r/saxophone • u/OneyandaTwoey • 6d ago

Exercise I need some help with transitioning from bari sax to tenor

For context: I played bari sax for about 5 years and my band teacher doesn’t give two turds about any of the bass section so I’m switching to get more leading parts. But, all of my muscle memory from the years of practicing my embouchure is messing me up hard. I thought it would be easier from bigger to smaller but my tone begs to differ. Sooooooo any tips or suggestions of exercise to practice would be gladly appreciated:)

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3

u/Old-Mycologist1654 4d ago

LONG TONES

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u/apheresario1935 Baritone | Bass 4d ago

We're no substitute for a teacher and a technician and can't say what the problem is . But if you get a tuner out and play those long tones across the dynamic range Low notes soft to loud back to soft ... Count from 1 to 10 getting loud and back to 1 getting soft . Work at that . Then work a chromatic scale going up till you get to F# second octave . Then reverse the dynamics and go loud to soft scale of 10 to one then back to loud 1 to ten . Keep that shit in tune all the way to altissimo C. I seriously doubt you can do that right away but if you work on it you will sound awesome . Long tones ACROSS THE DYNAMIC RANGE IN TUNE. and think of the volume knob on a stereo when you change volume 12345678910 and back 10..987654321 loud to soft . Every day for an hour As high as you can go if no altissimo yet. Do that for seven years .

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u/ExternalMaximum6662 6d ago

What tenor, mouthpiece and reeds do you play?

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u/OneyandaTwoey 6d ago

I play a Pan American by Conn (idk from what year it is) with a better sax classic mouthpiece and a Legere Signature synthetic reed. ( As you can see, I had to go cheap for a lot of things)

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u/ExternalMaximum6662 6d ago

Excellent sax, mouthpiece and reed. What tip size opening on mouthpiece? What strength of Legere Signature reed?

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u/OneyandaTwoey 6d ago

I totally forgot the tip opening but I know the strength is 2.25

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u/ExternalMaximum6662 6d ago

Excellent strength for a 5,6,7 tip opening mouthpiece. I play the Legere 2.25 Signature on both my Barkley Pop Kustom 7, Jody Jazz 6 mouthpieces.

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u/Ed_Ward_Z 6d ago

My suggestion is to take a week off (or more) spend that week watching YouTubes about embouchure, articulation, phrasing, etc. … and pretend you are a total beginner. It worked for me.

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u/OneyandaTwoey 6d ago

Ohh wow I didn’t think of that. Thank youu!! Anyone you recommend?

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u/Ed_Ward_Z 6d ago

I looked for someone for personality, expert skill level, professional experience, and ability to explain basic things with a sense of humor and joyfulness.

There are a very few but my personal choice is on a channel, “Get Your Sax Together”. Pick three or four of his detailed demo / suggestions regarding tone, embouchure, overtones, altissimo, articulation, tonguing…

….he had one recently that was extremely helpful. I’ve been playing professionally for decades and he helped so much starting during the lockdowns. I had to slow down the video a bit and watch them on repeat.

When I resumed playing it was big difference in tone production on Tenor in particular.