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7 Posts
Hi all,
I'm looking for advice on a problem I've been dealing with for a while. To begin, I suppose I'll tell you a little of my background to possibly help you to understand why I'm facing my current situation, which I'll explain. I'm a classical saxophonist and have been playing for about 13 years now and I double-lipped up until May 2015(I don't know how I got that far doing it either
). While the change to single lip wasn't as difficult as expected, it seems a few other problems influenced by the double lip playing aren't as quick to go. I'm a performance major working on my undergrad degree and my teacher believes that my double-lipping caused me to take in far too much mouthpiece, and I agree, so she's been coaxing me to move back in small amounts over the past year. Overall the less mouthpiece journey has been great, better intonation, easier articulation, more flexible voicing, ect.
BUT (Cue dramatic motive:yikes!
it seems moving back on the mouthpiece has activated something that I was doing all along with double-lipping. Jaw movement! My jaw goes out in the high register and back in for the mid and low register. My serious altissimo extending the past four months or so has made me truly aware that this is a huge problem because it was causing my jaw discomfort and fatigue, not pain, almost as if I was chewing an overcooked piece of steak, my jaw was just plain tired from playing just in the palm keys. My teacher really cracked down on me last semester in fear that I would develop TMJ.
So I've been REALLY trying to avoid pushing my jaw out to hit the palm keys and limited altissimo I have. Nothing seems to work.. when I try to keep my jaw in the same spot as an octave below the palm keys, the tone simply won't come out a lot of the time, others they do. It's embarrassing that as a performance major I'm having a problem which inhibits me to hitting a palm key F. Everything sounded fine until I've had to stop moving my jaw out. I cannot continue playing with a varying jaw position because it affects my tone color in phrases where the registers jump suddenly and doesn't sound smooth in lyrical passages that even go scalar up or down past the "jaw movement point" and because it is uncomfortable.
I'm terribly sorry for such a long post, I just need some opinions and advice because I honestly have no idea how to go about this situation. If anyone who reads this knows any good exercises for maintaining jaw placement for all registers, PLEASE share them! I've been doing octaves, but the F and F#, literally do not produce a sound, just a lower pitched tone of the series. Advice, opinions, exercises, really anything at this point, I'm desperate! :faceinpalm: I greatly appreciate you taking the time to read my cries for help and advice in advance! Thank you all!
I'm looking for advice on a problem I've been dealing with for a while. To begin, I suppose I'll tell you a little of my background to possibly help you to understand why I'm facing my current situation, which I'll explain. I'm a classical saxophonist and have been playing for about 13 years now and I double-lipped up until May 2015(I don't know how I got that far doing it either
BUT (Cue dramatic motive:yikes!
So I've been REALLY trying to avoid pushing my jaw out to hit the palm keys and limited altissimo I have. Nothing seems to work.. when I try to keep my jaw in the same spot as an octave below the palm keys, the tone simply won't come out a lot of the time, others they do. It's embarrassing that as a performance major I'm having a problem which inhibits me to hitting a palm key F. Everything sounded fine until I've had to stop moving my jaw out. I cannot continue playing with a varying jaw position because it affects my tone color in phrases where the registers jump suddenly and doesn't sound smooth in lyrical passages that even go scalar up or down past the "jaw movement point" and because it is uncomfortable.
I'm terribly sorry for such a long post, I just need some opinions and advice because I honestly have no idea how to go about this situation. If anyone who reads this knows any good exercises for maintaining jaw placement for all registers, PLEASE share them! I've been doing octaves, but the F and F#, literally do not produce a sound, just a lower pitched tone of the series. Advice, opinions, exercises, really anything at this point, I'm desperate! :faceinpalm: I greatly appreciate you taking the time to read my cries for help and advice in advance! Thank you all!