In this video:

• fingering exercises without blowing
• rhythmic exercises

I got the idea of practicing without blowing into the horn from a biography I read on John Coltrane, one of the greatest saxophonists that ever lived. The guy who wrote the bio was taking a few lessons from him once in a while and so one day he showed up while Coltrane was on the road. He was invited to the hotel at 9 am to have a practice session.

When he walked in the guy asked Coltrane if it wasn’t a bit too early to make noise in the hotel? Coltrane answered that he’d already been practicing for an hour… and so he showed the guy what he had been doing… just fingering, no blowing, a bunch of different exercises he had been working on.

Well, Coltrane was addicted to practicing on his sax. But I saw a value in this lesson because when you practice that way, you don’t have to think about all the things that happen while you’re blowing, just work out the knots in the fingers! Of course you have two put them both together eventually but it really helps doing it this way for a while.

Click Here to Go to the Saxophone D Major Scale Lesson