It’s Hard, But Gets You a Beautiful Sax Sound in 30 Days

Your sound is the first thing listeners judge you on, yet most sax players spend too much time on scales and technical exercises and barely any on their tone. In this video I’m going to show you Extreme Long Tones, an exercise that will transform your sound in 30 days — but only if you can handle it.

How to Practice Extreme Long Tones

I got this exercise from the great Eric Alexander, and after working on it every day for a month my sound had improved a ton — richer, more in tune, with more control than I’d ever had before. And, I could finally practice non-stop for hours without getting tired.

Extreme long tones are just like regular long tones with one important change.

To start, you play a long tone beginning on middle C.  Take a full breath – fill up your lungs with air and get into the habit of doing this each time. Practicing this exercise will also help you develop your lung capacity. Use a breath attack – no tonguing, we want the note to come out cleanly just using the air. Set your embouchure and hold it steady throughout the note. Keep your chin pointed down and your corners in. Your lower lip should be a firm cushion for the reed to vibrate on. Support it with your jaw and bottom teeth.

Use an app like Tonal Energy for drones. If you listen through headphones, you can set them to match your note automatically. Keep your tone steady and match the pitch of the drone without looking at the tuner. Keep your throat, shoulders and hands relaxed at all times. Do not let tension creep into your body, and use the lightest grip possible.  Just enough to keep the keys closed.

Play that note at a full volume and use all the air in the tank until it is completely empty. This is where the exercise gets extreme and starts building your tone and embouchure strength faster than doing normal long tones.

We are going to move to our next note now, but I want you to do 2 things differently.

Instead of taking a breath from your mouth as you normally would, I want you to inhale through your nose. We do this to avoid breaking our embouchure. I want you to keep the embouchure set as we repeat the process on every note across the entire range of your saxophone.

Let’s go down chromatically first.  B, Bb, A etc. all the way until we get to low Bb.

Breath in through your nose every time and never break your embouchure.  Physically it will be like you are playing one constant long tone for several minutes. As we get lower on the horn, we won’t be able to hold the notes out for as long since more air is required. Just keep filling your tank all the way, and using all the air up on each note.

Once we finish the lower end of the horn go back to middle C and start playing chromatically up.

This is where things will start to get difficult. As you go higher, you’ll be able to hold each note out for longer since they require less air. The higher we go, the more support the reed needs to stay in tune and keep a steady pitch. In the upper register of the saxophone you can back off on how hard you blow, these notes don’t need as much air. Just focus on keeping that embouchure set the whole time.

For most people, it’s going to be impossible the first few times you try this.  Your mouth will tire out, you won’t be able to keep a steady tone and you’ll have to rest. That’s fine. Your goal is to work on these extreme long tones until you can get through the entire exercise without breaking your embouchure and going all the way up to your highest note.

For me that is altissimo D. This exercise is also a great way for you to develop your ability to play in the altissimo range in tune and without biting. Just go up to your highest note and keep reaching higher. Remember, don’t overblow those altissimo notes, they really don’t need a lot of air.

Only 5 or 10 minutes

The whole process only takes 5 or 10 minutes at the start of your practice session, but the payoff for your sound is enormous. Everything you practice afterward will sound better and you’ll make faster progress.

After my long tones I move straight into scales and patterns, and over the years I’ve put together an exercise that builds technique fast while setting you up to improvise solos, so go check out this video next to learn exactly what to do – The Only 3 Scales You Need for Jazz Improvisation