Correct Posture for Beginning Saxophone Players

Series Summary

When the teacher leaves the band hall, the kids will play; putting reeds and mouthpieces on instruments that couldn't possibly be mistaken for their actual counterparts. In the early 1840's one such student named Adolphe Sax put a clarinet mouthpiece on a brass instrument and the saxophone was born. After adding keys, which would later be redesigned to fit diachronic scales, Adolphe found that his new instrument produced a rich and mellow sound like that of a woodwind. Saxophones are used in a variety of musical genres including big band, military, of course jazz, and classical music. Interestingly, since the Saxophone wasn't invented until the 1840's, Saxophone parts for many pieces of classical music hadn't been written, even though we are now accustomed to seeing saxophones in the symphony orchestra since its sound blend so well with the brass and woodwind instruments. Learn the basics of the saxophone in these easy lessons, such as posture, embouchure and fingering. Our expert also demonstrates how to play a variety of scales. You will also learn about slurring notes.

Video Transcript

"O.k., getting started playing the saxophone. Posture is really important, just like anything. You want to have yourself in a relaxed state, a relaxed position. I'm just going to put the mouth-piece on like this and just kind of demonstrate good posture. Your back needs to be straight and the saxophone needs to be comfortably going right into your mouth. I mean, you should have one hand on it and make it fit right into your mouth, that simple. Basically, your hands should sit just like their fingered on the saxophone. Just comfortably holding the saxophone with your fingers across all the keys, straight up and down, the sax goes comfortably in your mouth. This is an example of good posture. As you are playing and practicing, it is easy to lose the simple things like posture. After a while, you might start slouching and stuff. It really affects the tone of your saxophone because you are using your lungs to play the saxophone. If your body is out of whack or sitting or slouching, that is going to project through your horn. So you want to make sure you keep good posture while you are playing the saxophone."