Transform Your Saxophone Playing in Weeks NOT Years
Stop guessing your way through practice. Follow a proven method to build a great sound, improve your timing, and play solos that feel amazing.
Does This Sound Like You?
- You’ve practiced, but your tone still doesn’t sound the way you want
- You want to improvise great solos, but it feels like guesswork
- You don’t have a lot of time to practice and need to use it efficiently
- You struggle with rhythm and timing
- You want to play faster and more cleanly, but your fingers can’t quite keep up
You're not alone...
Getting Good at Saxophone was So Frustrating... Until I Learned This Secret
I always believed that if I just practiced a lot, studied the music books and listened to my teachers that I would one day be really good at playing saxophone and find fulfillment.
So I followed that plan for years. Practicing, studying and playing every chance I got.
But there was a problem...
I didn’t like what was coming out of my saxophone. Especially when I played solos.
Because of my lack of confidence:
- My sound was weak
- My rhythm wasn't locking in
- I would get lost
- and played loads of wrong notes
I was faking it most of the time and I knew it.
Before performances I felt stressed and intimidated, afterward I felt like an imposter. It was depressing.
My love for music made my frustration feel even worse.
It didn’t make sense though! I had graduated from music school and followed all the instructions along the way.
I convinced myself that:
- I would never be very good
- No amount of practice was going to fix it
- Other people are just born with talent I don't posess
Until one day, I got fed up and decided to try something different.
On my next gig, I forced myself to forget all the complicated stuff I had learned from books and music school and just play simply.
Instead of trying to impress people, I focused on communicating with them musically.
And it Worked!
The audience hung on every note I played and applauded every solo. I hadn’t enjoyed playing this much in years and couldn’t wait for the next chance to deploy my new strategy.
All by doing less!
I realized that I had wasted countless hours practicing the wrong material. I had been following a map that was leading me to completely different destinations than where I wanted to go.
I knew what I had to do
I had to forget most of what I had learned and create my own much simpler path that led directly to my destination – Great sounding music that feels awesome to practice and perform.
Over time I managed to reverse engineer the process of recreating the music I loved hearing on the saxophone.
My new approach was so much easier than everything I had studied before.
But, I wasn’t finished.
Decades of teaching had made it clear that nearly every other saxophone student suffers from the exact same problem I had without realizing it.
I knew how to help them and it became my mission to share what I had learned to save others years of frustration.
So I started building a system of learning that was laser-focused on getting the results saxophone players really want.
- A beautiful sound
- Solid rhythm
- Confident improvised solos
- Music you love to play
For the last ten years I’ve been teaching this system to thousands of saxophone players who are finally loving what comes out when they play as well. And now I’ve made it all available so you can jump in and get these same results in a matter of weeks rather than years.
How Others are Making Incredible Saxophone Progress Using this System
"From Beginner to Jazz Improv in 1 Year"
"Now, When I'm Improvising it Feels Glorious"
"Next Best Thing to 1 on 1 In-Person Lessons"
"I Highly Recommend Jay's Courses to Sax Players at Every Level"
"Hands Down the Best Improvisation Teaching I've Come Across"
Level Up Your Sax Playing In Far Less Time
With a Proven System That Fixes What Other Methods Miss
Most sax players spend years practicing… and still don’t feel like they’re getting better.
- Their tone doesn’t sound right.
- Improvising feels like guesswork.
- Rhythm and timing are always just a little off.
- And no matter how much they practice, progress is painfully slow.
Why? Because most people are practicing the wrong things in the wrong way.
Even worse—they’ve picked up bad habits without even realizing it.
I know this because I’ve lived it.
I’ve worked with thousands of students, and almost all of them struggle with the same exact problems. I struggled with them too.
That’s why I created the BetterSax Method
A practical, step-by-step system built specifically for adult saxophone players who want to play better, sound better, and feel confident when they pick up the horn.
Here’s What Makes This Different
Unlike traditional methods built for school band kids or academic jazz majors, the BetterSax Method focuses on:
- Fixing the bad habits you didn’t know you had
(And replacing them with good habits that make you sound a lot better) - Improving your tone, rhythm, and technique—fast
(With exercises and workouts that are optimized for maximum progress) - Teaching you how to improvise with confidence and musicality
(Most people stuggle with this the most, but I can help you overcome it) - Using your limited practice time effectively
(We can accomplish so much more in less time once we know a few secrets)
Tools That Help You Grow Musically For the Rest of Your Life
Once you learn these systems, you’ll never go back.
You’ll have tools to:
- Practice smarter
- Learn music faster
- And enjoy playing more than ever
Whether you’re a beginner, a comeback player, or someone who’s been stuck for years—this is how you finally unlock the sound you’ve been hearing in your head.
Ready to Play Better, Faster?
Here's how your membership will get you there:
- Develop a beautiful, consistent tone across the entire range of your horn
- Improvise solos in any style—with confidence and musicality
- Play your favorite songs by ear, without needing sheet music
- Lock in with solid time and rhythm at any tempo
- Hit the high and low notes cleanly, without squeaks or struggle
- Play in tune across all registers—even altissimo
- Practice in a way that’s efficient, motivating, and results driven
- Make fast, steady progress—even if you only have limited time
- Never run out of ideas—know exactly what to practice next
- Be part of a supportive, global community of sax players just like you
You don't have to take my word for it though...
Check out what some of our members have to say:
A Clear, Personalized Path to Saxophone Playing Growth at Every Level
Every player is different. That’s why the BetterSax Method doesn’t force you into a one-size-fits-all program. Instead, it meets you exactly where you are—and shows you the fastest path forward.
Whether you’re picking up the saxophone for the first time, returning after a long break, or trying to break through a plateau, you’ll get a personalized roadmap designed to help you sound better, faster.
Here’s how it works:
Step 1: Get Your Personalized Saxophone Roadmap
When you join, you’ll answer a few quick questions to assess your experience level, goals, and biggest challenges. Based on your answers, we’ll recommend the exact lessons and courses that will deliver the fastest results.
Outcome: You’ll know exactly where to start and what to skip so you don’t waste time.
Step 2: Follow Your Guided Learning Path
You’ll work through hand-picked courses in a clear sequence, with step-by-step instruction focused on building the habits that matter most: tone, rhythm, technique, improvisation, and musical expression.
Outcome: Instead of jumping between videos or guessing what to practice, you’ll follow a proven path that builds real skills in less time.
Step 3: Track Your Progress & Stay Motivated
Your progress is automatically tracked as you complete lessons, so you’ll always know where you left off and stay motivated as your skills build from one lesson to the next.
Outcome: You’ll stay motivated as you build momentum, correct bad habits, and develop a consistent practice routine.
Step 4: Get Support from a Vibrant Learning Community
You’re not in this alone. Inside the BetterSax Membership, you’ll join a supportive forum of saxophone players just like you sharing progress, asking questions, and learning together. My team and I check in daily to answer questions and join the conversation, so you’re always supported and never stuck.
Outcome: Get your questions answered, stay connected, and keep moving forward with help from a community that’s learning alongside you.
No more guessing. No more wasted time.
Just a smarter, faster way to become the sax player you’ve always wanted to be.
Your personalized roadmap is waiting inside the BetterSax Membership.
Everything You Get
To Level Up Your Sax Playing Fast
Core Essentials
Develop Tone, Technique and Saxophone Fundamentals
- Develop a beautiful sound with tone and embouchure workouts
- Build fast and clean finger technique
- How to play relaxed and free of pain and tension
- Practice routine plans to maximize your progress
- How to play with solid time, strong rhythm and swing feel
- Playing in tune with consistent sound across the range
Pentatonic Foundation
Play Melodies by Ear and Improvise Solos
- Play your favorite songs by ear and from memory
- Break your dependence on sheet music
- Start improvising basic solos that sound great
- Leverage the power of the 5 note pentatonic scale
- Develop your ears and learn to play what you hear
- Pentatonic scale workouts to build speed and technique
Blues Foundation
Improvise Melodic and Rhythmic Solos in all Styles of Music
- Stop losing your place in the song form
- Master the most important progression in popular music
- Start playing with solid rhythm and swing feel
- Improvise fluidly with confidence
- Master the Blues Scale and apply it to all musical styles
- Build strong ears that allow you to play back what you hear
Harmonic Foundation
Master the Music Theory Sax Players Must Know to Improvise
- Finally understand the music theory you need to improvise
- Focus on the stuff Sax players need for soloing success
- Learn how to build chords in all 12 keys
- Understand what scales work where and how to apply them
- Master all the scales you need for improv in all styles of music
- Learn scale and arpeggio workouts for fast and smooth fingers
Two, Five, WIN!
Weave smoothly through chord changes in the language of jazz
- Build your own real jazz vocabulary for solos that sound authentic
- Extend your technique to play fluidly in all keys
- Play solos that engage listeners and turn heads
- Weave through chord changes effortlessly
- Speak the language of jazz convincingly
- Always have something ready to say in your solos
Melodic Etudes
Learn how to think like a jazz improviser and build strong solos
- Understand how strong solos are built
- Deconstruct jazz solos so that you can improvise your own
- Start to think like a jazz soloist
- Master jazz standards forms and chord progressions
- Apply jazz vocabulary to standards with confidence
- Tell stories through your improvised solos
Eric Alexander's - 21 Major Key Explorations
Develop real jazz vocabulary using the major scale
- Build solid technique through practicing the exercises
- Improve your sound and phrasing with Eric's audio examples
- Start playing authentic jazz vocabulary in your solos
- Have access to a bank of melodic ideas that work everywhere
- Improve your improvisation and harmonic knowlege
- Use Eric Alexander's practice method for rapid progress
Vincent Herring's - Blues Evolution
Develop improvisation sophistication through simplicity
- Learn Vincent's powerful pentatonic scale applications
- Attain a clear, logical understanding of blues improvisation
- Learn trade secrets from a master of the jazz artform
- Have access to a bank of melodic ideas that work everywhere
- Learn vocabulary that will free up your soloing
- Start improvising with structure and clarity
Adam Larson's - Rhythmic Pyramid
Unlock the power of rhythmic diversity in your playing
- Greatly improve your rhythm and time feel
- Craft more interesting solos using rhythmic diversity
- Stop getting lost in the song form
- Learn simple techniques that transform your playing fast
- Stop playing boring solos that lack direction
Bob Faub's - Classical Saxophone Mastery
World class saxophone instruction without the music school
- Study like a university music major (but easier)
- Build solid saxophone fundamentals for sound and technique
- Learn beautiful compositions perfect for performances
- Expand your overall saxophone knowlege and skill
- Perform pieces with piano accompaniment
- Work with a virtual saxophone quartet
and even more courses to take your saxophone playing to it's highest level ever...
BONUS: Access New Lessons and Courses
New courses and masterclasses on the way from Jay Metcalf, Eric Alexander, Adam Larson, Bob Faub and more.
Upcoming Courses
All new courses are included with your membership
Adam Larson
Coming July 13th
Eric Alexander
Bob Faub
"Provides me what I need to achieve my saxophone goals"
"BetterSax has been instrumental to my improvement as a sax player"
A Saxophone University at Your Fingertips
- 100s of Concise video lessons packed with knowledge
- Topics arranged efficiently to maximize your results
- New video tutorials added every month
- Never run out of material to study
- Track your progress and jump back in where you left off
Play Along and Level Up Faster with Backing Tracks
- 100s of Downloadable tracks that work on any device
- All tempos for easy to challenging practice
- Progressions in all 12 keys
- Jazz, Pop and Soul Standards library
- Audio players inside lessons for easy access
- Demonstration tracks to play along with
PDF Guides That Make Progress Easy
- Beautifully laid out PDFs viewable on all your devices
- Transpositions for all saxophones and concert key
- Stay on track with the video lessons
- Examples written out in all keys
- Downloadable so you can keep them forever
BONUS: The Standards Studio
Learn the most popular jazz and soul standards to build your repertoire.
Normally ($499/year)
- Intensive deep-dives into over 50 jazz standards
- New lessons every month keep you busy and motivated to practice
- Build your song repertoire for performaces
- Learn how to memorize chord progressions so they stay with you long term
- Understand how song forms work and never lose your place again
- Develop advanced bebop soloing techniques with easy to follow guides
- Dozens of additional exercises, etudes and transcriptions to keep you progressing at a fast pace
BONUS: Live Workshops to Ask Questions and Get Feedback
- Join live video calls and get answers to your most important questions directly from Jay
- Guest artists deliver insights not available anywhere else
- Community interaction motivates you to practice more
- Working alongside peers boosts your progress exponentially
We Can Help:
- Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced Saxophone players looking to improve their sound, rhythm, and fundamental sax skills
- Sax players who want to improvise great solos in all popular music styles
- People who have at least 2 hours per week for focused practice
- People who want to learn to play songs by ear and memory
- People who are okay with reading some sheet music and want to learn relevant music theory
We Can't Help:
- Anyone who does not want to practice on a regular basis
- Players of other instruments. (We can help you too, but want to keep this saxophone only)
- Anyone that does not have a working saxophone, mouthpiece, reeds etc.
- People who don't want to read any sheet music or learn any music theory
Trusted by Over 30,000 Enrolled Students
The courses and lessons inside the BetterSax Membership have been enrolled by over 30K satisfied saxophone players over the past 10+ years. This system works so well because it is different on purpose. The traditional way of teaching/learning just doesn’t align with the goals of most people.
Results Guaranteed
I know joining a new program might raise doubts in your mind. That’s why I want to make the decision easier for you. We are so confident that we can get you real results quickly that we will refund your payment within 14-days of your subscription start date if you don’t feel like it’s helped you improve. We only ask you to complete the onboarding and first 3 modules assigned to you. Show us that you have tried and despite your efforts have not improved or learned anything valuable and we will gladly refund 100% of your initial payment.
FAQs
As a young student I practiced a lot more than I do now. But I make more progress today with a lot less practice. I will show you how to do this too.
Here are some practice time guidelines though:
- Play your saxophone every single day unless it is physically impossible.
- Even taking it out for 5 minutes on an extremely busy day will make a huge difference for you. The longer you keep the daily practice streak going, the more of a habit it becomes and the easier it will be to show up regularly on auto-pilot
- If you can manage 45 minutes to an hour per day, together with the BetterSax membership program you will make incredibly fast progress that will probably shock you a bit. This is when things start to feel amazing.
Inside the membership we have a powerful beginners course that is designed for anyone starting out from day 1. You will save so much time and frustration if you get started correctly and avoid the fate of self-taught saxophonists.
My students that started their journey with this program are the people who really excel and progress the fastest. It's because I helped them avoid the very common mistakes everyone else makes and then has to unlearn later on.
So, YES, if you are total beginner you should enroll.
Everyone who plays the saxophone goes through the beginner stage. those that stick with it for a while can start to consider themselves intermediate.
This is the stage where there is seemingly endless material to work on and practice. It can feel overwhelming.
We have an enormous amount of content for intermediate players at every stage and for every musical interest.
I also have a plan to keep you from being overwhelmed by the amount there is to learn.
Intermediate players thrive in the BetterSax membership program so YES, you should definitely enroll.
Absolutely. We have some very strong players inside our membership. Many of them choose to skip over some of the more basic content, which is fine. However, even players who have been playing for decades can learn a ton from a fresh perspective on fundamentals, so I encourage our members to revisit topics they thought they had together just in case. Most of our advanced players love working through courses from Eric Alexander, Vincent Herring, Adam Larson as well as the Standards Studio. We have very strong improvisors who have steadily improved their playing month after month by working through the program.
I know joining a new program might raise doubts in your mind. That's why I want to make the decision easier for you. We are so confident that we can get you real results quickly that we will refund your payment within 14-days of your subscription start date if you don't feel like it's helped you improve. We only ask you to complete the onboarding and first 3 modules assigned to you. Show us that you have tried and despite your efforts have not improved or learned anything valuable and we will gladly refund 100% of your initial payment.
Every saxophone player regardless of their level will find immense value in our program. I have studied 100s of books on saxophone playing and improvisation and learned from some of the top teachers in the world.
All of that knowledge has been combined with my decades of real world playing experience and rearranged for you in a unique and refreshing way.
This program is specifically designed for someone like you who probably did not go to music school and doesn't want to learn in the traditional system.
Yes, you will learn something new, I promise.
Every livestream session is saved inside the membership and all replays can be accessed for binge watching sessions.
You can submit questions in advance to be answered live even if you cannot attend.
The price of BetterSax membership will be going up, but as long as your membership remains active the price you signed up at will not increase. You can lock that in for the life of your subscription.
Special Price Offer
Act now to lock in this discount for the life of your subscription
Each month your membership becomes more valuable as more content is added. If you enroll today, you will lock in a reduced price and also get access to the BetterSax Standards Studio which includes:
- Deep-dives into the most popular jazz, pop and soul standard tunes
- Advanced improvisation training
- Chord progression "Building Blocks" method
- Exercises, etudes and transcriptions to keep you progressing at a fast pace
Very Limited Seats Left at this Price
Our price will increase when these spots are taken
Monthly
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Huge Course Library
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New Lessons Every Month
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Live Workshops
-
Exclusive Saxophone Community
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BONUS: Standards Studio
Annual
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2 Months Free
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Huge Course Library
-
New Lessons Every Month
-
Live Workshops
-
Exclusive Saxophone Community
-
BONUS: Standards Studio