Hi, welcome to Week One of tenor saxophone lessons as part of the music coach program. We're gonna get started on a really, really exciting adventure on the tenor saxophone. The tenor saxophone is part of the saxophone family, which actually includes 16 different sizes of saxophones. Now, most of them are considered novelty instruments. And there are four main types that are used in music today. They're the soprano, alto, tenor sax, and baritone sax.

So the tenor saxophone is the second largest. Now the saxophone itself was made by Belgian instrument maker, Adolph sax, and it was invented in 1840. And the idea behind the saxophone was to make a bridge inside of a symphony orchestra between the woodwinds which are the flute, oboe, clarinet, Piccolo and some other instruments as well and the brass section of the the band which is trombone, trumpet, French horn to the euphonium, things like that. The idea was to make an instrument out of brass, but that has a mouthpiece and a read on it like woodwind. Now, the like a lot of new technologies and new ideas, it wasn't really accepted in its time. Classical music has not fully embraced the saxophone really even today.

But what happened is in the early part of the 19, hundred's, jazz music began. And jazz music was a new form a new art form. So it's a relatively new piece of technology like a saxophone was welcomed in. It was loud, you could play it quickly. It's a lot more easy to play than a clarinet for example. So it found a home in jazz music and then later on and rock and roll and r&b and other styles like that.

So now, we're going to get into how to put it together and how to make your first sound. The saxophone comes in three main sections. There's the body, the neck and the mouthpiece. Now the mouthpiece is made up of a few different pieces on its own. There is the reed cap, which is just designed to protect the read the ligature which has a large and a small opening, and the mouthpiece itself. Now some milk pieces are made of rubber and they look black and some are made of metal and they might be silver or gold.

They all basically do the same thing. The type of material the mouthpiece is made out of effects, that kind of stuff. You get in terms of the sound quality, the not so much the quality but the tambour of it. The first thing we're going to do is we're going to attach the mouthpiece to the neck. And the reason why we do this first is that you can grab the mouthpiece without having to worry about squishing the reader the ligature, because sometimes the mouthpiece can be a little tricky to get onto the cork. So we just twist it on.

Again, if you have to grab it like that, when you're holding the neck, you don't want to grab around the octave key part you can grab it sort of wherever the metal doesn't have anything on it. Now a little note about tuning the way a saxophone is tuned, is by how much of the mouthpiece is on the cork. So the further on the mouthpiece is, the sharper the instrument is. And the further back it is, the flatter it goes. If you don't know yet about sharpness and flatness and things like that, there's some pre course videos you can look at that are going to help you with that. So once it's on you want to learn up the flat part of the bottom of those piece with the bottom part of the neck, like that.

Now we're going to attach the read. Now reads often come in a plastic case like this, it's to protect them because the read is very sensitive at the tip that's very, very thin. So first thing you want to do is slide it out by the big part of the back. And here's an up close look at the read very, very thin at the end. So we want to avoid touching it or banging it into things because it can crack or chip easily. So the first thing I want you to do is you're going to put the read the thin part in your mouth just to get it a little bit wet.

Now after you've played for a while, the read may work after it's dried out. If that happens, what you can do is just wet it a little bit and place it on the flat part of the mouthpiece and just use your thumb and Robin some of the moisture. This will help the wood expand again And become flat. Our next move is to put the read on the mouthpiece and get it as close to lined up with the tip as you can. You don't have to worry about having it be perfect just yet. Now we're going to take the ligature, which again, you're looking for the large side of the opening, and this is where you want to be very careful and just slide it over very gently without banging it into the tip of the reed.

And now once it's on, you can gently line it up with your fingers. It should be flush with the tip of the mouthpiece. And most ligatures have some sort of a screw that you can tighten and that holds the reed in place. And when you look straight on, you should be able to see it lining up straight with the tip of the mouthpiece. Now we're going to attach the neck mouthpiece to the body. So we're gonna the top of the body has an opening the only thing you have to To watch out for at the beginning, is there's a screw at the top and just make sure it's not really tight when you when you go to put the neck on.

So loosen it a little bit. And then we're going to just gently slide the neck into the top. And once it's in place, you're going to tighten it. Again, just gently tighten, it doesn't have to be really tight. Everything on a saxophone is very, very delicate. So you don't want to tighten it like you're screwing a screw into the wall or anything.

And then what you're looking for on the back, is there's a thumb rest for your top hand and a thumb hook on the bottom and the neck and the mouthpiece should be lined up fairly straight with the back. Now your neck strap, you're going to want to hook into the hook on the body and you're going to rest your right hand or your bottom hand under the thumb hook and your top hand goes on the top Thumb rests. Now if you're sitting to play, you're going to want to turn the neck a little bit towards you, and possibly adjust the mouthpiece a little bit so that your head can remain straight and your back and remain straight while you're playing. Now to check whether or not the neck strap is in the right place, you can just simply hold it in position and right now my neck strap is too loose because the mouthpiece is trying to play my chin.

So I'm going to adjust it up a little higher. Always make the instrument come to you. So now I'm in position where you put your mouth on the mouthpiece has a little bit to do with the size and where your teeth are and everything but a good general rule is about an inch in from the top or three centimeters. You want to rest your teeth on the top. Don't bite down but just rest them there and close your mouth around your around your teeth comfortably. And your bottom lip will be on the read about the same distance underneath as your teeth are from the top.

And you're going to take a big breath. And when you blow out, keep your cheeks tucked in and just push the air through. Just like that. Before the first practice video, there's going to be a breathing exercise to help strengthen your lungs and your diaphragm and all the muscles you use to make your sounds. So make sure to do that each time before you practice. It's going to be always in the video, but it's really important to develop the strength you need to actually make the sound.

Last thing we're going to work on before we get in the practice room is the first three notes you're going to learn how to play today are A, B, and C sharp. So to make an A, you're going to play the top two notes in your little Left hand. Now one little thing to be want mindful of on saxophone, there's a key at the beginning. Usually, sometimes it'll be white like this, sometimes it'll be the same color as the metal. This is an alternate key that we're going to use when we're doing much more advanced things later, not even anywhere in this program, we'll use it. So we're going to skip the first key, go down, play the second key with your pointer finger.

And then we're going to skip this key in the middle here. This is another alternate key called the bizkey. And we're going to play this one so we're going second key and fourth key basically, that that makes an A, that's your first note your second note for this week, it's going to be B to play B, you just take off your middle finger. And our last note for this week is going to be C sharp, which is everything open. One little thing about finger technique, I'm going to be moving my fingers away from the key so that you can see what I'm doing but the good technique is just imagine that your fingers are glued or taped right onto the keys. When you let a key up, you only move your finger up as far as the key moves up rather than doing this, or this.

It makes it much easier to play. Alright, great work and I'll see you in the practice video.