passages. Take the Bb note for instance. There are a variety of ways to play them, I choose what position depending on the notes I am playing. I primarily use the 1 and 4 finger to play the Bb but often I will use the side Bb key. All depends what notes are following.

Still struggling with the Alt G. I can’t do the 1st position in Johnny course. I think that was the top key alone. Nothing but squeaks n squawks. LOL. I do have better luck with a different fingering though. If you have a high F# key then the fingering I use may work for some. Hold the B natural key along with the High F# key (if your sax has it) along with the octave key of course. I have the most success with this alt G.

[Dazza]

Hi JF. Let me preface this post by saying I am in no way questioning the skill of playing overtones or looking to circumvent the process but I am wondering more broadly why they are necessary if in fact fingering for altissimo notes are note specific. Meaning, you don’t play an alt G, A, B…..with a Bb fingering. If it is training all your oral cavity and embouchure to create the sounds is it not feasible to do this on the fingering for each note until you can sound them out?

[john]

It has to do with getting control. overtones are the most important technique to master because it’s here that we gain the control needed. if you can’t control your overtones you won’t have much luck gaining any certain amount of control of the scales above high F#. as for it being feasible as you say, yes this experimentation will still happen on each individual note but as more of a fine-tuning. remember, the altissimo register is made up of the natural harmonics (overtones) of the instrument and aren’t really notes at all so using a certain fingering for development and experimentation can be fickle while using the fingering as laid out in the overtone exercises gives us a more true and solid foundation.

[Dazza]

Thanks Johnny. It is good to get some extra theory around the practice and why we do certain things. It certainly is an amazing instrument and like no other when it comes to the variations possible from every player. I WILL keep at it !!

[Anonymous]

jake – i haven’t got a problem with alternative fingering positions as they work on every sax you pickup. lol

but when it comes to alternative Altissimo fingerings for me anyway – i would find it frustrating having to renember fingering position 1 doesn’t work well on this instrunent, use fingering position 2 instead. I thought the whole idea is you master one fingering position and use it on all instruments?

[jake]

Yea it would be confusing remembering the positions for specific saxes for sure. I was meaning if you could quickly go to various fingerings for alt notes, some may be more convenient than others in certain situations.
My bari sax has a different pinky plate than my other saxes. Its a different setup but when I play it my fingers naturally go to the correct keys. Must be a connection in the brain that just works for me.

[Michael Bishop]

JB..as you have seen in Johnny’s Altissimo course, he teaches 2 different fingering positions for each Altissimo note and not 20 or so like you see on youtube or what other players may say–their reason for promoting all of those “alternate” fingering positions is because they haven’t mastered the fundamentals that allow you to play up there, so in reality they don’t have TRUE control of the Altissimo range. I’ve had personal conversations with players at my local music shop where who feel that you need all of those fingering positions. Before I bought my Trevor James Saxophones, I stopped by local shops to see what there was locally and got to try many different kinds of Saxophones….on ALL OF THEM either fingering position 1 or 2 from Johnny’s course worked beautifully. I didn’t buy locally because guys were trying to sell me very expensive horns way out of my budget, trying to say that this Sax/that Sax was the “key” to sounding good…that kind of thinking has got red flags all over it! The Alto Sax was actually my first choice and a Tenor was not originally in the plans..my wife made that happen for me (I LOVE the Alto Sax and my series of uploads get ready for the Talent show will start very, very soon….I learned on my software how to change the background so I’ve been creating all kinds of backgrounds for my uploads, great fun and you’ll see what I mean very, very soon) and a employee at a shop in New Mexico told me that buying a pro-model Alto was “a waste of your money, all of the best players in the world are on Tenor”. I told him that Candy Dulfer would probably beg to differ on his view point 🙂 Look at Dazza’s tone on his last video of “Misty”…his tone is WAY better than many guys I know locally who have those very expensive horns. Even before getting my Trevor James Saxophones, I seriously considered getting some brand new Vito Alto Saxophones from Amazon which is much, much cheaper than Trevor James. Vito is basically a Yamaha Saxophone and have been around for years…pair these up with the right kind of MP like a Theo Wanne or Claude Lakey Apollos and I’m not afraid to play the Blues/high-screaming Altissimo with anyone! I recently got to try the Claude Lakey hard-metal Apollos MPs….UNBELIEVABLE and there’s no question that they suite me better than Theo Wanne MPs. I’m not saying they’re better MPs than Theo Wanne, I’m saying they suite ME better. I have 2 coming for Alto and Tenor very, very soon.
You may find that on your Sax fingering position No.1 works great, while on another horn fingering position no.2 is better. I have 2 Tenors–my old Selmer Bundy and my new Trevor James–fingering position no.1 works better on one of the Saxophones and fingering position No.2 works better on the other. Don’t confuse those 2 fingering positions on Johnny’s course with what you may see on youtube or something where people are trying to convey the thought that you need all kinds of fingering positions for each note…no way and that’s not what Johnny is conveying in his course. But like Jake is saying, sometimes it pays to use to use an alternate fingering from Johnny’s course because it’s more convenient–like when I play the solo on “Pick Up the Pieces” on my Trevor James I may use fingering position No.2 for Altissimo G instead of 1 because it’s easier to play the solo on that song..the intonation isn’t quite as good as position No.1 for G, but the solo is much smoother and in these situations I just apply slightly more pressure in my embouchure to get it to come out…that’s where overtones come in.

[Michael Bishop]

Sorry, I meant to say I seriously considered getting brand new Vito Saxophones-alto and tenor.

[Anonymous]

once you can do all the overtones, you can get a lot of the different altissimo positions on the web to work – i’ve no problem with that, in fact i found some of them a lot easier.

But like JF says its not the different postions that is important, its being able to get from one altissimo note smoothly to another without killing your fingers. This is the reason he provides 2 different fingering methods, pick the one that works best for you (either no 1 or no 2 method/system) and stick to that one on your sax. And then according to JF (if i’ve got it right) he tested that out on a load of different sax’s, so there should be no need to adopt the other system? when moving to different saxes, if you’ve mastered the overtones properly you shouldn’t need to be swapping to different position method 1 or 2 – just stick to the same method?

Anyway, i’m using basic fingering positions 2 on my alto, but i’ve replaced a couple of JF’s with some easier ones off the internet,
but i can still flow smoothly between the notes – which works for me.

Having not tried other sax’s i guess you must have to change some of the postions to get the altissimo to work better, but for an old dog like me – i would prefer to pick up another sax and uses the same fingering positions and expect them to work, rather than have to learn/remember a whole load of new altissimo fingering positions for every other sax i pickup – lol

[Kevin]

Hey all, I bought the Alt course a few weeks back, and got in maybe 5 practices on the first stages. Still get half unconscious from trying to make it through the long tone warm ups!! I have progressed through getting up to the 2nd octave overtones exercises, and I may have hit that 5th overtone twice, but those higher ones will take some dedicated work. I use a #2 Alexander reed on both Alto and Tenor. I bought a 5 pack of each(alto and tenor) 2 to 2-1/2 years back and rotate thru 2-3 reeds, and I still am on those same 5 packs. But as I previously posted, I haven’t practiced routinely since Feb 2014. Don’t think I’ve purchased more that 20 reeds since I started playing, so don’t have a lot of comparison experience to guide my learning process.
Hitting the G altissimo the way Michael described above also works readily for me. Experimenting with the others is still hit and miss at this stage, but they are starting to come.
Now I have(or should say am fortunate to get to) to leave on business trip to Kuai, HI till mid-September, so won’t get to practice for another long stretch. Should be a memorable trip though and am looking forward to it.

[Author]

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