woensdag 23 mei 2012

Embouchure

The saxophone embouchure is more about doing as little as possible.

I find myself often telling my students to do less when playing the sax. When they enter the conservatory they went through a development that usually meant they squeeze the reed, play with  tight throat, and pull as many muscles as they can in their bodies. For me, playing the sax is about relaxing. Only using the muscles you need. And the good thing is that the body knows what to do. Whenever a teacher tells us how to hold our body and embouchure we start doing something. Which is good to try things out, but what happens many times is that we
keep doing this. Our learning curve should be aimed at not having to do and think about the things we learned. Things should come easy, without thinking. This will change your way studying immensely. You will study more but exit the practice studio refreshed!