observation – about playing altissimo

[Anonymous]

Hi Johnny,

These past few i’ve changed my warmup routine,
i now do the following warm.

I play the chromatic scale starting from low Bb right up to altissimo C.

But i repeat for each if the following
1 – tongue it staccato style
2 – slur it
3 – double tongue it
4 – tripple tongue it
5 – flutter tongue it
6 – growl it
7 – wah wah it (dropping the lower jaw)
8 – do wah it (playing an echo note by flipping the tongue in the middle upwards quickly afterwards like a shock wave)
9 – play triplets all the way up (123 234 345 ..)
8 – play quadruplets all the way up (1234 2345 3456 …)

After doing that for a couple of weeks – its improved my altissimo notes 100%

[john]

wow no doubt!
that’s a pretty complete tonguing schedule and I would highly recommend it to others.

[Anonymous]

Thanks Johnny – i was rather puzzled as to why these exercises had by accident when i checked my altissimo notes – particularly the altissimso G, i’m hitting it every time now, just like any other note.

Then i realised before doing these exercises, when i played the altissimo G in the past, i could only do it one way, the embouchure had to be exact otherwise i would strain to get it.

What i realised in doing these different exercises with all the altissimo notes, i was forcing my embouchure to open up and attack and nail the altissimo G from different ways, as well as the other altiisimo notes.
Flutter tonguing is quite fun up in the altissimo range, i find the altissimo C jumps to a C# when fluttering.

but more to learn, long way to go.

On a different tack, i’m the only person now in my circle of friends that i come in contact with that doesn’t own a selmar. The last person to get a selmar is 11 years old, doing grade 8 next year. She tried out 6 different selmars before settling on a ref54. She also got a new soprano sax – but went for a yamaha (apparently she didnt like the selmar sopranos). Also the selmar alto mark 6 i had my eye on in our local music store has gone, i found out that the lad who got it, is another grade 8 player out in the music scene gigging for money,i didn’t feel too bad about it, because an instrument like that deserves to be out there in proper use instead of going nowhere in my house.

[Author]

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