My Three "Rules" of Saxophone Playing
As I embark on a new teaching year with the return of school, I thought I’d finally write down a few simple ideas that have stood out to me as important for developing saxophonists. At the risk of sounding overly simplistic or cliché, I’ve come to refer to these points as “My Three Rules of Saxophone Playing.” No matter whether I’m working with elementary or more experienced high school students, it seems that every year I interact with a fair number of saxophone students who benefit from addressing one of these items.
These particular topics stood out to me because, while each is very simple, poor technique in any of the three can lead to significant challenges playing the instrument which in turn results in frustrated students! When a constant roadblock is present, progress stalls quickly and the instrument can become a source of frustration. So, without further delay, my Three Rules of Saxophone Playing:
1. The Top Teeth Should Always Be On The Mouthpiece
From the time the saxophone is brought up to form the embouchure until the musical phrase is complete, the top teeth should always be in contact with the top of the mouthpiece. While there are historical examples of some “double-lip embouchures,” playing without the top teeth in contact with the mouthpiece is an extreme outlier and not one that should be considered by progressing saxophonists. This is one of the most pervasive issue I find in my masterclass work, meeting saxophonists who have only ever played double-lip and lack the embouchure control granted by this contact point.
Without the top teeth acting as a backstop on the top of the mouthpiece, the jaw, chin, and bottom lip have little recourse in making the fine adjustments of embouchure support that are needed to establish consistency in different registers and dynamic levels.
Students will often get into this habit from the initial discomfort of feeling the mouthpiece’s vibration transferred to the top teeth. Accordingly, I recommend a booklet of mouthpiece patches for my students to reduce this sensation while helping the top teeth find a consistent resting point on the top of the mouthpiece. Sometimes I’ll cut a line into the mouthpiece patch where the player can rest their teeth in an effort to encourage taking more mouthpiece into the mouth.
I like to prescribe an “order of operations” in producing an initial sound and try to separate the actions of bringing the instrument up, forming the embouchure, and then taking the inhale. I’ve noted that many student try to combine all three actions into one, taking a breath while raising the instrument up from their resting position and trying to position the lips around the mouthpiece and reed quickly at the last moment. While a student playing with a double-lip embouchure may be hard to see from a distance, this combined action should be notable and a clue to maybe inquire about a student’s mouthpiece position and teeth placement. Moreover, after having established a quality top-teeth contact point, some students will bring the teeth off to breath, mimicking an old PEZ dispenser while angling the head back. A student dropping the jaw and constantly releasing the bottom of the embouchure isn’t ideal either of course, but is certainly less disruptive to the instrument-embouchure circuit than consistent removal of the top teeth. I like to address breathing through the mouth by noting that the top and bottom of the embouchure contact points can remain set, while the top lip in particular remains flexible to move away from the mouthpiece for the inhale.
The double-lip embouchure can pose problems when it comes to balancing the instrument as well. Whether at a resting or dynamic state, we generally have three contact points between the body and the instrument – the two thumbs and those top teeth. All three act together to keep the instrument stable across the various forces the hands can impose. Without one of these three foundation points, the instrument may move more wildly in response to different fingerings than would be otherwise predicted.
(In another post, I’ll address how I recommend using the double-lip embouchure as an effective practice tool for tone development in advancing students)
2. The Left Hand Thumb Never Leaves The Thumb Rest
Referring to the same idea of balance, it is imperative that the left-hand thumb is always in contact with the thumb rest no matter whether the thumb is activating the octave key mechanism or not. A number of years ago, I wrote an article on the importance of aligning the octave key to the thumb rest, and believe that many students who “jump” the thumb off the instrument when pressing the octave key have or at one point had a saxophone where that key was raised up considerably higher than it should have been, making it ergonomically challenging or downright impossible to press the octave key while keeping the majority of the top joint of the thumb in contact with the flat surface of the thumb rest.
Anecdotally, I’ve wondered if students who began on the clarinet where one must keep the thumb floating or hovering over the open tone hole may be more inclined to jump their thumb on saxophone, but haven’t produced a notable correlation for this theory.
If this contact point is lost, not only does it destabilize the instrument’s balance as noted above, but the lost motion creates an inefficiency that artificially limits technical speed.
An example of a student’s thumb “jumping” off the thumbrest to engage the octave key.
In group settings, I’ll often have students play simple two note combinations where one pitch is over the break with the other one under (C +D, B + E, etc.) and walk around to get a view on whether a student’s thumb is staying in position, or jumping off and back to the thumb rest with each movement between registers. Again, if a student seems to have a hard time keeping the instrument stable with the saxophone moving around significantly with technical work, this loss of contact may be at the root of the issue.
3. No 1 + 1 Bb’s!
I often joke that if I had one wish to benefit the saxophone world, it would be to strike the “1+1” fingering from all school-aged method books and materials.
To this day, I don’t think I’ve met with a new group of students and not found several young saxophonists using this niche fingering as their primary option for Bb. Without digressing too far, my principle is to introduce the Side Bb as the first Bb fingering to my students and then work with this fingering until it is very comfortable in both steps and skips before introducing the Bis Bb as a useful substitute for arpeggiation and non-stepwise intervals.
Why does this habit persist among developing saxophonists? Simply, the fingering is presented without context alongside Bis and Side Bb in many introductory materials and method books. Because this fingering allows young students to keep their hands in the same position without shifting the left-hand index finger down or rotating the right-hand to access the side Bb, it presents itself as a path of least resistance to a beginning saxophonist.
I like to have students trill an A# to B to demonstrate how this particular fingering can be useful, while hopefully reinforcing that it should not be applied to 99.9% of daily playing situations. To see who may be favoring different Bb options, I’ll have students play several approachable major pentascales and then asking them to simply play the first five notes of F Major and noting the breakdown of Side/Bis/1+1 Bb’s.
So as another academic year begins, I’ll be making the rounds looking for top teeth on the mouthpiece and thumbs staying in contact with the thumbrest while working diligently to eliminate the 1+1 Bb fingering far and wide. While I use the “rules” tongue-in-cheek, I do believe these three principles can cause outsize harm to a young saxophonist’s enjoyment of the instrument if not addressed. Finally, for an example of simple, organized exercises to address these ideas in an individual or group setting, head on over to my Materials and check out the Three Rules of Saxophone Playing PDF. Happy Practicing!