Note Articulation on an Alto Sax

Video Transcript

"Hi! My name is Leslie Burnick and today I’m going to talk about proper articulation on the saxophone. I’m speaking on behalf of Expertvillage.com. When you articulate your tongue on the saxophone what you want to do is, if this is your tongue you are going to gently touch the tip of the reed. When you touch the tip of the reed with your tongue that actually stops the sound. Which then gives you the separated notes. Let me demonstrate, so again you can’t see inside my mouth, so you just have to imagine that my tongue is touching the tip of the reed. So you have articulation where you would be tonguing or you can also slur. In other words you are just going to blow right on through and just move your fingers. So you hear the difference, this is articulate the tonguing, and then slurring. "