Keeping a good tone

[Orlando Nunez]

Hello everyone,

I’m having a problem keeping a good tone after playing for a few minutes. I have moved my mouth up and down the mouth piece and re-setting the reed withouth any success. Can some one let me know what can I do to over come this. Thank you in advanced.

[john]

How long have you been playing?
Sounds like your mouth is getting tired. Is that how it feels?

[Orlando Nunez]

I have been playing for a month or two and no, i dont feel tired.

[john]

If you are sure your embouchure is not giving out then it must be your air support. Since you are just staring out you need to work on getting more air through your horn. It comes from diaphragm breathing. There is a lesson on that specifically which you can find in the Tone Development section or go here:
https://howtoplaysaxophone.org/breathing

[Orlando Nunez]

I started to practice and noticed that I am getting tired after playing for about 20 minutes.

[john]

I’m not sure I’m understanding what you mean by tired.
Physically tired, like running out of breath?
Your lips or mouth feel tired?

When I used to play the flute it always made me kinda dizzy cause I used so much air and wasn’t breathing properly…
is this how you feel perhaps?

[Orlando Nunez]

I can feel my mouth tired and im having to adjusting the position of my mouth.

[john]

Here’s a little part from the book I’m putting together and may help with what you’re going through:

Initially, the most important points to keep in mind are: your top teeth are resting on the top of your mouthpiece. Your bottom lip forms a cushion over your bottom teeth, in other words… your bottom teeth are not touching the reed! So you have your bottom lip between your teeth and the reed acting as a cushion.

When you’re new at this or play many hours in a row, you might develop a cut or sore. This is normal. You’ll get used to it and eventually any sores will disappear. So, to develop a proper embouchure, place your top teeth on your mouthpiece and your bottom teeth under your bottom inside lip.

Simple exercise to develop these muscles

All these supporting facial muscles that are involved will develop over time. You can do a daily exercise to help strengthen some of these muscles: whistle. When you whistle the corners of your mouth will move to the center. After a short whistling period, smile the widest smile you possibly can. This brings the corners of your mouth back as far as possible. Rotate the whistles with the big smiles a few dozen times during the day. If these muscles get a little tired while you’re doing this exercise it’s because they need to develop and you can continue to do just that.

Your tongue is back from the reed and shouldn’t touch the reed because it’ll constrict the movement of the reed which needs to vibrate very fast to produce a sound.

[Orlando Nunez]

Thank you for all your help.

[Author]

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