This ebook, An Alexander Technique Approach to Alto Saxophone Technique, is published on this website in a PDF format. It is very detailed and practical, and it will give you the physical tools you need to take the limits off of your ability to create the accurate saxophone technique you want without sacrificing your body.
This ebook is also for sale on all AMAZON websites in a KINDLE format.
Located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A. (MOVEMENT THERAPY)
As an Alexander Technique teacher who was also a concert classical guitarist, I strove for perfect technique as a concert guitarist. It was the Alexander Technique that saved me from permanently damaging my wrist on the guitar and took the limits off of my ability to play what I wanted on the guitar.
The holy grail of the performing alto saxophone player is perfect technique. It is usually an unspoken goal that the saxophone player aspires to. Since striving for perfect alto saxophone technique is usually never really talked about, is it a sane reachable goal? Or is it what keeps the saxophone player going, even though it makes no sense, like Sisyphus pushing the rock up the mountain forever, hoping one day the rock will not roll down the other side?
“PERFECT TECHNIQUE” IS ATTAINABLE WHEN THE RULES OF PERFORMANCE THAT THE ALTO SAXOPHONE PLAYER IS APPLYING MAKES SENSE. THIS MEANS THAT THE POSTURE OF THE WHOLE BODY AND THE WAY THE HANDS AND ARMS AND DIAPHRAGM ARE USED ON THE SAXOPHONE, MAKE THE MOST DIFFICULT PASSAGES AND PIECES EASIER AND EASIER AND EASIER TO PLAY.
As obvious as this sounds, so many alto saxophone players do the same things over and over that aren’t working, because these are the rules of good saxophone technique that they were taught. Again, another unspoken exchange between the alto saxophone student and the saxophone teacher is, “If you just work HARD ENOUGH, eventually you will be able to play anything. I promise!”
The unspoken hook that keeps you doing what the teacher asks is that it will work, because it is SUPPOSED TO WORK. (This is what your alto saxophone teacher was taught by his or her saxophone teacher.)
At what point do you pull the plug? What do I mean? At what point do you question what you’re been doing to perfect your alto saxophone technique? The sooner the better!
Understand that I’m asking you, the alto saxophone player, to pull the plug on what is NOT working that you’ve been doing for years, instead of doing what you’ve been doing, because it is SUPPOSED TO WORK AND YOU WERE PROMISED WOULD WORK.
This is MAGICAL THINKING. What I mean is that you have combined two things to keep you striving the same way you have been for years. Magical thinking, in this circumstance, says that if you do what I ask you to do on the alto saxophone, combined with endless hours of practice, will magically make you a great saxophone player.
So, at what point do you realize that the technique you are trying so diligently to make work is the problem, and that you’re not the problem? What do I mean that you’re not the problem? I mean that if you had been mastering an alto saxophone technique that wasn’t conflicted, that the promise of easeful fine saxophone playing would already be yours.
Since most of the thousands upon thousands of practicing endless hours alto saxophone players out there are at best mediocre players, does that mean that these mediocre players lack the talent to be fine players, or are they trying to make work on the saxophone what will never work? I choose the latter.
I used the term conflicted alto saxophone technique two paragraphs ago. Let me define it. CONFLICTED ALTO SAXOPHONE TECHNIQUE IS A SAXOPHONE TECHNIQUE THAT IS A COMBINATION OF WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN’T WORK. WHEN YOU COMBINE WHAT WORKS WITH DOESN’T WORK, THEN YOU WILL NEVER REACH THE GOAL OF EFFORTLESSLY PLAYING THE MOST DIFFICULT WORTHWHILE ALTO SAXOPHONE MUSIC.
The sooner you keep what works on the alto saxophone, release what doesn’t work, and add what else works, the sooner the rock will not roll down the other side of the mountain.
