How long Does it Take to play in the Altissimo range?

[john]

Nice to hear all your comments guys. I hear and feel each of you! keep in mind that the prep lessons leading up to the fingering part are much more important that the fingering section. it’s the experimentation with air, embouchure and harmonics (overtones) that the real magic happens. when this starts to fall in place is when the G’s and A’s start to come.
I’d like to say a couple things about the G…
It’s arguably the hardest to hit at first BUT, if you work on that F# fingering I suggest when it slides right onto the G with only a couple fingers lifting off the keys you should be able to nail it with persistence. This means more than a day here and there…commit to some good sessions every day…this is the key.
For me it sucked not getting it day after day after day…. but then one day I got it and WOW. when it happens stop and realize what you did differently from the last time you did it and it didn’t work then and repeat it.
notice I said “what you did differently” cause if you don’t change anything with your mouth, air, throat nothing different will happen. always make minor changes until you are getting it.

[Dazza]

Thanks to all in the string for the feedback. It’s great to read and provides all some inspiration to keep pushing. I will be committing 15 minutes minimum a day to the overtones and alt notes and see what changes come. I know it might seem boring to some but some videos of you playing and sounding altissimo and explaining what’s going on would be great to see.

[Anonymous]

if anyone is stuck on the overtones – this book is great

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Developing-Personal-Saxophone-Sound-Liebman/dp/B0006PF5E0/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_1/277-3549970-6464826?ie=UTF8&qid=1451306330&sr=8-1&keywords=developing+a+personal+saxophone+sound

there stuff in this book that covers everything from breathing etc through to reeds.

Like JF says it’s hard to demo this stuff as you can’t put a camera inside someones mouth – and to be honest i wouldn’t want to see inside someones mouth – lol.

[Dazza]

How long does it take to play altissimo?….and to make it look easy like this guy!

[Anonymous]

i asked a pro who plays altissimo if he practiced overtones – answer was no. it took him a couple of mins to demo them – he was a bit rusty, but his altissimo would blow you away in terms of loudness.

i haven’t practiced overtones since half a year ago, so i had a go today, and it took me 15 mins to blow all of them on low Bb. like riding a bike – you never forget, but you might wobble a bit.

The secret is just to keep a short altissimo chromatic scales practice everyday, it builds up the strentgh and improves the hit rate.

but just remember some altissimo notes are harder than others, its no different to if you started learning to play high f# on the sax instead of mid b – so naturaly everyone starts on mid b etc..

[Michael]

Good stuff guys, keep the encouraging posts coming…I took the week off from playing/practicing to spend time with the family with the holidays and what, nice to see there are members working on it, that’s awesome to say the least 🙂 I’ve noticed, especially, with Altissimo G, there’s a variety of things a person can be doing that can actually prevent them from hitting the note. This can range from things like “biting” the MP, trying too hard, tightening of the neck muscles v.s. opening the throat like we’re supposed to, really focusing on pushing air up into the horn from our diaphragms, etc.. For me, when I supply air into the Sax from the diaphragm, I can actually feel the air from my diaphragm going up into the Oral Cavity. From that point, it’s just a matter of making the necessary adjustments with our embouchure and what to get the note to come out.
SXPOET: If you’re starting to get Altissimo now (very cool) the next time you upload here to Johnny’s forum, please throw in some Altissimo notes into your playing. It’s not only great to see that you’re actually doing it because it adds so much to our playing, but it will also encourage other members to keep going with the Altissimo course and that’s what it’s all about 🙂

[Anonymous]

Michael – within 6 months of learning to play the sax i was hitting some of the altissimo notes from following JF’s course, before you even started the course.

I’ve now been playing 2 years. lol
Been playing altissimo G over a year ago but not as well as i do now.

In fact i only got as far as the 4th overtones and just concentrated on the altissimo notes. Sort of did it backwards – as my altissimo improved – i started getting the rest of the overtones.

A lot of my improvements were down to learning to double tongue, tripple tongue, flutter tongue and various articulation exercises. So theres more than one way to skin a cat. But at the end of the day you still need to do overtones.

the book by david liebman – is interesting, as he recomends tuning the fingered notes to be in tune with the overtone notes.

he says if you play a low Bb in tune, then automatically all the overtones played are in tune (which is correct – tried it), what he used to do was then adjust the fingered mid Bb to sound in tune with the overtone from low Bb. I thought it was the other way round. Then he would tune all the other fingered notes to be in tune with the overtones.

[Michael]

Yes, Overtones are simply a must, there’s no getting around them LOL Great to hear the progress Sxpoet…if you’re hitting Altissimo notes, please play them the next time you upload something to Johnny’s blog v.s. just talking about it because it’s a great encouragement to everyone for sure and it’s certainly great for Johnny to see; he put a lot of work into that course…we’re here to encourage everyone.

[Anonymous]

Michael – i’ve justed talked about the things i did that enabled me to play in the altissimo range, which i hope will be of use to someone striving to do it.

I have asked other people who have learnt to play in the altissimo range or in the process of learning it to pass on any of their tips they come across.

I found no benifit in learning altissimo from watching a bunch of guys playing a bunch of altissimo notes on youtube. If you listen to what JF says – you cant put a camera in his mouth to see what he is doing – so the best thing to do is talk about it and listen to what people write etc…

look on youtube if you need to listen/watch someone play in altissimo range, and if you pick up some tips from watching/listening to them, then i encourage you to pass them on, as i would be interested to hear what you learn.

lol – happy new year to you pal

[Michael]

Sxpoet,
Great to hear about some of the things that you’ve done to play in the Altissimo range, and no one can put camera in our mouths to see what we’re doing. Even though no one can put a camera in our mouths, that doesn’t stop us from playing the notes so that others can hear us playing them, does it? And as you just mentioned above on watching someone on youtube, listening/watching someone play because like you brought out above can help us pick up some tips….On some of your insights above you mention clearly about your own play that you’ve “been playing Altissimo G for over a year now but not as good as I do now” and speaking to me that you were playing some of the Altissimo notes “before you even started the course”. It would be very encouraging to actually hear you play some of these notes on your own Sax. You said clearly above that you are playing these notes and that you started hitting them before I did, so play them please. Just like you mentioned above that we need to “look on youtube to listen/watch someone play in the altissimo range” what better thing can we do, for the benefit of other members here on Johnny’s site, to upload some videos of our playing and post them here to Johnny’s site? If you’re playing in this range now, there shouldn’t be a problem posting something of your own playing to show that you’re hitting these notes….you have said above that you we’re hitting these notes before me and that you’ve been playing Altissimo G for over a year, but not as well as you do now.
“lol-happy new year to you pal” 🙂

[Author]

Posts