If you're coming back after 15 years, first of all, don't be hard on yourself. It's going to take time to build things back up. Right now if I were you I would be doing long tones daily, focusing on keeping everything loose and relaxed. If you need to play up the horn, then take a 5 minute break, do so. Think about how it feels to begin lifting weights after taking an extended period of time away from it... when you come back not only do you hurt the next few days, but you need to start with super light weight! You may consider getting a closed-tip rubber mouthpiece and soft reeds until you can get back to where you were before you quit.

 

I don't know if I just need to take time off and let the muscles recover or am I just doing something wrong?

It seems to me that if you played 2-3 hours a day for 5 weeks, and then developed the problem, that it is not just an out of shape embouchure. You may be confusing "relaxing your jaw" with "dropping your jaw". If you are doing the latter, you may have strained some muscles. You should probably take a week off, and then go have a good teacher examine your embouchure.

 

This sounds very strange to me.

Worked up to playing 3 hours in one day.

Now, suddenly, the tone goes off and there is fatigue in the cheeks after playing a short time.

I would be curious to learn what this is about.

When you find out, I hope you will report back.

[If you were playing 3 hrs in one sitting after only playing for about a month, then I would look no further for the trouble. If you were playing 3 hrs in one day in, say, 3 or 4 sessions, then it is a puzzler.]

 

Is your setup(s) hard to blow? I have had a similar issue with 4 hour clarinet-based gigs when the combination of not enough endurance, hard reed and playing demand caused some fatigue in the embouchure as you describe. Maybe you need a more free-blowing setup?

 

A runyon custom 8 should be about a .095 tip opening (I have one like that and it blows easy for me).

The vandoren t55 should be about the same.

That might be a little big for most beginners, but OP played before and is merely coming back.

If those mpcs were OK for blowing for 3 hrs in one day, why would they suddenly cause fatigue?

I would seek some kind of professional help, unless the 3 hrs was in one sitting. In that case I would rest and not do that again for a long time (as in months).

 

Consider playing without puffing your cheeks.

 

Yea, isn't there some info out there about Dizzy Gillespie rupturing his cheek muscles from puffing his cheeks while playing, allowing them to balloon like they eventually did?

The drastic change from 3 hours of comfortable practice to a max of 5 minutes suggests something rather dramatic happened.

Dave1003, do you puff your cheeks when playing?

 

Dave,

Just get some personal time with a saxophone teacher to dial in your embouchure. It's time and money well spent.

You may characterize the fatigue as sore cheeks, but it could be something entirely different.

 

It almost seems like it's where the cheek and jaw meet. It's only a small portion of the cheek. But I'll take some time off and take it from there. On a side note, the soreness began when I started learning Yakety Sax for what that's worth.

 

No I do not puff my cheeks at all. My mouthpiece blows easy also. I just noticed one day I had this fatigue. My 2.5 reeds just suddenly felt like 3.5 reeds and sore cheeks.I will take a few days off and see what happens.

Welcome to SoTW! Hope the members can provide some insight for solving this dilemma!

Thinking outside of the box - did the horn take a spill and knock something out of alignment? Have you checked for leaks? For your mouthpiece/reed setup to suddenly go "hard" (or perhaps uber resistant?) is very puzzling. Check the neck for pull down cracks? Spring sprung or come off? Cracks in the neck cork? Does the neck go on the horn and fit correctly with no leaks? I dunno, just some wild guesses... food for thought?

Let us know how this turns out!

 

Hey guys so it was a fatigue issue. It got better with rest. I notice though that if I blow on a soprano it comes back quickly do to the tighter embouchure.

 

I think that you may be rolling your bottom lip out too far and not using enough embouchure support. Whe you roll out too far, your chin bunches and your lose the embouchure support. Plus the fact that you are practicing way too long tooo soon. Buddy Lee was absolutely right with the analogy of weight lifting. You are building muscle, but too much practice too soon, without enough breaks, breaks down muscle. Come up with a practice plan that includes breaks to help build up your embouchure.

 

You are right Donna, I think that's exactly what was happening. Just playing on a daily basis my tone and endurance has gotten significantly better, I no longer feel I'm fighting with the saxophone.