If you are a beginning saxophonist working on getting a characteristic saxophone sound for the first time, I am going to outline 3 little known long tone exercises to help you get a characteristic tone.

Playing long tones is important in developing a beautiful saxophone sound because the exercise forces you to focus on your air support, and air support ultimately determines the quality of your sound.

While there are many different approaches you can take to improving your sound, playing long tones is the simplest and allows for the greatest focus on your air stream.

I am going to outline 3 long tone exercises with each one building on the previous.

So, what are the 3 little known long tone exercises for saxophone beginners?

Here we go…

1. See How Long You Can Hold Your Breath Under Water

The first of these exercises came from my younger days of summer at the pool. Remember when you were a kid (maybe you are a kid) and you would hang out all day at the pool in the summer?

We used to hang out at the deep end most days, and when we weren’t busy going to the snack bar or jumping off the diving board, we would see who could hold his breath under water the longest.

This approach to working on long tones has a similar playfulness to it, and I think you will find it particularly engaging and fun.

This practice exercise is extremely simple. All you have to do is breathe in as much as you can and then play any note until you completely run out of air.

Now, choose a different note and repeat. You can use a simple major scale (like G) or a portion of your chromatic scale.

To make things even more exciting, you might even get out a timer and see how long you can hold your longest note!

2. This Time Use Your Metronome

Now that you are comfortable with holding a single note for a long time, you will continue to focus on good air support while moving your fingers a bit more.

For this exercise, you will need a simple metronome, and I recommend setting the quarter note to 70. Pick another simple major scale (like F) and play the collection of notes up and down in whole notes. Keep your focus on your air while counting four clicks (of the metronome) per note.

The benefit of this long tone exercise (at a slow to medium tempo) is that you will be able to focus primarily on producing a quality air stream while focusing secondarily on counting large, slow-moving quarter notes.

Just as before, repeat this exercise using other major scales that you know or a portion of your chromatic scale.

3. And Now With Dynamic Contrast

Now that you are comfortable playing long tones and counting at the same time, you can make your long tone practice even more fun and engaging by adding dynamic contrast to the equation.

In the past two exercise approaches, you played your long tones with a consistent dynamic (volume). Now you are going to change the dynamic on each note.

Building upon the second method mentioned above, repeat the exercise, and this time, crescendo (get louder) on the first time, and decrescendo (get softer) on the second note. Crescendo on the third note, and decrescendo on the fourth note. Continue this alternating pattern until you play the entire scale up and down.

Focus on keeping your air stream solid and consistent even as you move your fingers up/down and increase/decrease your volume. Remember that the whole point in playing long tones is to focus on moving a consistent air stream to create a beautiful saxophone tone.

You can make this long tone exercise more creative by starting the scale at the top rather than then bottom, which is where you probably start most of the time. You can also change the dynamic shape of the first note from a crescendo to a decrescendo. Using these two variations in conjunction on the scales you know, can provide a great number of exercises and a lot of fun.

As a side note, if the words crescendo, decrescendo, and dynamic are new to you, you can click here to check out a list of music terms and definitions.

In Conclusion

Playing long tones regularly is one of the best ways to improve your saxophone sound. By using the progression outlined above, you will hopefully find it easy to consistently focus on producing a quality air stream while added the other aspects of scales and dynamics at your own pace.

Work on your long tones for 5-10 minutes per practice session, and I believe you will see a marked improvement in your saxophone tone within 7 days.

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