Am i in tune?

[Anonymous]

That’s a fair point about the mouthpiece cork, but that’s got nothing to do with my problems with not playing properly in tune in various parts of a music sheet, as i said before, my saxophone was serviced a few months ago, and when a proper service is done they check that the mouthpiece i use works properly on the cork, they replace worn pads, strip it right down and clean all the crap out of the sax inside etc…

My tuning issues are related to having skipped certain specific exercises that designed to improve playing the correct pitch, just like there are exercises just for training finger eye coordination while sheet reading.

In fact i tried out my teachers Selmer with my mouthpiece, his cork was a lot thinner than my yamaha cork, so my mouthpiece was way far too loose on his saxophone neck, but i still managed to play reasonably in tune. So i agree, make sure your mouthpiece sits snug on the cork

[Mel]

The top of the horn tends to blow to the sharp side. As my embouchure strengthens I find it easier to blow the top side. So my embouchure is more relaxed now which in turn makes the bottom of my horn sound really good. I am truly amazed with Ernie Watts. He plays a metal Florida Otto Link with a .160 opening (#13) with a 2.5 – 3 synthetic reed. He placed a wedge in the mouthpiece to keep the bottom from dropping out to far. He uses the SAME embouchure to play all over the horn.

[Anonymous]

Hi Mel, that agrees with what David is saying. We must learn to bend the notes with just the MP, then over time we will improve to the point where we can play a note according to what we want to hear whether sharper or flatter. It’s interesting stuff and I have a long way to go. Playing a low note from the high fingering is really difficult for me.

[Anonymous]

absolutely correct about the note bending. Going back to what i said before – when the PRO forced me to play with the mouthpiece in the correct position that puts everything in line properly so its easier to play in tune from top to bottom. everything i then played was out of tune, so he taught me how to bend notes down so i could bring the whole lot in tune, which took several weeks working on exercises related to that.

After that it was a lot easier to lower all the overpitched notes above Mid D than when my mouthpiece was incorrectly sited.

However with a perfect working sax and everthing in the correct place if you are not pitch perfect. Then you are relative pitch perfect, and when you are relative pitch perfect, then when you play wind instruments the next pitch you play will be mentally tuned to the last pitch played, or to pitches in the backing track.

So when you jump from a Mid C to a high G as a relative pitch person, your mind is guessing what the high G should sound like (its got nothing to do with the sax in good working order). And in may case the only way to improve these pitching problems is to work on specific exercises that are designed to train the mind hear properly when these pitches are spot on.

[Author]

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