It would be interesting to know just how fast you need to go.Canadiain said:Alto solo in new piece for community band has thrown up a challenge...
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Am I the only one who has difficulty doing this quickly without the lower G getting hung up? Or do I/ my horn / my mouthpiece / my reed / the horse I rode in on/ all of the above suck?
Is there something I'm missing to make this particular transition fast and smooth, or do I have to cheat and put a little re articulation on the G to get it to speak. Its hard to get the low G to speak quickly while sluring down and then quickly back up to the E. Practice is probably the answer isnt it, but any hints or tips of what to practice (other than the obvious) would be appreciated
If, after trying some of the techniques I'm sure you'll see in the preceding and following replies, you are not able to do it at concert time, then rearticulation is reasonable, and the better you hide/soften it, the less it will matter.
The "correct" answer, though will be more a matter of voicing -shaping your oral cavity, tongue and embouchure to facilitate the changes. A well-adjusted sax will "play itself" a lot better than most people realize. I first became aware of just how much so in a lesson in college. I was having trouble with a wide leap and complaining about not being able to change my voicing quickly enough to make the notes speak. The sax professor asked for my sax and held it in such a manner that he could finger it, turning the neck so I could blow into it. He told me to make a basic sound out of it and began fingering all sorts of wild leaps and passages -95% of which sounded pretty good. Since I couldn't predict what he was going to play, it was all the sax making the changes.
My suggestion is to stop thinking of slurring down to G from E, but rather to try thinking of and voicing for low G while you are playing the E. The octave key will make the E come out anyway.
The initial exercise to facilitate this would be to practice slurring UP (and back down) from low G to E while leaving the G embouchure/voicing intact.
Good luck, and let us know what, if anything, works for you.
