For any person that is starting to play alto saxophone ,the alto saxophone fingering chart is particularly important. This amazing tool will be of huge help when we try to comprehend the instrument fingering. Even many alto saxophone fingerings are quite instinctual, there are some that are difficult to imagine, is there when this graph comes in help for the students of this amazing musical instrument.

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Saxophone family

At the beginning, the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax conceived the idea to create a complete orchestra of only saxophones. This concept was the source of the saxophone family, which in some moments was formed for 14 different instruments. The range of saxophone started from the contrabass and finished with the sopranino.

Nevertheless these days the most commonly used are only 5 kinds of saxophones.

• The bass saxophone
• The baritone saxophone
• The tenor saxophone
• The alto saxophone
• The soprano saxophone

How to play saxophone

Before to describe the steps that have to be followed to learn how to play the of saxophone, is necessary to understand how important is the right embouchure when intending to generate a good sound.

Playing with the correct embouchure to produce a good tone is an equally important element when  playing the saxophone as the notes and fingerings learning.

Advice for beginners

Place your teeth on top of the mouthpiece and with the wet reed adjust the ligature to the desire tone, laying the correct portion of them in the mouth.

Instead of pressing hardly backward, embrace the sides of your mouth in a circular shape.

The air stream should be steady and soft.

Tonguing the notes; with the edge of your tongue touch the head of the reed when starting to play a note.

 

Saxophones; Popular jazz instruments

Saxophones has been used in jazz from the 1920’s when Coleman Hawkins performed in the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, and since then have been recognized as one of the most  used in jazz music. As an image the saxophone is greatly associated with jazz and is often utilized as a symbol of the iconic swing style.

Many Chicago jazz musicians followed the example of Hawkins and adopted it like their favorite musical instrument, With another like piano, contrabass and drums became the base of the majority of the jazz bands that played mostly in New Orleans and Chicago, being the most notorious the Duke Ellington Orchestra and later in the 1930’s the swing bands which performed numerous arrangements especially made for wind instruments.

In those days the saxophone was able to be considered, as important as, the trumpet by the jazz ensembles fanatics , that have been impressed by the performance of the saxophonists of the Count Basie orchestra and the saxophone player Lester Young .The attention that the instrument attracted surge even more with the release of the record “body and soul” played by Coleman Hawkins.

In the 1940 Charlie “Bird”Parker and other players of the bebop revolution made the popularity of the saxophone increased to levels unseen before. Due to the format of the bebop groups, that gave to each player significant importance, the piano, drums, contrabass and saxophone won the special preference of the jazz playing beginners.

Outstanding Saxophone Players

Great saxophone players is something that  we could speak about for hours,because the amount of amazing players of this instrument is so big and the passion that the instrument provoke is huge.

Nowadays the saxophone is as popular as for example the guitar ,and is possible to find skillful players everywhere in the world.The instrument is played in a variety of music styles and no matters the kind of music in which is played ,is broadly appreciated.

Besides  Hawkins,Ellington,Basie and Parker are another ecxeptional players like:Thelonious Monkzy,Dizzy Gillespie,Bud Powell,Wayne Sorter,john Coltrane,Jan Garbarek,Stan Getz, Ornette Coleman  and many more.

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