Klarinet Archive - Posting 000867.txt from 1999/06

From: "Kevin Fay (LCA)" <kevinfay@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] sax trouble
Date: Tue, 29 Jun 1999 13:19:02 -0400

j ha wrote re saxing:

<<<The only signifigant problem I've had on sax has been getting the lower
register to sound. I can hit the low D consistently, but no lower. Can any
self-taught (or even professional!) sax players give me a hand?>>>

--Insert sound of hand clapping-- <g>

If I am correct in my assumption that you are a competent clarinet player
"picking up" the double, you have at least 1 of 2 potential problems.

First, your embouchure is probably too tight. A saxophone is not, not, not
a big clarinet. The embouchure, esp. in the lower register, needs to be
much "looser" for these notes to come out. Think of a bassoon--that's the
approach that works. Remember the joke--what's the proper sax embouchure?
("hold it out the window of a moving car")

Second, you may also have an equipment problem, viz. one of the pads in your
bell stack is leaking. Hey--it could happen. This won't make playing the
notes impossible, just much, much harder. With that said, I have friends
who are hot sax players whose horns leak like sieves; I can't play them, but
they have no problem.

To assist you in getting these notes out, you should explore a technique
known as "spanking." In order to assist the generation of vibration in the
air column, you slap a pad down at the instant of attack. For a low C, for
example, you would "spank" the low C key at the same time as you release the
reed with your tongue. This lightens the "load" of the reed in creating
vibrations in the air column, making the response exactly that much easier.
Sax, flute & oboe players regularly use this technique; I don't know why
clarinetists in general do not.

A note to other spankers--it's not necessary that the pad you spank be the
pad for the note you want to play. On a saxophone, which is conical, I have
found that the bigger the pad spanked, the better the result. This is
usually the lowest pad you are closing, which tends to be the note desired.
When I use the technique on clarinet, I have found that most any tone hole
will do, so I pick one that won't result in a key click.

kjf

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