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Just found your site—great stuff!!
I was wondering, do you have any tips on jazz articulation. I love it when a sax player does a riff or even a simple scale and I hear that do-da-do-da-do-da from note to note. For me that is professional. Unfortunately I’m having problems understanding this technique. I’ve been all over the web trying to find the one tip that clicks for me. Do you have any recommendations on how to master this great technique?
Thanks!!
Yes, articulation is what you’re getting at. You can say there’s 3 ways to play notes on your sax:
1. no tongue at all
2. tongue every note lightly
3. tongue every note more drastically (staccatto)
Developing our articulation means doing all these seperatley and of course in combination – as you reference in your do-da example.
Practice all 3 seperately to make them very distinct from each other. Then play a few notes each way during the same phrase, can be a scale or whatever – dah-ah-ah-ah-ta-ta-ta – hard to do without proper music notation but you get the idea, the ah’s are slurred, meaning no tongue and the ta’s are short tongue or staccatto.
Really quite simple and if you’re not playing these as such it’s probably just a matter of doing it every day and being very aware of the differences.
Is it possible I’m doing it without knowing it? I try to tongue the first note on the beat and the second note on the up beat then slur the next note and so on but I still don’t hear the ta-ah-ta-ah. Is there a trick here? Maybe a focus on the up beat note with more air then less air on the slurred note to get that great jazz articulation. I’m sorry. I guess I’m thick headed but I just don’t seem to get this but know it’s something I need in my musical tool box. Thanks again for your advice and for sharing your knowledge and hard work!!! It’s very much appreciated!!
Yes it’s possible, that’s why I suggested to do the strict exercises, that way you are being 100% aware of what you’re doing. Spend time oin each variation of tonging, don’t take each for granted and don’t jumble them all together at this point, take the time to practice and differentiate each way moving forward.
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