To love somebody

[Anonymous]

This is edited parts of the info i picked up…

Here are some tricks I personally use and recommend. A very wise repair tech said he recommended first playing middle C then the first harmonic of low C and alternating back and forth to see if the pitch shifted. Move the mouthpiece until both pitches are similar intonation. “Now the pipe is in tune with itself.” I really like this and find it helps center the intonation and the tone quality across any horn or mouthoiece.

A cool variation on this is to play only the mouthpiece and neck (of alto sax) to see if concert Ab sounded. If so then the ‘lead pipe is tuned’ and the body mechanism can do its job properly.

Some folks go wild with mouthpiece pitch but I personally play very loose and still get the C’s playing together well and a Ab from the neck. So I am going with that.

The alto mp + neck is Ab concert
The tenor mp + neck is E concert

for a conical woodwind to work properly, the equivalent volume of the mouthpiece plus the volume of the neck must closely match the volume of the missing cone.
The missing cone is when you remove the mouthpiece from the sax.

[Anonymous]

correction to the last sentance.
The missing cone is when you remove the neck from the sax.

[jake]

THANKS for the help here! Greatly appreciated. Just love how taking a video and getting honest feedback can help us all!!! Great stuff. Still have a lotta work to do!!

[jake]

very interesting. I purchased this tuner that was recommended. WOW, can’t believe the outta tune notes. Any I compared it to a my YTS61 and a chinese HAWK tenor, results are the same, def me that needs the improving! This tonal energy tuner is going to be so helpful in getting me in tune. lots of tools on this app and was only $3.99 as compared to my free ones. I have my mouthpiece in position where I’m comfortable and tuning is pretty fair. Time for me to get to work!! I feel like a novice again 🙁
Thanks you Johnny and all you guys for your help and support!!

[jake]

another thing i found out is when practicing long tones and such tuning ok but when it comes to a performance im flat. i really play hard and blow the horn when performing thus i need to push my mouthpiece in a little more. is there a way to practice performance play with a tuner?? hard to see the tuner dial that way. lol

[Anonymous]

the stuff i posted is all you need, you shouldn’t be pushing in and pulling out the mouthpiece every day – unless your sax is subjected to vast temperature changes every time you take it out of its case. You need to stick with the mouthpiece roughly in the same place every day, use your tuner and bend the notes with your embouchure until each one is in tune with the tuner.

If you keep pulling out and pushing in the mouthpiece everyday, it means you will be having to change your embouchure everyday to be in tune resulting in never ever being in tune at all.

Try and stick with the same mouthpiece position, try playing along with a sax player in a backing track and aim to be in tone with the sax player.
All these various tuning videos on utube are completely confusing and a waste of time.

It also helps if you play in a room facing the corner of the room, as you will actually hear your sax tone and pitch a lot clearer.

Also a lot of famous sax players are more often slightly over pitched if you check a tuner, but they are consistant across the whole sax range. SO YOU DONT HAVE TO BE EXACTLY SPOT ON, 5 units either side of the tuner is ok.

The other thing is PLAY a sax key, turn around while playing it and check the tuner to see how in tune the key is – DONT STAND FACING A TUNER AND PLAY A KEY IN TUNE (you’ll never learn to play in tune looking at a tuner needle)
YOU HAVE TO RELY ON REMEMBERING IN YOUR HEAD HOW A KEY SOUNDS ON THE SAX WHEN IT IS IN TUNE.

SORRY FOR RANTING ON, just trying to ge helpful

[jake]

THANKs for The feedback. I agree most videos can be confusing and not clear. I posted this one because it really does focus on in Intonation and the conversion that has come about because of Johnny’s comments. It may help others as I feel will help me. It really makes sense and cements the comments Johnny made about long tones and daily practice and making a routine.
I agree I don’t wanna move my mouthpiece but I notice when I perform I seem flat. Hopefully committing to these daily exercises and making it routine will correct that. Again thanks for your replies. All of them go into my process of learning!! Thanks

[Anonymous]

Excellent Jake – it should take you at least a couple of weeks if you are doing the right thing before you notice an improvement, if after a month nothings improved, i would suggest finding an alternative approach as it shouldn’t take longer than that to get some improvement

[jake]

THanks for the timeframe. Good to know! Def will be checking my progress!

[john]

Hey Jake, being sax players we always have to work on and check our tuning but generally speaking, in your case you might just be flat with your track.
this may be good news in that al you really need to do is push it in a bit. try that.

[Author]

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