G and F Squeak

[neil pwaa]

Hi, I used to play tenor sax at school/university and used to be fairly decent (in my opinion 🙂 ) – after a break of about 20 years I just decided to pick it back up again and bought a cheapish new sax. I picked it back up very quickly but I’m having a lot of squeaky problems with the low G and F notes – any other notes above or below these 2 are all fine though – even G# and F# are ok – right down to Bb.
I am trying to play ‘fairly’ quiet at home at the moment so not to annoy the neighbours – so do you think this is an embouchure-retraining/volume issue or could the sax be faulty – I can’t remember G being so difficult to play? I bought a decent set of no. 2 reeds and seemed a bit better but still occurring. The sax is still within its trial period – so I could send it back.
Thanks in advance for all you help! Great site too.
Cheers
Neil

[john]

That sounds a bit strange as those 2 notes are not a typical problem. I’ve never heard of a sax being the cause of a squeak on a specific note, this is usually blamed on a reed or something you’re doing. I would start by playing through more reeds to determine if there are any that don’t give you this problem. Also, when you can get away with it, play loudly for a while to see if you can hit those notes without squeaking because playing quite is not the optimum way to practice and develop your tone, this is better achieved by playing loudly as this allows you to get more air into your horn. I’m not a repair guy so I can’t rule out the horn altogether, just saying I’ve never heard of that happening but if you try the things I mentioned and are still having the problem you must get the sax checked out.
Let us know how it goes!

Johnny

[Author]

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