Daily Practice Routine For Saxophone printable pdf download

AILY

RACTICE

OUTINE FOR

AXOPHONE

by Dale Wolford • San José State University

Dale.Wolford@sjsu.edu •

Time

Activity

2-3 min. 1. Breathing— work for a “full tank”. Fill lungs completely with the following routine:1-bottom lungs

(gut), 2-lower back, 3-upper chest. Shoulders should not rise!

3-5 min. 2. Longtones— there are two different types I recommend:

a) a straight tone without vibrato and dynamic change

b) Start with air, slowly bring in the tone, growing to the loudest you can play (with a good

sound!), then slowly die away to nothing.

8-10 sec.

fff

ppp — air

air — ppp

•Listen for a steady tone without wobbles, pitch change, or tone variation. Work on 3 or 4

different notes each day in different registers, striving for a rich, open, round sound. Use a

tuner with a drone pitch or hold down a key on a electric keyboard to match pitch as you

play.

3-5 min. 3. Intonation—use a tuner to check notes that are typically a problem on most saxophones daily!

Play with a drone pitch to improve your ear whenever possible as well as checking

the meter. Get SmartMusic at

10-15 m. 4. Overtones— daily practice on this very important and difﬁcult skill is necessary to development of

altissimo and control of the embouchure and throat. Begin with Sigurd Rascher’s Top

Tones for the Saxophone overtone exercises on p. 12.

» » » »

15-20 m. 5. Scales— a very important part of your playing!

a) Major: do as Circle of Fifths and also begin on low B

, then B, C, C

, etc. Practice with

eighth and sixteenth notes working on evenness, tonguing and speed with a metro-

nome. Use different articulations and rhythms to keep them interesting!

» »

œ œ œ œ .

œ . œ œ œ

œ œ œ . œ .

œ . œ . œ œ

œ œ œ œ

=========================

» »

b) Minor: melodic one day, harmonic the next; practice the same way as major scales.

c) Chromatic: begin with “mini” Five-Note Exercise pattern—starting on low B

, like so:

3x's perfect!

===========================

{ “

{ ”

{ “

œ _ œ _ œ _ # œ œ b œ œ _ œ _ n

{ ”

œ _ _ # œ _ œ _ œ _ # œ œ _ œ _ n œ _

˙ _ b

˙ _

etc.

Then work on chromatic scale from low B

to high F. Again, always use a metronome for speed

and accuracy.

3-5 min. 6. Vibrato— “Vuv, Vuv, Vuv, Vuv…” do half, then quarter note scales to develop a continuous, even

vibrato in all ranges. Then work to develop different speeds. (See Larry Teal’s explanation in The

Saxophonist’s Manual, p. 11-14)

5 min.

7. Tongueing— Having warmed the tongue up with scales, practice an etude or short piece with

continuous tonguing; i.e. Bach’s Am Sonata for Solo Flute, the ﬁrst movement.

30-90 m. 8. Etudes and study pieces— work on phrasing, breathing, tongueing, vibrato; all the things you’ve

practiced to this point to incorporate them into playing a piece of music. Break each piece into

several sections, mark breaths, know where phrases begin and end, make exercises out of techni-

cal problems. Remember to always work for PERFECTION!

Daily Practice Routine For Saxophone

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