Harvey Pittel is an award winning and internationally acclaimed classical saxophonist who has performed as a soloist with many of the world’s greatest orchestras and has recorded extensively as a soloist and with ensembles including his own saxophone quartet. He is the Professor of Saxophone at The University of Texas at Austin Butler School of Music. Mr. Pittel studied with Fred Hemke and Joe Allard.
Joe Allard (December 31, 1910 – May 3, 1991), a native of Lowell, MA,was a famous saxophone and clarinet professor at Juilliard, The New England Conservatory and The Manhattan School of Music. Some of his most famous students were: Michael Brecker, Eddie Daniels, Bob Berg, Dave Liebman, Paul Winter, Steve Grossman, Kenneth Radnofsky, Bill Pierce and many many others.
Joe Allard was a world renowned woodwind teacher. I have heard his name mentioned countless times but I was never lucky enough to take a lesson with him or hear him teach. I recently found these 14 videos on youtube of Harvey Pittel teaching some of Joe Allards concepts.
These free online lessons were sponsored by Eastman saxophones which I’ve reviewed and played on this site in the past.
I haven’t even watched all of them yet but I wanted to get them up here for you to enjoy and learn from. I’m going to go watch them right now. I’m so excited!!!! If you have a few hours to spare, sit down and watch. I’ve been playing for 30+ years and there are teachings in these videos that were new to me. Enjoy!
Lesson 1: Introduction
Lesson 2: Tone Imagination
Lesson 3: Area of the Throat
Lesson 4: Embouchure
Lesson 5: Breathing Mechanisms
Lesson 6: Tone Color
Lesson 7: Subtone
Lesson 8: Matching Overtones
Lesson 9: Tonguing
Lesson 10: Vibrato
Lesson 11: Circular Breathing
Lesson 12: Continous Vibrato
Lesson 13: The Musical Line
Lesson 14: How to Practice
Steve, these are amazing…..what a great find!
Steve,
Thank you so much for bringing all of this clips together for us. I have seen a few of them but never have I seen them all put together like this. The information they contain is a gold mine as is the information throughout your site. Discovering your site and becoming a member is proving to be an amazing learning resource for me. Thank you for all that you do for us.
Tony
Steve, thanks for putting up these treasures. I’ve seen the few videos of Joe Allard that exist and have even read the dissertation done on him, and studied saxophone with one of his students at Juilliard, but these Harvey Pittel videos are so direct and explicit. They move so logically and sequentially. And the concepts relate so directly to my main instrument, the flute, and probably all wind instruments. Again, many thanks.
Hey all!
I saw these videos some time ago and they are all great! It all makes sense. One thing I can’t really get through is that “very simple” tonguing. Every time I try to tongue with my tongue shaped that way, I hit the very tip of the reed and mouthpiece. Can’t really get under the reed with the tip of my tongue. Any advice guys?