I want to talk about your tone on saxophone.
Because you want to improve your saxophone tone, right? I do too.
Today I’ve got some tips on how you can improve your tone on your saxophone. And I’e also been testing the new Légère French Cut reeds, and I’ll be sharing my thoughts on those too. So we’ve got loads to dig into today.
New Reed
So Légère just released these brand new French cut reeds. They’re the darkest reeds that they make. And on their website, they say the French Cut Légère reeds are “dark with the perfect amount of resistance for the discerning musician“. Well, I bet you’re a discerning musician. I am too.
And if you’ve been around for a while, you’ll know that I’m already a fan of Légère reeds. But, what do these new ones sound like?
Well, I’m going to play them for you today so you can hear how they sound, and I’ll be sharing my thoughts on how they play.
I’ve been on a bit of a classical saxophone tangent this week, I’ll be honest with you. We’ve got a new lesson inside Sax School on Clair de Lune by Debussy. We’ve got a whole bunch of classical tunes inside Sax School, along with about a thousand other things.
The 14-day trial is still running. If you want to check out how we’re helping all of our thousands of sax School members, then click the link below to start your trial.
Why playing classical is important
So tell me this – are you working on any classical things in your practice? Now, hang on, just before you click away. I know not everybody wants to be a classical saxophone player -I get that. I don’t want to be a full-time classical player either.
But I do work on classical material, as do most of the best pro players out there. There’s a good reason for that. And it’s because working on classical material will help you to improve your saxophone tone, your dexterity, and just about every aspect of your playing.
There’s 3 big ways working on classical material will help you in your playing.
Versatility
The first one is versatility. Now, I get it, you might just be a blues player. Or you might be thinking, “Nigel, I just play in a funk band, or I just play in a ska band.” But here’s the thing, most of us sax players- probably 99 percent of saxophone players – are going to find themselves playing in a whole range of situations. And being versatile is super-important.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have the flexibility to play in any style and sound convincing?
Expression
The second big thing is expression. Now, believe it or not, working on classical material is going to give you a much broader range of expression possibilities on your saxophone.
So you’ll be able to play softer softs, you’ll be able to play louder louds. And that means you’re going to be able to get more expression, more connection, with music in any style that you play. Whether that’s playing a jazz ballad, or whether that’s playing a pop tune, or just working on a lovely classical melody.
Tone
Now the third way that working on classical material is going to help you, is by making your tone better in any style. So whether you’re a jazz player, a pop player, or a blues player, working on classical material will develop your embouchure. And that in turn will help you to have a richer, warmer, stronger sound.
The Légère reeds
Okay. You get the idea. I’ve got three things that you can do to improve your saxophone tone today.
But first, let’s dig into these reeds.
So there are three main flavours of these Légère reeds. We’ve got the new French Cuts. And we’ve got the American Cut, and we’ve got the Signature.
Now, In terms of dark to bright, I suppose they go:
- French Cut – darkest
- Signature – mid range
- American Cut – brightest.
Légère have got this cool scale that they’ve got on the back of their boxes.
And you can see on this here that the French Cuts are noticeably darker on the scale, and the American Cuts are more on the bright end.
Synthetic Reeds
Now one of the main complaints about synthetic reeds, (and it’s the thing that put me off playing synthetics for like 20 years), is that they can be a little bit bright.
I’ve tried just about every brand of synthetics on the market. The ones that I can live with, that I do like, are these Légères.
And I tend to play the Signatures because, for me, they are a good balance of not too bright, but also flexible. They let me do pretty much everything I want to do on them.
But I do find the American Cuts for me are just a little bit too bright, so I tend not to play them.
Légère Reeds: The French Cut
So for me though this week, I’ve been enjoying the French Cut reeds and to me, they do sound darker. The response to them is very even.
I did find that they tend to play a little bit harder. So for example, this 2.5 French Cut reed just feels slightly more resistant than a 2.5 Signature reed, even though they’re the same size. But that resistance also gives me a little bit of extra body when I’m playing. And that which helps me to fill out those long phrases when I’m playing a melody like Clair de Lune.
Now I have to tell you my initial reservation about trying the French Cut reeds was that they might be too dark for me. Because I do want something versatile, and I would suggest that a versatile reed for you is also a good option.
So in Sax School, one day I might be teaching a classical melody, and the next day I might be teaching DJ sax.
We’ve got such a range of lessons and courses inside Sax School, in pretty much every style you could imagine. So for me, every day in the studio, on alto or tenor or soprano or bari, I’m playing something in a different style. It has to be versatile.
So what I do like about these French cuts is they are dark, but I can still get a pretty bright sound.
Hitchgnosis
Now I mentioned before that so many great saxophone players also have a foundation in classical, or at least work on classical music in their repertoire. One of my favourite British players is a guy called Nigel Hitchcock.
This week I was checking out his Hitchgnosis Orchestra album, which is just mind-blowing. There are some amazing tracks on there.
And this one caught my ear. And I had to have a go at it. This is a classical track. I can’t quite do it as fast as Nigel, but check this out.
Improve your saxophone tone #1 WarmUp
Okay, so let’s talk about how I go about building my classical tone in my practice routine. Maybe you could incorporate some of these things into your practice too.
The first thing that I focus on is my warm-up. Now there are lots of different ways to do a warm-up. There are some brilliant resources online. We’ve got some fantastic resources inside Sax School.
But I can tell you from my own experience, that when I’m working on classical material, I need to get my embouchure engaged.
And the best way I know how to do that is by using a warm-up with intervals and a tuner. It’s simple, it doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that.
The way I do it though, is by starting on a fundamental note, say a Bb. I use a drone on my tuner rather than watching it with my eyes, so I’m listening with my ears.
And then I play the low Bb and I work up in fifths, and then in octaves. Check this out.
Now, of course, if you’re a more advanced player, you could push that up into the altissimo as well.
And once I’m feeling comfortable with the B flat, I’ll move on to B.
I’ll even move up to the C as well.
Now it takes me about five minutes to get through this warm-up. But it really engages my embouchure. I’ll also go back and revisit the things that I’m struggling with, like for example the second octave C on that last warm-up. I think I need to spend some more time on that one.
Now another great exercise to boost your tone is to work on simple overtones. Not the complicated ones, just the first, second and third overtones in the series. This video blog might help you with that if you want to check out that a bit more.
Improve your saxophone tone #2 Breathing
So the second thing you can think about is the way that you approach breathing when you’re playing a melody.
So we must think about blowing from the bottom of our lungs and pushing the air through, filling the saxophone with air, but also filling out the phrase with sound.
I hear a lot of players that cut off that last note of a phrase. They just throw it away and they don’t let the air support the note right to the very end. Big mistake.
So, what we want to be doing is thinking about blowing through the phrase and filling up our notes as much as possible.
Another way to think about this is to imagine if your melody was represented visually with a shape. For a lot of people, they’re playing a melody and it’s made up of little dots of sound with spaces in between.
But what we need to be doing is thinking about it almost like a continuous stroke of sound where everything is joined up together.
Improve your saxophone tone #3 Slow melodies
So the third thing you can work on is beautiful, slow melodies. Now, of course, these could be pop melodies, or these could be jazz melodies. But focusing on classical melodies forces you to focus with a lot more clarity on the way you start your notes and the way that you control them.
Your vibrato, your intonation, the way you blow through the phrases.
So classical melodies are just so good for this. And if you approach them in the right way with a lot of focus, it will give your embouchure a massive workout. This is why we can develop our embouchure, develop our tone control, and get all the benefits I mentioned before.
So inside Sax School, we’ve got a whole section on classical saxophone which we call the Introduction to Classical Saxophone. The melody Clair De Lune which I’ve been playing today is part of that course.
Testing the French Cut reeds
So, I’m going to play through the entire track of Clair de Lune now. I’m using the French Cut reeds in a 2. 5. What do you think about the quality of the sound?
Don’t forget the 14-day trial is still available if you’d like to go and check that out. See if you can try some of those classical melody lessons and see how they help you to improve your tone too.