In part one of this blog post on “the differences a ligature can make” I talked about the difference a ligature can make to a saxophone player from his or her perspective. (For those of you who don’t know, the ligature is the device that holds the saxophone reed to the mouthpiece) How it can […]
Saxophone Stuff
Does Your Saxophone Equipment Matter?
The ongoing debate in the saxophone community is whether equipment really matters. By equipment we mean the brand of saxophone, mouthpiece, ligature, reeds, neck, pads and resonators. Some people will even argue that the type of material, screws and resonance stones on the body of the sax make a difference. I’ve had students come in […]
Marc Jean Ligature Review
Around the middle of February I received an email from Marc Jean at Musique de Marc asking if I would be interested in trying one of his Marc Jean ligatures. He said it was a new design and that many players of note were digging it. I was a bit skeptical as I get a […]
What difference does the ligature make? Part 1
A saxophone ligature is a device that holds the reed against the table (flat part) of the mouthpiece. Most people wouldn’t think this is that big of a deal, I mean how hard is it to use something to make the reed stay against the mouthpiece? You could use a rubber band if push came […]
For those of you looking for the perfect horn…………
It might be as close as your refrigerator! Check out this video.
Jon Van Wie’s Words On Mouthpiece Work
This was on one of the google forums back in the late 90’s. I never heard of Jon Van Wie or his work before this but reading this post you can sense the love, passion and focus he had for saxophone mouthpiece refacing. Soon after reading this, I sent Jon Van Wie a few mouthpieces […]
RS Berkeley “Virtuoso” tenor sax review
About 6 months ago I had a new member to my site named Les Silver. Les signed up for online lessons and we exchanged quite a few emails and phone calls talking about my lessons and in our conversations he told me about his saxophone line that he has been developing over the last few […]
100 Top 40 Tunes Every Working Sax Player Should Know
The other day one of my students said he wanted to get out of the house and start gigging and making some money. We’ve been working on standards and jazz improvisation over the last year or so. He asked me if I thought he was ready and we got into a discussion about playing out. […]
Sax Mouthpieces: The Length of the Facing Curve
I’ve been doing a lot of experimentation into different facing curve lengths on my alto and tenor saxophone. On my alto sax, I have been using mouthpieces that were all refaced by Brian Powell to .080 tip openings but with different facing curve lengths. These are what I’ve been using: Florida Hard Rubber Link-20mm facing […]
Free Saxophone Intonation Tracking Graph
I made a video lesson on saxophone intonation where I taught about charting your intonation tendencies of your saxophone by using a tuner. What you do is play naturally for a few seconds and then end on the target note and while holding it turn and look at the tuner. You then put a mark […]
Great Video on Giant Steps
I found this posted on Dave Valdez’s blog. It’s really amazing to watch. It’s a video of John Coltrane’s Giant Steps solo transcription being put on the page as the recording is playing. There is something about watching the video that is amazing. You’re hearing John Coltrane play a great tenor sax solo as the […]
Saxophone Mouthpiece Clips
I just thought you might be wondering what the deal is with the mouthpiece clips part of the page. They are mostly meant to be of interest to other sax players that are interested in tenor sax mouthpieces.
Recent Comments