faster fingering tip for Take 5

[Kevin]

A tips/tricks video, that may at least be informative to someone new to the sax. Haven’t tried to play Take 5 in a while so pretty rusty, but this is to just talk about those fast 16th turn around notes that are used through out this song, and my learning to use the right hand knuckle keys. For me it was much easier to use these keys to reel out those fast notes, rather than to use the conventional fingering of the notes…

[wayne wojnarowski]

Hey Kevin 1 I think you sound pretty good !! what are you playing on you know horn mp, reed strength??

[Anonymous]

i find any trilling involving hand movements are too awkward to trill, compared to just trilling with the fingers and keeping the hand still.

Thanks for sharing – hopefuly JF will put up a separate forum for these useful tips instead of looking through different forums

[Anonymous]

Hi Guys

I found this useful Trill reference chart for the Alto somewhere on the internet.

[Kevin]

Jeff, thank’s for the trill chart upload. I won’t say that I never have used a trill in a song, but I can’t recall the last time and it is on the end of my list of embellishments to use. For some reason I’m not to keen on it (like James and vibrato…), or should I say I’m not to keen on the way it sounds when I do it (though I have liked Johnny’s use of it (tastefully done!)).
I agree with James that a knuckle key for a trill would not be my first choice, but for those very fast note turn arounds I found them useful and effective. The hardest fast finger movement for me was the turn-around starting on the A#, because the index and middle finger have to be closing and opening a key simultaneously twice then the middle and third finger can close in progression on the down turn of the notes. The turn starting on the D isn’t so bad, but my little finger strength and timing still couldn’t quite do the run as cleanly as the knuckle trick.
Wayne- My setup is- YAS-52 (intermediate level 1980’s?) Alto Sax (precursor to the YAS-475 model), a Meyer MP (modified), and a Vandoran #2 ZZ Reed.
The sax has that great Yamaha fluidity to the key mechanisms, and it is inspiring to play from that standpoint, but it does not have the right neck and it’s intonation is not near as good as it should be. The musician has to work to hard to bring the low notes up, and the high notes down. But hopefully when I find a pro-level replacement all that hard struggle with intonation will make playing a better horn much easier. I live in south-central Michigan, so I’m only 3 hrs from Chicago. Maybe our paths will cross someday, or maybe we can do a multi-track upload?

[William Cingolani]

Sounds great Kevin. I’ll keep looking at it full screen to see what you’re doing with your left hand. You sound smooth. Great job. I’ll keep your Youtube link.

[Anonymous]

@Kevin – i’m into vibrato now that i’ve had a few lessons from my teacher, i wasn’t in the past until my teacher demonstrated playing vibrato without me even realising he was playing vibrato in lots of different styles. My main issue from a sheet players point, i don’t play vibrato unless the composer indicates not to. It’s quite interesting as my teacher showed me various styles of vibrato used by different players over the decades which went in and out of fashion and wasn’t entirely a sax players identity.

[William Cingolani]

Correction: Right hand. I’ll be observing what you’re with the right hand,

[john]

Ok guys you’ll see the new “Saxophone Tips” forum now. I may figure out how to put these all in there but for now you can put any tips in the new forum.

[Anonymous]

Cool – that is fantastic – thanks for doing this.
It means i can now go straight in there and browse through tips, without having to remember which forum people raised them,
and under what title heading they put them in, and not have to trawl through lots of comments to find em.
rock on – your’e a star

[Author]

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