Q+A with Alex Hahn BetterSax coming back with another great guest interview – Alex Hahn. He is an award-winning, young, and emerging artist that has played with lots of legendary saxophonists. He’s got a new course out called @Realalexhahn Vol. 4: Transcriptions from my Instagram Videos. It has “20 solos over your favorite jazz standards […]
How to Find Your Own Musical Personality – with Alex Hahn Read More »
BetterSax is back with another mouthpiece comparison and review. This time we will be looking at 4 great mouthpieces from Jody Jazz to see if one of them might be a good choice for you. I recorded everything with this Beyerdynamic M160 ribbon mic which does an amazing job on the saxophone. It doesn’t pick
Dark To Bright Tenor Sax Mouthpieces from Jody Jazz Read More »
You have heard this sax solo before by Kirk Whalum, I’m sure. It is one of the most listened to saxophone solos of all time. In this video let’s find out why it’s basically a blueprint for how to craft a killer solo “I Will Always Love You” This great saxophone solo is from the
The Most Listened to Sax Solo Ever | Kirk Whalum | Great Sax Solos Ep. 4 Read More »
In this live interview/hang, Jaleel Shaw and I go through a rapid fire list of 20 questions about all things saxophone. One of the top saxophonists active in the modern jazz scene today, with three albums out as a leader. He performs with Roy Haynes, Nate Smith and a long list of other top musicians.
Do You Need to Transcribe Solos? and 19 More Questions with Jaleel Shaw Read More »
Eric Alexander Eric Alexander, by any measure is one of the top saxophonists in the world today. In this video, we are talking about his new course 21 Major Key Explorations. He gives some of the best advice anyone wanting to learn jazz improvisation needs to hear. One of the things I love about Eric
The Key to Jazz Improvisation – 21 Major Key Explorations with Eric Alexander Read More »
BetterSax Ultimate Sax Swab Kits Ultimate Sax Swab Kits are now available in the BetterSax Store. If you aren’t swabbing your saxophone out every time (you know who you are) please start doing so now. As a repair technician, this is the number one thing you can do to prolong the life of your pads
If You’re Not Doing This Already… Please Start. Read More »
Here’s another quick saxophone lesson for you. I lifted this phrase from one of my favorite saxophonists Sonny Stitt. He would play stuff like this all the time in minor keys. It’s a bit cliché but that’s a good thing. Having a bunch of cliché and recognizable melodic phrases in your vocabulary is a very
Use Clichés Like This One in your Solos to Connect with Listeners Read More »
Here’s a mini sax lesson for you. Take this diatonic triad pattern through the keys for some nice arpeggio practice. These are arranged in such a way that it lends itself very well to bebop. If you add a bebop articulation to this it will sound pretty hip. Take a look at the video to
Learn This Easy Bebop Pattern Read More »
Curved Soprano Saxophones I don’t know about you, but I’ve always loved curved soprano saxophones, and I’ve always wanted one. Problem was, there were not that easy to come by. Most saxophone makers stick to the straight variety with the exception of Yanagisawa. They’ve been making an excellent curved soprano sax for decades. Another problem,
Cheap vs Expensive Curved Soprano Saxophones Read More »
Easy ii-V-I Lick In this lesson, I’m going to teach you an easy ii-V-I lick. As always there’s a pdf download for you that goes along with this lesson in the BetterSax Shed. The idea is not to learn a bunch of phrases by rote and then plug them in to create a paint by
How to Turn LICKS Into SOLOS – Easy ii-V-I Lick Read More »
“If you work through this book and do everything in this book you’re going to become a very good altissimo player.” – Ben Wendel In this video I sit down with Ben Wendel as he shares some of his secrets on how he shreds like an absolute monster in the upper altissimo range. You can
The LAST Altissimo Lesson You’ll Ever Need with Ben Wendel Read More »
Here is the first installment (on a trial basis) of the brand new Better Sax “podcast” with live interviews with fantastic saxophonists. Today I spoke to Michael Wilbur from New Bedford, Massachusetts. He is an absolute BEAST of a player and has tons of great advice for you all to take in (especially if you
Return of the BASS SAX – Live with Michael Wilbur from Moon Hooch Read More »
Learn about the design process of the BetterSax BURNIN’ mouthpiece in this live hang and Q+A session with Jody Espina, founder of Jody Jazz mouthpieces. Want more giveaways and interviews? Be sure to follow BetterSax on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube to stay up to date with us for news, giveaways, and other saxophone tips and tricks.
Designing the BetterSax BURNIN’ Mouthpiece with Jody Espina Read More »
Which saxophone mouthpiece tip opening should I choose? This is a question I have gotten a lot over the years, but now that people are ordering my BURNIN’ alto sax mouthpiece its coming up even more. So in this video, I’m going to tell you everything you need to know about saxophone mouthpiece tip openings
Everything I Know About Sax Mouthpiece Tip Openings Read More »
Synthetic v. Cane Saxophone Reeds? A little over 2 years ago I made a video comparing Legere Signature synthetic reeds to cane reeds. Back then, YouTube had this feature where you could vote on screen. Although they have erased the results of all the voting It was pretty clear that most people could not really
New Legere American Cut Reeds… are they better? Read More »
Everything I Know About Practicing Today I want to show a bit of my daily practice routine. That way you can see the sort of things that I’m working on to improve my own saxophone playing. My hope is that this helps you with some ideas for new things to practice, or just some better
How I Practice (with my new favorite app) Read More »
Ever wonder how a ligature or different kinds of ligatures can affect your saxophone sound? In this video I go through a bunch of different ligatures and give you my honest unfiltered reaction to each one. The other day I was trying out a bunch of different ligatures and while there is not a huge
In Search of the ULTIMATE Saxophone Ligature Read More »
Jody Espinosa of Jody Jazz and Jay Metcalf of BetterSax join forces to share and demonstrate the whole line of Jody Jazz HR* Custom Dark Mouthpieces. The show is hosted by Daniel Chia of Singapore. Check out the 1 hour and 30 minute discussion and Q+A by clicking on the photo above! Enjoy! Want more
BetterSax + Jody Jazz Live Stream | HR* Custom Dark Mouthpieces Read More »
What kind of saxophone sound are you going for? Dark? Bright? A mixture of the two? Or does it depend on the style of music you’re playing? In this video, I’m going to lay out some of the ways to get a darker sound on the saxophone. You may have heard that some saxophones play
How to Get a DARK Saxophone Sound | Jody Jazz HR* Custom Dark Read More »
He’s an absolute legend, and normally you’d have to spend $45,000/year at the Berklee College of Music to gain his wisdom, OR you can check out this masterclass with the incredible George Garzone right here, on BetterSax. Check out the video above for the full interview with George Garzone Interested in more great interviews and
A Saxophone Masterclass with George Garzone Read More »
Hey Everyone! Welcome back, today I’m gonna show you a few simple techniques for improvising over the classic soul standard “Ain’t no Sunshine” by Bill Withers. Plus, I’ll show you a neat little trick to make the pentatonic scale sound even cooler. In this lesson I’m gonna be using the “Ain’t no Sunshine” backing track
5 Ways of Improvising Over Basic Chords + Pentatonic Scale Trick Read More »
