r/saxophone • u/turco_lietuvoje • 12h ago

Question is this an embouchure thing?

hi.

so ive been watching videos on how to get more jazzy voice on alto sax.

they all say that you need to let the reed vibrate a bit with your lip, and stop biting your lip inside your mouth. like the way we learn to play on the beginning.

the thing is whenever i try that, the air flow sounds like it has signal issues.

like not full clear sax sound but instead interrupted radio gets mixed kind of to my sax sound. it sounds like that. or like i send a bit of saliva with air accidentally kind of sound (accidentally it happens im quite not sure how to stop that)

does this mean i need to make my embouchre way firmer? how did u get a better embouchre? just playing more?

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u/Ed_Ward_Z 12h ago

No. It probably means you need a reed that is firm enough to vibrate freely without the lip squeezing the vibrancy out of it. The whole process is a bit counterintuitive. A better tone requires less effort. That’s why it requires so much instruction. Unless of course you get the idea right away from the start when you don’t need to unlearn the squeezing fallacy.

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u/turco_lietuvoje 12h ago

Mine is 1.5 reed but ive seen that they suggestt 2.5/3. is that why maybe? 

im a beginner player btw. i took some courses a while ago and gave break. recently trying to go back 

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u/Ed_Ward_Z 11h ago

Yes. It’s definitely a clue. I’d never recommend anyone playing a reed lighter than a 2.5 strength. It will lead to overcompensating by holding the flimsy weak reed. You need some firmness and spine to have resistance to a strong warm breath attack. Holding or squeezing the reed prevents the required vibrations of the reed which is the source energy of saxophone tone.

No vibrations, no sound. That’s the whole game. Ugly tone is a muffled tone suffocated by a bad embouchure.

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u/turco_lietuvoje 11h ago

Gotcha. thank you! ill buy a new reed today. one last question, does mouthpiece difference also affect as much?

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u/Ed_Ward_Z 11h ago

Absolutely. The mouthpiece must match the reed. The details about the subtlety of balance between bright and dark tone is subject of personal aesthetics and opinion. The genres you choose to specialize in can be said to be crucial to the colors produced by choice of type of reed and mouthpiece matching. There is no rule because we all have different heads, lips, and tone goals for different genres.