Don’t use so much pressure.

 

Softer reeds?
Take in more mouthpiece?
Drop your jaw?
Get a real sax teacher?
All of the above?

 

Are you using a clarinet embouchure? That was my big mistake when I started playing saxophone 50+ years ago. Once I learned a relaxed "no-embouchure" embouchure, my lip endurance improved.

 

I would add, practice in front of a mirror - actually seeing your tension is very helpful because feel isn't real.

 

Definitely learn to relax your embouchure, but in the meantime you can put this over your bottom teeth:
Bay Lip Ease Teeth Cushion | Music & Arts

 

Cigarette paper.

I cheat with it on sop 😬...

Then there's also the Silverstein OmniGuard lip protector. Haven't tried it myself, but tenor 1 in the local community big band swears by it.

Been wondering why he needs it on tenor but he's a real diva anyway so I never dared to inquire ...

-j,

 

Cigarette paper.

I cheat with it on sop 😬...

Then there's also the Silverstein OmniGuard lip protector. Haven't tried it myself, but tenor 1 in the local community big band swears by it.

Been wondering why he needs it on tenor but he's a real diva anyway so I never dared to inquire ...

-j,

That's an indication that something is wrong. Fix the cause.

 

Any suggestions, experiences, solutions, etc?

All of the above posts. Also, one exercise you can try is to play without resting your top teeth on the mpc. This will force you to play without biting. Then lightly rest your teeth on top of the mpc and play. I underlined 'exercise' because that's what this is; you don't normally want to play without (lightly) resting your teeth on the mpc beak, which helps to stabilize the mpc.

 

My clarinet teacher had me try this. We called a “double embouchure “. Certainly helped me.

 

If you want to see my take on the saxophone embouchure, I made this video lesson years ago. It’s one of the most popular lessons on the site. A Mature Embouchure Lesson

 

I remember Jamey Aebersold talking about this. I was biting then as well. He said that getting your airstream and proper air support together was what stopped his biting problem. That and some other embouchure adjustments, mainly more relaxed, has fixed the issue for me.

 

Ok, I waited for the experts to answer first. Here's my take. Think of what the embouchure is supposed to be, a bunch of face muscles closing off the mouth around the mouthpiece and reed, and bringing pressure to the reed with the bottom lip to control the sound and its variations, such as pitch, timbre, focus, vibrato. This should be muscles doing that, not the bottom teeth. Until the muscles are ready for the job, the teeth are often used to compensate, leading to ouch. So, here's what I've come to believe. Less lip curled over the teeth is better. Look at photos of players, they don't take a lot of lip over the teeth. Make the muscles push the lip up. Second, and last, build up those muscles by using them instead of the teeth. Larry Teal's recommendation really works, for an exercise to do several times a day for the purpose. With the lips closed, do ten reps of alternating big smiles - """eeee" and a whistle bunch - "oooo," holding each one for a few seconds. Another excercise is with the mouth closed similar to the size it would be around the mouthpiece, push the lower lip up as hard as you can, but resist with the top lip to prevent it from rising. Keep practicing, but stop when he embouchure in failing. Hope that helps.

 

I believe the thing that got my embouchure truly sorted was playing baritone and working heavily on airstream support, doing my standard long tones pppp to ffff and back to pppp over the full range of the horn. When you're blowing so hard that the tone's constantly on the raggedy edge of breaking up, you just simply can't bite down on your lower lip. At that level of effort you've got to use that ring of muscles to hold the air in.

The teeth are there, because you have teeth; but your lower lip muscles should essentially be vertical so the "pursestring" of muscles that surround the mouth can clamp in on the mouthpiece and reed all round. Keep in mind that muscles CANNOT push; they can only PULL by contracting. So it's all coming from that ring of muscles around your mouth. About all your lower teeth should be doing is providing a sort of wall for your lower lip to lean against (imagine the street-corner loungers leaning up against the wall of the building). Yes, you have to use a bit of jaw muscle just to keep your jaw in place, and keep it from popping open under the air pressure, but that's it. If you're doing it right the first thing that poops out should be the corners of your mouth getting so tired you can't hold the air in.

I think of the airstream as doing all the work, and the embouchure just provides a seal and lightly "steers" the reed; a little more pressure here, a little less there.

For pedagogical and habit-busting purposes, I suggest you spend some time playing with the "pouter" lower lip form. You can't really play that way indefinitely, but it's something to help break the biting habit. Spend several months doing long tones, like I described, with ATTENTION and INTENTION; and pay attention the whole time to your lower lip - the instant you feel it starting to creep over your teeth, yank it out of there!

 

There’s this article as well……. The Best Saxophone Embouchure: Where’s That Bottom Lip?

 

Everyone wants to think it’s all about teeth, pressure, lips, and muscles because they’re right there at the issue…it’s really all about air support. Some choose a tighter embouchure while others allow the ligature to do its job and just make a seal; both work great as long as there’s a well supported air column.

 

Read my response #9.

 

Here's something that helped me better control the pressure my teeth have on the lower lip: think more about your top lip. Try to "grip" your mouthpiece with your top lip - bring those top lip muscles down on top of and around the sides of the mouthpiece. Check out Kamasi Washington's embochure for reference:

Intentionally using these upper lip muscles expands the control you have over your embochure in general. I found I was able to rely on the upper lip pressure to create a seal rather than jamming my bottom lip/teeth up into the mouthpiece. Note that I've had a teacher explain to me that you should never wear through those rubber/foam pads you put on top of the mouthpiece - if you are there's too much pressure coming from your top teeth when the pressure should be coming from the top lip instead (almost like a double lip embochure, but not quite fully).

Note embochure between players is very personal, so give preference to what works and feels best for you.

 

Check out Kamasi Washington's embochure for reference:

Maybe I'm alone in this, but I've never been able to tell much about someone's embouchure by looking at a photo. Aside from seeing the angle of the mpc and maybe how much mpc is being taken in, I really can't see what else is going on, including what the lips are doing. Obviously, just looking at a still photo, you can't see how loose or tight the embouchure is or whether or not the player is biting.

 

I bit through my lower lip in 1964. I was playing 8 hours a day at a resort. I had started on clarinet and they had me roll that lip back - but when I changed to sax, nobody told me to change. I came home on Monday break and went to one of the music stores run by an old pro sax player. I told him about it and he said they did the same thing back in the '30s playing dance marathons. They learned to use a looser embouchure with the lower lip rolled out slightly, or you could say not rolled back as far. It took me a little while to get used to it but this bit of advice saved my playing career. I never had lip pain again. The looser embouchure also gives you a fatter sound and you'll find yourself playing flat, so you have to push the mouthpiece in, which has other benefits - the horn just plays better and more in tune.

 

When I experienced cutting into my lower lip I was convinced by the internet that it had to be because I was biting. I wasted a year trying adjustments to my embouchure and setup to stop this problem. I always found it strange because I had never had this problem during my school years playing sometimes for hours a day. It suddenly struck me one day that my lower front teeth are more jagged now than they were in my youth. I spent a couple minutes making a very thin cover for my two front teeth from a football mouth guard and the problem is gone. Boy did I waste a lot of time and miss out on significant progress convinced that the only reason for lip pain was that I had somehow developed a biting problem I never had in my youth. Obviously lip problems can be from too much pressure but I do think some people simply need a guard against sharp teeth. Using one has certainly enhanced my saxophone experience.

 

This is particularly important for smaller mouthpieces, e.g., for soprano saxophone.

 

When you learn the embouchure and toughen-up, it won't matter if your lower teeth are sharp/jagged - mine are too, and even though I can count the gigs I've had in the last two years on my fingers and I hardly practice (played baritone for an hour yesterday), I have no tenderness on the lower lip. What bothers me is the embouchure muscles getting tired, but I can keep going by stopping momentarily and stretching them - I mean like 15 seconds and I'm back.

 

Especially using photos of players to try to say that they are using the "pouting out" embouchure concept. If you are a person with a fleshy lower lip, even using the standard saxophone embouchure (described above), there's going to be soft tissue that squeezes out giving an appearance of having rolled the lip outward. Unless your muscles in the lower lip are essentially vertical, you can't put any pressure on the reed. Muscles don't work by bending. They can contract. That's the only way they can exert force.

 

Jamie Anderson has a pretty nice video on various causes of sore lips when playing that might be of interest. He’s advocating the pouty/goldfish/no-embouchure embouchure.

In my personal experience, though, things really sorted themselves out after having played baritone sax for a while, like @turf3 discusses in an early reply. I think he’s probably right that the attention to controlling mucho air can help eliminate jaw tension and biting.

So, spend more time on the bari. 😎

 

I have a jagged both tooth, so I use a clear retainer, like the orthodontists make. The first one cost $80 or so, but then my regular dentist will make additional ones for around $30. Helps a lot.

 

Thank you all for the tips and tricks and suggestions! Much appreciated

 

Having played thousands of shows I know the pain, first night back after a layoff can be challenging. Ice is your friend. You'll learn how to not bite so hard and by the third fourth night you won't feel a thing. The exception would be raggedy bottom teeth. Old school we'd split a matchbook cover, chew it soft and slap that sucker on.

 

While learning to sort out my embouchure I used cigarette papers for protection. I aIso asked my dentist to grind off some sharp edges for me. I now only use protection playing my YDS - baking parchment(!)

 

I had sharp lower teeth and would use a small section of a denture pad for classical alto when I was in school. Never a problem on tenor with “no embouchure“ and more air.

 

Another cushion to try: Johnson & Johnson waterproof tape. Tear off a strip to size, fold it sticky side to sticky side, then fold that in half. It's thinner than having something like an acrylic one made (and cheaper) and is a little thicker and lasts longer than cigarette paper. I learned this when taking lessons from Harvey Pittel.

 

Over bottom teeth or also over the top?

 

The tighter your muscles are btwn where the sides of your mouth end and the low part of your cheeks begins, the less pressure and looser your lower lip and bite need to be. Check out Coltrane's embouchure on the cover of his album COLTRANE JAZZ. My teacher, Joe Allard, had me put that album cover up on the wall next to a mirror just behind the music stand where I practice, to use as a daily model to emulate. The optimal result will be that your lip/teeth will exert so little pressure that you can easily ''jiggle'' the mouthpiece around while simultaneously blowing exercises and scales, tunes, etc. Good luck!

 

you trained under joe allard?