I know that all of us want to get a better sound on the saxophone, but we often don’t know what to practice.
If you want to sound better on sax, this lesson is for you. This exercise I’m going show you today is without a doubt, my favorite go-to warmup that boosts my sound.
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A warmup to sound better on sax
And I can tell you, if you practice this exercise, you will get a better sound on your saxophone straight away.
And if you do it every day, then you’ll be amazed at the progress you’ll see over the coming weeks and months.
It’s a really simple exercise. And this is also a great lead into some of the other overtone exercises.
Overtones!
I know what you’re thinking – “Nigel said OVERTONES!” But don’t panic. It’s not as scary as you think.
This is actually really easy. And even if you’re pretty new to the saxophone, I think you’ll enjoy working through this simple exercise.
So just before we get started, there is a PDF worksheet for you. It’s really simple, and you can get it for free from our Locker. That’s where we keep all of our free resources. Click the big orange link below, or you can just go to the Courses page of our website saxschoolonline.com.
Download it, and stick it on your music stand. Then you can use it in your daily practice from now on to sound better on sax.
Getting started
Okay, so let’s get started by looking at what this exercise is all about.
Yes, it is overtones. But all we are doing is trying to train ourselves with the very first couple of overtones, to get that overtone control in our throat and our embouchure. And this is really going to help you get a better sound on sax.
So it’s easy to get started with. I’m going to start with a low B flat.
Free Fingering Chart inside Locker
If you’re not familiar with the low B flat, we’re using all of our fingers. I’ve playing my tenor today, but this is the same for alto, soprano or bari sax.
So low B flat is all six fingers, plus the low C key on the right hand and reaching right around with our left pinky to the bottom B flat key there.
So it’s the low B flat, but really what we’re going to do is try and get different sounds out by putting our B flat down.
Now, if you’re brand new to overtones, an overtone is simply pulling out a different part of the sound, by playing a fundamental note. In this case, we’re working on the low B flat.
And did you know that when you play the low B flat, we hear the low B flat, but there are all these other notes in there as well. It’s the octave B flat, the octave F, the second octave B flat, and so forth, right up into the stratosphere.
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First Step
So let’s get started with the very first steps of this exercise. Grab the PDF worksheet.
So this looks complicated, but it’s simple. Let me show you how it works.
We’re going to start by playing the middle B flat. So I’m using my first finger on the B and the B flat key, and no octave key. We’re going to play that note, and then I’m going to put my fingers down for low B flat, but try to still get that middle B flat sound.
So when you’re playing the middle B flat. I want you to hear it in your mind. Think about how it sounds and how it feels. And then when we go down to the low B flat, we’ve got to try and match that sound. Have a listen to it.
How’d to get on with that? Are you able to do it?
That first one is generally pretty easy. So if you’re struggling to get it -maybe you’re getting some wobbly sounds in there – just think about what’s going on with your throat here. And also revisit whether you can hear that middle B flat as you’re fingering the low B flat.
You’ve really got to try and imagine that middle B flat. That’s a pretty easy first step, and a lot of us get that first overtone without even trying.
Octave F
Let’s look at the next step. So you can see in the next bar, we’re are now going from the octave F. So I’ve got 3 fingers down, and my F key and my octave key on here.
We’re going to play that F, and then go to the low B flat and try and keep that F sound going. Have a listen.
Okay, so you might have noticed that when I went to the overtone F, with my low B flat fingerings down, the overtone F was quite sharp. So I had to adjust my embouchure to try and bring the pitch back down.
Pro Tip
Here’s a pro tip. Get your tuner app on your phone and put it in front of you. And then you try and match the tuning of the overtone note to the standard note. That’s really important.
At the start, you may be wildly out of tune. You might be quite sharp. That’s okay. It just means that you’ve got to adjust the shape of your mouth. Try dropping your jaw a little bit, opening up the back of your throat, and try to get that pitch the same.
Second Octave B flat
Let’s try the third step. This is a little bit harder. But have a go and see you can if you can get this one out.
So we’re going to do the second octave B flat now. So I’ve got my B finger on my B flat key. I’ve also got my octave key on.
I’m going to play that second octave B flat. Then I’m going to change to the low B flat fingering and try and see if I can still hit that high B flat. Here we go.
Now, if you’re pretty new to this, you might find that you start to get some horrible wobbly sounds.
That’s normal. We just need to adjust the shape of our mouths. Here are two ways to think about this.
- Sing the notes
- Experiment with the back of your tongue
Sing the note
The first way is to think about the pitch as if you’re singing it. Can you sing that high B flat? Think about the shape of your throat as you’re singing up there. That can help some of my students in Sax School to get that high B flat out.
Back of the Tongue
Another thing that I find helps is to experiment with the shape of the back of your tongue.
So for me, I find that I’m raising the back of my tongue and going a bit higher in my voice at the back here. And that helps to get that overtone out too.
So have an experiment with those two techniques and see which one works for you.
Free PDF Download inside Locker
Long Practice
So now we’re going to put that all into one long exercise.
The key here is to go slowly. So I’m going to start at the beginning. Grab your sax and try it with me. I’m going to play the first note and then go to the overtone. I’m going to stay on each note until it’s in tune, and I feel comfortable with the sound. then I’ll move on to the next step, and then the next step and so forth through the line.
Okay. Grab your sax. Let’s have a go at this together.
If it’s your first time doing this, you might have found that a bit challenging, but that’s okay. Even if you can just get the first overtone and the second overtone, that’s a massive win, and you should be proud of yourself. You’re taking a big step to sound better on sax too.
The most important thing here is doing this consistently, and every time trying to get a slightly better sound on your saxophone, and slightly better tuning as well.
The more that you do this, you’ll be amazed at how it opens up your sound so you sound better on sax when you go back to playing normal melodies. It makes a big difference.
B Natural as Fundamental
Just before we finish, I want to show you two more steps that you can do with this exercise to take it to the next level.
So you might have guessed that we can take this exercise and we can then move it up to a B natural, and use the B natural as our fundamental – the root note that everything’s based upon – and work up in the same order. So now we’re going from middle B to putting our low B fingers down.
Just a reminder of low B. We’ve got 6 fingers down. We’re using the C key, and now we’ve got the middle key with the left hand little finger, for low B.
So we’re going to play:
- B and then overtone B
- F sharp and the overtone F sharp
- High B, and then the overtone high B.
So let’s try playing through that now, as with using B as the overtone. Grab your sax and let’s have a go playing this together.
So you can see, I don’t get it perfect every time either. And there are a couple of notes in there that I’d want to work on a bit more just to get that tuning right. I’d also be working on making them a little bit more consistent, so that I can hit them and they come out straight away.
Always when that happens, it comes down to your thinking.
- Am I thinking clearly about where that note is?
- Can I hear it?
- Can I feel it in my body before I even go to the overtone?
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Using C as a Fundamental
You’ve probably already guessed the last step!
We can also do this pattern based on C as a fundamental. So to play C we need 6 fingers and a low key at the bottom with our right hand.
So using C as a fundamental, we’re going to go to:
- middle C then octave overtone C
- octave G then the overtone octave G
- high C, and the overtone high C.
Let’s have a go at this one. I think this is a little bit more challenging, but have a try and let’s see how we get on with it.
How to use overtones
I hope you enjoy this exercise. The most important thing I want you to take away from today is that overtones can be fun. They don’t need to be difficult, and even working on those first two or three overtones in the series is going to really help you to sound better on sax.
So wherever you’re at with your playing, just work on the overtones that feel comfortable for you.
If you focus on consistency and intonation, then you will get the most benefit out of this exercise.
Inside our Sax School PRO membership, we talk a lot about overtones and help our members reach up into the altissimo range of the saxophone by using altissimo overtone exercises.
And there are all sorts of things you can do from working on your flexibility between those notes, making up melodies with them, and using them as expressive elements in your improvising. You hear guys like Michael Brecker do this. But these are all steps we can work toward. And if you’re a member of Sax School PRO, then you can dig into that inside the members’ area.
And by the way, if you want to find out a bit more about Sax School PRO, we’ve got thousands of members all around the world who are working through our lessons with us and seeing great results. Get started with Sax School
Next Steps
So the next steps for you are to grab that worksheet and put this into action in your daily practice routine.
Remember, you’re only going to sound better on sax if you use this in your practice. So make sure you grab this worksheet and then at least commit to the next couple of weeks of trying this every single day. Have fun with it.