Hi I'm pro saxophonist Jamie Anderson. You're watching Get Your Sax Together
and on this video I'm gonna show you a fantastic exercise to warm up AND
improve your technique.
Welcome back to Get Your Sax Together guys. I've done
quite a few Hall of Fame videos recently so I thought I'd focus a little bit more
on some saxophone technique videos. This exercise is something that you can play
as a warm-up but it's also fantastic for technique and is suitable for beginners,
intermediate OR advanced players. So, as usual, if you like the channel please do
subscribe, click the bell which will notify you if I upload any new videos
and don't forget to go down into the description where I've got a fantastic
PDF that you can download with this whole exercise written out.
This is an exercise that you'll often hear brass players use and it's really gonna
sharpen up your technique and get your fingers moving very fluently. So before I
teach you the exercise the main points you want to remember whilst doing this
exercise are... number one - keep your fingers as close to the instrument as
you can. Sometimes it's not practical to keep your fingers right in contact with
the keys at all times but keep your fingers nice and close and just avoid
that flapping around which is really going to slow down your technique.
Number two - practice this exercise with a metronome. Always with the metronome.
At all the times use a metronome. And that way you're really gonna hear the little
bumps and the little bits of inconsistency in your technique and iron
them out over time. Number three - only practice this exercise at a tempo that
you can play perfectly. Don't try and go too fast too quick otherwise you'll just
teach your muscle-memory how to do it wrong. So try and do it at the tempo that
you can do perfectly then gradually speed up the tempo over time.
And number four - make sure you practice this exercise in all 12 keys even if it takes
a long time to get there. So do it in the first key and then move on to the 12
keys in time.
Let's run through the actual exercise -
we're going to do a G major section and an E minor section. I like to start in
the key of G - it's just a nice range and it's also suitable for a beginners but
ultimately we're going to take it through all 12 keys.
This exercise is in 3/4 and we're gonna play semiquavers or 16th notes and
gradually over time you should be able to speed this up. so the first bar here's the notes...
Now here's the second bar...
And now the third bar, still in G major...
At the end of that third phrase you'll see that we go down and there's a D#
which is going to take us into E minor, which is the second half of the
exercise. So here is the first part of the second half. We're now in E minor...
And now the second bar...
And then, the final bar...
So you can see we do two keys - the major key and the relative minor - and each one
has three bars of 3/4 with 16th notes or semiquavers. So now I'm going to join up
the first major section, a little bit faster...
And now the minor section, which is the same pattern but in the minor key...
So now I'm going to demonstrate the whole thing put together - the G major and
the E minor section, and I'm just gonna flip my metronome on. Not sure how well
you'll be able to hear the metronome, but here we go. This is gonna be a little bit
quicker than before. Two...three...
Now, as you practice this slowly and methodically and you're building up to
get faster and faster don't forget these key points... So your fingers should be a
nice curved shape making two "C" shapes. If you look down the instrument you can
see two nice C shapes and no squashed duck beaks as I call them with your
fingers. We're only moving one finger joint when we press the key down. Fingers
nice and close to the instrument nice and relaxed and keep those shoulders down.
And let's try and build up the tempo to really improve your technique until
we're up to something like this kind of tempo. Okay let's flick the metronome on,
take this tempo up...two...three...
Now the goal is to get faster and faster and faster so we don't have to be doing
this straight away. Take your time and then ultimately the goal is to be doing
it really quite fast like this. This is a bit of a roast! So, one...two...
So now for the fun part. You've got that down in one key now we're going to take
it round the cycle of fifths to go through all 12 keys. So if we go up a
fifth from G we get to C [Ed - that should be up a 4th!!], but remember the second half of the exercise is in E
minor so you're going to go G - E minor then you actually go down a major third
which gives you the new major key of C, and then we're going to do C and A
minor. That exercise. Down a major third takes you to F and now we're going to do
F major D minor and so on until over time and with lots of practice you cover all
the keys. So changing key as well it sounds something like this...
Now leave yourself one bar of 3/4 to breathe between each key. I've got crotchet
112 at the moment on the metronome. That's quite fast so it's gonna take a
long time to build up to that remember. Okay let's give this a go...
1 2 3, 1 2...
one two
And so on through all the keys.
So that's it for this week. Got a fantastic exercise
there for you to practice in all keys. Remember - take it slow, use a metronome
and it's really going to improve your technique. Please subscribe to the
channel if you haven't already and click the bell to be notified of new videos.
Click the "like" button, share the love and all that good stuff - that's going to help
me bring more people some more fantastic content. I'll see you next time on
Get Your Sax Together. See you later!