Hi, I'm pro saxophonist Jamie Anderson and
you're watching Get Your Sax Together. From beginners to experts I sax up
your Sunday every week with technique stuff,
tips on improvising great solos and my unique hall of fame breakdowns.
In today's free online sax lesson, which is part two of my tonguing series,
you'll learn about jazz articulation.
Whether you're a beginner on saxophone, or even an intermediate player,
make sure you check out my first video on tonguing which is
linked above on the cards now. That video covers some of the most important basics
of how to tongue, how to play long and short notes and how they're notated.
In this second tonguing video you'll learn some of the basics about
jazz articulation. Before we start, make sure you go
down into the description for this video and click the link to download your free
pdf cheat sheet for this lesson which has all the key points from the
lesson, plus the John Coltrane 'Tenor Madness' excerpt we're going to
study. Finally, if you're bored with scales and you don't know how to
structure a productive practice session, or if you struggle with stuff like
embouchure, improvising or technique, go and check out my Saxophone Success
Master class. It's a full hour of solid teaching (that
isn't on YouTube) to help transform your playing, no matter
what standard you are. And best of all, it's totally free! Just
click the link in the description.
on a short YouTube video I don't have time to get into a lengthy debate about the
subtleties and differences in jazz articulation between different players,
and the ins and outs of how it's all done. Believe me,
I could bore you to tears on the topic, but today
I just want you to learn the most important information in the shortest
time. Jazz tonguing is a very creative and
personal thing, so we have to be very careful about establishing
rules as there aren't any really. However, when we hear great jazz players there
does seem to be common ground. Straight away, we know it's jazz, so there
must be commonalities in regards to tonguing.
Let's see what principles we can establish first,
then we'll do a quick case study of an excerpt of John Coltrane to see how it
compares to our template. So, principle one. When you play jazz
eighth note lines it's predominantly a legato style. In other words, it's smooth
and connected and you blow continuously through the line, so that it flows.
Jazz shouldn't be played in a choppy, staccato way. It just won't swing if it's
all rumpty tumpty. Principle two. As the tempo increases,
the 'tripletness' of the eighth notes decreases.
I know this isn't specifically a tonguing point, but it's extremely
relevant, so i'm mentioning it anyway. Put another way - unless you're playing a
really slow swing tempo your quavers will be
straighter than triplet swing, and at most medium and above tempos
they'll be virtually straight. I immediately discovered this for myself
when I transcribed Miles' solo on So What when I was a
teenager. On that solo, and on many other famous
jazz recordings, especially at medium tempos and above, the eighth
notes are almost straight. Principle three.
Slur the off-beats to the on-beats in a moving eighth note line.
This is the most ubiquitous maxim of jazz articulation,
but, according to Dr Mark Watkins meticulous analysis of a dozen or so
Charlie Parker solos, that rule is only true about a quarter
of the time. That's right. Our much loved and cherished golden rule
of jazz is only applicable about twenty five percent of the time.
Which begs the question - should this even be a rule?
I mean three quarters of the time it's wrong! Still, it does have some usefulness
as a principle as it's a useful exercise to develop your legato style,
so let's take a look. The execution is easy. If you have a string of eighth
notes, tongue the first note, then slur the
second note to the third note and keep this pattern of
alternate, offbeat tongue and going. Dah dee-ah dee-ah dee-ah dee-ah. Practicing scales is an easy
way to get started, but remember the first two principles -
keep it legato and smooth, and don't swing the eighths too much.
There should also be a slight emphasis on the offbeat notes, although this will
probably happen naturally without you having to think
about it.
Principle four. Off beat eighth notes, at the end of a phrase, are short. This is
virtually always true, so, unlike principle three, you can take
this rule to the bank. Dah-dat. these concluding offbeat eighth
notes are often accented as well. Dah dat.
The fifth and final principle i'm gonna mention is that crotchets, or
quarter notes, on the beat are usually short. This rule is less definite than
the last one, but it's a good starting point.
So there's a few guiding principles to get you started. Make it legato,
don't swing your eighth notes too much unless it's down tempo,
slur off-beats to on-beats, make off-beat eighth notes short at the end of a
phrase and make quarter notes on the beat short.
Now let's take an excerpt, and forensically look at it to see what
happens where the rubber actually hits the road
in jazz. I've chosen the first couple of phrases that John Coltrane plays on
Tenor Madness.
Tenor Madness, a medium tempo Bb blues is a
classic jazz recording, and the only recording that features both Sonny Rollins
and John Coltrane. I think it's safe to say that you can't
go far on in studying classics like this if you want to learn
how to play jazz. Let's start by listening to Coltrane's
articulation on his opening couple of phrases at full speed.
I'll play it a couple of times so you get it in your head. Follow the
tonguing on screen as i play it. A 'T' means the note is tongued and an 'HT'
means it's half tongued, but we'll get to that just shortly.
Now let's hear it at three-quarters speed...
and finally half speed...
Let's break this down then. In the first measure he tongues every note.
This rule breaks rule three about slurring off beats, although the quarter
note on beat two is short, which fits rule five. Continuing on to
the second measure, the phrasing is compliant with rules three
and four - a slurred off-beat and a short off-beat last note.
but but but the G has a special type of tonguing called half tonguing
that we have to cover before going any further. A half-tongue is where you place
your tongue very lightly on the reed, but not quite
enough to stop the sound. It makes a muffled sound a bit like
trying to talk with a blanket over your face.
You can put your tongue right into the gap between the reed and the mouthpiece,
or near the front of the flat part of the reed, or even on one side of the reed,
You can vary how strong the effect is as well. It should sound a bit like this...
The advantage of the half tongue is that you can de-emphasize a note in the line
without having to blow softer. Your airstream will remain
constant throughout the eighth note line, giving a nice legato flowing feel to
your phrasing. As you know from the first tonguing
video, when we articulate on sax we first
touch the reed with our tongue, then release the tongue,
sounding the note. This is still true of half tonguing, it's just
that we get sound instead of silence as the tongue is in contact with the reed,
and that contact lasts for a note length instead of being momentary.
The end result is that when you release your half tongue, the next note will be a
de facto tongued note. Therefore, notes following a half tongued
feel articulated. Now - you've already learned that we slur off beats, and
quarter notes on the b are tongued and short, which means we're often left with
an isolated eighth note. This is the lonely eighth note problem.
You either have to have a single eighth note offbeat that
doesn't slur...
...or you have to have a group of three eighth notes all slurred...
This is where our half tongue comes in. By half tonguing the last eighth note
before that quarter note, we get a tongue to note on
the down beat, with a de-emphasised (but still
articulated) eighth note on the off-beat. Bingo!
Of course, this is only one useful application of the half
tongue technique. It can be used all over the place to play various degrees of
muted, less emphasised notes, and getting back to our excerpt, that's exactly what
'Trane does in the second measure. You could even argue that because the
third eighth note in the bar is kind of tongued following the half
tongue we lose our offbeat slurs pattern. So much for principle three... told you
that rule doesn't have much! Moving on to measure three now, the whole
triplet and the next eighth note are all slurred, and moving through into
measure four there's a run of four consecutive tongued eighth notes. No
rule book for that one. 'Trane then uses another half tongue, and
finishes off with slurred off beat eighths a la principle three. Here's what
it all sounds like played very slowly, with
deliberately overemphasised articulation.
now a bit faster
and finally at full real speed
Now it's all very well putting tonguing under the microscope like this to prove
a teaching point, but in real life jazz articulation is
performed intuitively and automatically, in real time, with no
conscious thought from the performer. Obviously Coltrane is not thinking
"Right let's half tongue this and emphasize that" etc. That's
ridiculous. With enough practice and experience you'll learn just to play
lines and you'll intuitively articulate the line to make it swing.
At first that might mean forensically analysing solo transcriptions until you
understand the style, and that's fine, but later it should all
just flow. Like everything else, smart practice
makes progress.
So, wrapping this all up then. First of all, learn the principles
and practice them. Then, study the masters and see how the rules are constantly
broken and adapted. You'll also see that every player has
their own unique approach to articulation.
Cannonball Adderley articulates very differently to Sonny Rollins
or Grover Washington Junior and eventually you'll even develop your
own style, which is the ultimate goal.
So that's it for this Sunday, I hope
you've learned something about jazz articulation
and tonguing in general. Don't forget to pick up your free
pdf from the link in the description and if you want to learn some more in-depth
sax stuff go to www.getyoursaxtogether.com/masterclass
to get your free
one-hour lesson with me. I'm constantly humbled and encouraged by all your
comments and the support you guys give me, so
thank you so much for watching and being a part of Get Your Sax Together.
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Something a bit more off the cuff and light-hearted next week -
the worldwide sensation that is the "Epic Sax Guy"
riff. From Coltrane to sax memes, you get it all here!! Practice smart and
I'll see you next week. See you later.
so here's a few guiding principles... no
forensically and... oh god