Your embouchure. It’s super important because this is where the sound starts on your saxophone.
But if you get your saxophone embouchure wrong, it can cause problems with your playing.
So today I’ve got Joel from the Sax School tutor team here to help me to describe the two different types of embouchure that you’re going to come across as a saxophone player.
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We’re going to talk about how they differ, and how you know which one might be right for you.
And then we’re going to share with you five mistakes that we see saxophone players make all the time with embouchure, both when we’re teaching at Sax School and when Joel’s teaching at the Conservatorium as well.
Why your saxophone embouchure matters
Your embouchure is really important. It’s the bit where your body meets the saxophone, it’s where lot of the sound is created and a lot of issues occur. But if you can avoid these 5 issues, you’ll be on track.
Even for advanced experienced players, it’s important to focus on embouchure. Joel spends a lot time at the Leeds Conservatorium where he’s a Principal Lecturer, talking to his students about their embouchure. “Particularly in their first year when students come in with all sorts of different types of embouchure,” says Joel. “And there’s generally always something that could be tweaked, just to make life easier because that’s what it’s about. It’s about making it easier.”
So even if you’re an experienced player, it’s good to revisit the embouchure discussion.
And if you’re a brand new player it’s so important to understand the different types of embouchure, and explore how you’re using your embouchure too so that you can improve your skills.
Resources to help you
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Two types of saxophone embouchure
So let’s get started talking about the first type of embouchure. Joel likes to call it the ‘classical embouchure’ – which I don’t really agree with! But for today, we’re going to call it the classical embouchure.
So there are 2 types of embouchure we’re going to talk about today – the classical embouchure and the jazz embouchure. These are two contrasting embouchure styles and these are what you’re most likely going to see on YouTube.
Because it can be really confusing if you search on YouTube or on the internet – there’s about 15 different versions of the saxophone embouchure on there!
“There’s a lot of different information out there,” says Joel, “and then also when you watch your favourite artists, you see all sorts of variants of embouchures. We’re all different at the end of the day. but I think we’re going to deal with the two main types of embouchure that are worth considering or applying to your playing.”
Everything kind of comes from these main two concepts of embouchure. So understanding both of them, you can find somewhere in between them that will suit you.
The Classical Embouchure
So with the classical saxophone embouchure, essentially we’re talking about using the bottom lip to make a cushion for the reed.
And the way I teach students to do this in Sax School, is to think about saying something like “VOO”. So if you say “VOO,” your bottom lip bunches up a little bit, and the fleshy part at the top goes over your bottom teeth. The reed rests on that and your top teeth go on top of the mouthpiece. You make a nice seal, a bit like a drawstring bag. If you pull it in, it makes a nice seal around the mouthpiece, and you’re ready to go. That’s the classical embouchure.
The Jazz Embouchure
How does the jazz embouchure differ?
“So the difference with the jazz embouchure, is it’s a bit more of an open embouchure. Jerry Bergonzi calls it the “No Embouchure” embouchure,” says Joel. “So … what you do is, imagine taking your thumb, pushing it up against your top teeth, then just open your mouth and- forget about embouchures! And then you just shut your bottom lip.
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“If you then suck your thumb, you’ll find that what you sucking is this very muscular band, just on your inner lip. So your outer lip stays out and your inner lip becomes the cushion. And you’ll also find you take a bit more of the mouthpiece into your mouth, which can counteract wanting to bite for example, which we’ll talk about later.”
So as opposed to thinking about your bottom lip going over your teeth, you’ve got the bottom lip going out and you’re using the inner part of your lip as the cushion. And you still have to make a seal, but it’s a lot looser.
When Joel changed from a classical embouchure to the jazz embouchure, he didn’t need to change his mouthpiece or reed set up. “What I did find is I got a lot more sound out, and a lot more personality out of it.”
Classical vs Jazz embouchure
Classical sax players are trying to get a very consistent classical sound. But jazz players are trying to get a much more personal sound, where we’re expressing ourselves through our tone as much as anything else. “That’s one of the key things to understand,” explains Joel. “It depends on what you’re after from the point of view of your sound.”
Listen as Joel demonstrates how these 2 embouchure styles change his sound on saxophone
Classical embouchure demo
“So this time I’m going to tuck this lip a bit further in, and come a little bit back towards the tip,” says Joel.
Joel doesn’t use the classical embouchure now. “I played like that professionally for at least 15 years… But I found that certain issues are I had, that I just couldn’t rectify, no matter how much practice I did, particularly in the lower end.”
Jazz embouchure demo
So I don’t know if you can hear it, but in the studio Joel’s got a bigger sound with the jazz embouchure. It’s wider and there are more colours. There’s a lot more volume as well.
“There’s much more volume,” says Joel.”And I think one of the reasons for that, is all my pressure is down pressure now. This lip is not pushing up on this lower reed, restricting it. And also, because I’m a bit further on the mouthpiece, I’m getting more length to the reed and that’s, giving it more sound, and more volume.”
I hope this has given you some ideas. But one thing I want to say is you’re transitioning from one of embouchure style to the other, it’s a process you need to go through. You need to build up your embouchure muscles.
I prefer to teach newer student – people who are brand new to saxophone – somewhere closer to my classical version.
But Joel would start new students with more of a jazz embouchure style.
That’s why I love having Joel on the tutor team – because we do things very differently. I think we still both get great results, but I love the contrast.
Because different things will suit different people. And there are different challenges for either of these embouchure styles.
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5 Embouchure Mistakes
This is important because if you can avoid these five mistakes, you’ll be well on your way to having a good, solid embouchure. And that’s going to help you make the sort of sound that you want, on saxophone.
Mistake #1: Too little mouthpiece
The very first mistake that I see a lot of people make is they use too little mouthpieces.
Not using enough mouthpiece, is going to make your sound constricted. It’s going to make it difficult for you to get a really big sound. So if you find yourself right at the tip of your mouthpiece and your sound’s a little bit thin, then maybe that’s the problem.
Just revisit how much mouthpiece you’ve got in your mouth.
Mistake #2: Too much mouthpiece
If you’ve got too much mouthpiece in your mouth, you’ll have a very squawky sound. And if you can’t control the upper register you’ve probably got too much in. If you look at your reed from the side, where it makes contact with the mouthpiece, you’ll see that little V of light disappear at that point. Wherever we’re making contact, we want it to be at that point.
Now that’s quite hard to do because it’s inside your mouth, but it gives you a good guide.
“So something that you can try to just check this out is if you start with a top side D,” says Joel. “Put lots of the mouthpiece in, and if you try and get that top D out, you’re going to get probably a middle D. it’ll probably split downwards… So keep that embouchure in place and just move back a millimetre at a time until that D rings out. And then from a safety point of view, maybe come back another millimetre and you probably find the sweet spot.”
That’s a really simple, easy, practical solution that you can try. Because I know there are plenty of students that get that sort of squawky ducky sound and don’t know what on earth to do. So just backing off a little bit at a time can help you find the right position.
“It’s finding that sweet spot,” says Joel. “Too close to the tip, you’re going to be restricting your sound and getting a really thin sound. Too far on and you’ve gone the other direction. It’s got all squawky and duck-like.”
Mistake #3: Biting too hard
So the third mistake we see lots of people making is biting too hard and using too much pressure. And this is a problem if you’re starting with more of a classical concept for your embouchure.
So for a lot of people, particularly if you’re brand new to the saxophone, you haven’t got any muscle strength here yet. It’s easy to fall into that trap of compensating for the lack of strength in your embouchure, by biting. So we see a lateral, up and down type pressure.
And that can cause all sorts of problems. Biting too hard is going to make you sound and feel very constricted, but it’s also going to make your lips sore.
So if you’re finding that you’re getting a sore lip, maybe you’re biting too hard and it’s time to just relax a little bit more.
Just like with anything that you’re doing physically, when you’re just getting started with it, little and often is the best tactic.
So build up your stamina. Build up your embouchure muscles gradually by doing a little bit of practice, but doing it every single day and gradually extending that amount of time that you’ve got the saxophone in your mouth and you’re playing.
Mistake #4: Too much lip
So, from the side is we want our lips parallel. Your lips should be the same on both sides of the mouthpiece. “If we see one too far forward, so an underbite, or too far out, which is what we’re talking about here – too much lip – , once again, you’ve not got the right type of support,” says Joel. “You’re on this weak outside part of the lip, rather than using this muscular band.”
“By the way we use [this muscular band] in both of these embouchures, you’re just tucking over it [for a classical embouchure]. I’m just using it on its own [for a jazz embouchure].
With too much lip the saxophone sounds uncontrolled. So just bringing your lips back, bringing it back, and getting your lips parallel sounds much nicer.
Mistake #5: Embouchure too loose
So there’s one last mistake that we see happen a lot, particularly with brand new players. And that is to just be too loose with your embouchure.
If you’re finding that you struggle to get any of the notes, as you get up to an octave G, if those notes just don’t sound for you, your embouchure could be too loose. Or if you find that you’re really out of tune, if you’re checking yourself with your tuner and you’re flat and you just can’t get it into tune, it could be that you’re too loose.
“Without a doubt,” says Joel. “We’ve got to form the seal and that’s important from an airflow. Sometimes you may hear yourself that air is escaping. That’s another sign that you’re a bit too loose on that embouchure.”
The key thing is we don’t want to bite, as we’ve already said. So instead of focusing on vertical tightness, in your jaw, we need to think focus on horizontal tightness. We talked about ‘the drawstring’ earlier, some people call it the elastic bands. But we want to use the corners of the mouth.
We don’t want to smile though, because that’s going to force us to bite.
“I like to call it ‘happy emoji versus sad emoji'” says Joel. ….”that makes a big difference…That sweet spot is what we’re looking for, in our position along the mouthpiece, and our tightness, and our support of our embouchure.”
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Final Thoughts
There’s so much we’ve covered today. We’ve talked about the classical embouchure. and we’ve talked about jazz embouchure.
Plus We’ve talked about those five saxophone embouchure mistakes:
- too little mouthpiece
- too much mouthpiece
- biting too hard,
- too much lip
- being too loose.
Think about your playing. And let me know if any of those resonate with you, are you making any of those mistakes?
It’s okay to admit them, because once we identify these mistakes, it might just open a doorway for you where you suddenly realise what you can fix, to transform your playing.
And speaking of transforming your playing, don’t forget to grab those resources in the Locker. We make these things for you for free to help you. So it’s all available. There’s no catch.
And if you want to dig into things more, there’s so much waiting for you inside Sax School PRO.
Joel has been making some amazing courses inside of Sax School PRO. And we’ve also got courses from Dean and Fred and Chris. And in fact, there are over a thousand lessons and courses and masterclass replays inside Sax School PRO.
You can go and stick your toe in the water, check out some of Joel’s courses, check out some of my courses, or any of the other tutors. You can connect with our community, attend one of our masterclasses, or even get involved with one of our monthly challenges.
Most importantly, keep having fun with this saxophone, spend this week thinking about your embouchure and I’ll catch you next time.