Hi folks I'm Pro saxophonist Jamie Anderson and on this video I'm going to
teach you the single most important tone exercise for saxophone and that is using
harmonics or overtones.
Now the most important thing about playing saxophone
is your tone. After your tone there's a rhythm because then you need two notes
to get rhythm, but first of all you've got the sound. The sound is EVERYTHING!
Now to get a really good sound there's one exercise which I'm going to teach
you which is going to give you a phenomenal sound and it's really
important. I call this the "Lord of the Rings" exercise because it's one tone
exercise to rule them all. One of the questions I'm asked most often is how do
I play really high notes on saxophone, how do I play in the altissimo range? Now
this exercise is really going to help you with that because it forms the
foundation of your altissimo playing. What we're going to do is begin to tap
right into the very DNA of the instrument - right into the DNA of the sax,
because we're going to unlock all the harmonics and overtones that make up the
sound of your sax and I'm going to teach you how to control that and how to
really bring on your tone. First of all this exercise may not be easy but what
you need to do is just practice it each day, take your time, build up slowly. First
of all work at level one then work up to level two and level three and then over
a long time you can do the advanced exercise when you've built up the control
of those harmonics. If you're enjoying Get Your Sax Together please do
subscribe to the channel, click the bell to be notified when I upload videos, give
it a thumbs up if you like the content, don't forget to go and check out my
Instagram page and, of course, down below you will find the link to get a free pdf
which is going to have this tone exercise written out in full in all the
keys that you need and then you can use that for alto or tenor. So that's
fabulous, get down there click the link, go and get the free pdf, print it off and
follow along as we go through today's lesson.
So first of all, very quickly, a little bit of background on these harmonics or
partials. When we play a note on saxophone it sounds like we're just
hearing one note but actually every note is made up of layers of harmonics or
partials which give the saxophone sound its richness, so when you play a low C
you can actually tune in and pick out the different harmonics that build up
that sound which gives the saxophone its character. Now this is a naturally
occurring phenomena with any tube. You can like roar a bull-roarer
and you will hear these harmonics, you can blow a bottle, you can blow a flute,
on trumpet without playing any fingerings you can have all these
different harmonics and the same is true of sax. So let's get down to what the
harmonics are. First of all we have the root, or fundamental as it's called, which
is the lowest note of that tube. Now we are going to start with low C and it's
the same for alto and tenor, the pitches that come out are going to be different,
and I'm going to demonstrate it on alto and tenor, but the lowest note we're going
to start with is a C. If you're more advanced you can start on the low B flat
but I'm starting on the low C to keep things nice and simple.
Now the first harmonic we're going to find is an octave above that, which would
be the c in the middle of the stave. The second harmonic is the fifth above that,
so that's a twelfth above the fundamental, and finally we're going to
find the double octave. So we're only going to work with the octave, the
twelfth and the double octave, but above that you have the major third and lots
of other harmonics go up from there, but to keep things simple for this video
we're only going to work on three levels. So you've got the fundamental at
the bottom, the first harmonic is an octave higher, the second harmonic above
that is a twelfth above, which is an octave and a fifth, and finally you've
got two octaves above the fundamental. So let's see how this works.
Just to clear up the notation side of things, the fundamental I'm just going to
write as a normal note, and you'll see this in the PDF that you can get in the
description linked in the description. The fundamental will be a normal note,
the harmonic will be a diamond shaped note and I'll also put the fingering
that you're going to use in brackets down below, because the fingering you're
going to use is not the same as the harmonic which is going to come out. Now
this will all become really clear when I demonstrate how to do this exercise.
So here's how the exercise works. First of all we're gonna play a low note. Now I'm
going to demonstrate this with a low C. If you're more advanced you can start on
the low B flat, and you can find the whole exercise written out in the PDF.
We start on a low C and we just play a nice loud low C, then keeping
exactly the same fingering and without using the octave key we're gonna play
the C above using the harmonic of the low C. Then, still in the same breath,
we're going to switch to a regular middle C fingering and we're going to
alternate between a harmonic C with the low C fingering and a normal C, but the
same note is going to come out, but we're changing fingers. Finally, using the long
C fingering, we're gonna drop down and finish on the fundamental again. So just
to repeat that drill - we play a low C and we keep exactly the same fingers and
play that note up the octave to the first harmonic. Then we switch between
the middle C fingering and the long C fingering and compare the difference and
try and match the tone of the long fingering, the low C fingering, with the
tuning of the middle C fingering. And then finally we finish on the
fundamental. So the exercise is gonna sound like this...
Great, so that's level one. We play the low note, the octave above, we alternate
between the two fingerings and then we finish on the low note. Now moving on to
level two. We do exactly the same thing but this time we play the low note and
then we find an octave G instead of the octave C. So we're going to do the
fundamental, we find our octave G and then we alternate between a normal
second octave G fingering and a low C fingering, but the same note is going to
come out. Now remember, the long fingering is going to have a much bigger,
fuller sound, so what we want to do is copy that big fat sound using the normal
fingering because remember, when we do a normal fingering we're only using a
smaller amount of horn, a shorter amount of tube, whereas when we play the low
fingering we're using this whole tube so we've got a big fat sound on it. Now the
reason this tone exercise works is because we're trying to copy the sound
of the big long tube but using a short fingering. So we're gonna shape our mouth,
open up our throat, drop our jaw and try and get a nice big sound on the normal
fingering, comparing it to the harmonic sound. Now it sounds a bit complicated but
again I'll demonstrate level two, and it sounds like this...
Finally, we move on to level 3. This time, same drill, we play the fundamental but
we find the C using the same low fingering two octaves higher, so that's
second octave C, we find that harmonic, we alternate between the two fingerings and
then we finish off with the low note again, just like the other exercise and
again remember, we're trying to copy the big fat sound of the harmonic with the
normal fingering that you would use for that note and you're going to kind of
reshape your mouth and just do anything you can with your jaw and your tongue
position and a nice open throat to try and make the regular fingering sound as
fat as the harmonic. Now over time that's really going to transform your tone. So
this is how level 3 sounds...
Now, finally, once you've got all that together I'm going to show you an
advanced exercise which is using bugle calls with an extra harmonic that we're
going to add which is the fourth harmonic, which turns out to be a high E.
That is the major third of the key of the fundamental. So we've got the low C,
and then we're going to practice this bugle call using the fifth, the root and
the major third of the fundamental. Now this whole exercise is played ONLY using
a low C fingering - your fingers do not move AT ALL during this exercise!
But remember its quite advanced, so just focus on level 1, level 2, level 3, and
then in due course you can move on to this advanced exercise, and this is what
it sounds like...
Some of the greatest players in jazz, like John Coltrane especially, who
pioneered it, and then all the modern players following him, notably Michael
Brecker, have used these harmonics creatively in their own improvising so
I'm going to show you a super advanced lick. The fingerings and the notes are
all going to be in the PDF down below so go check that out now, and it sounds
something like this kind of thing that you can do once you've really started to
master these harmonics. Check it out, this is pretty cool.
So that's it for this
week's lesson. Just take your time on these exercises - start simple, just work
on the first level if you need to until you've got the control. Try and make it a
daily practice and in time it's really gonna bring on your tone and give you a
fantastic sound on sax. It's definitely the secret of how I ended up having a really
good sound on sax is doing these overtone exercises, so keep at it! Now if you like
the channel please do subscribe, click the bell to be notified when I upload
new videos, give it a thumbs up, comment, I love to hear your comments down there, go
and check out my Instagram page and, of course, don't forget to go down into the
description to get your free pdf of the lesson, which has got the exercise
written out for you, all the fingerings make it really simple. That is a
wonderful resource, that, for you to use and I'll see you next time on Get Your
Sax Together. See you later!