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Summary: Play an alto saxophone with a metronome to help find pitch; learn how from our expert sax teacher and player in this free sax video music lesson.
Views: 6,226 | Tags: jazz, play, instructional, player, saxophone, sax, reed, alto
About the Expert
Leslie Burnick Leslie Burnick graduated from Auburn University in Alabama with a degree in music education. She has studied with Anthony Gigliotti, former principal clarinet... read more
Hi! My name is Leslie Burnick and I’m speaking on behalf of Expertvillage.com. Today I’m going to talk about some other accessories that you may wish to purchase to be playing along with your saxophone. Some of these are generally, as you become more advanced, different things you are going to want. One thing you may want to get is a metronome. Now this is the old fashioned kind that you may have seen on your grandmother’s piano, this would be, would work like this and depending on the speed metronomes are used often when you are practicing, a lot of music has an indication of how fast something should be played. So you can set it at different tempos. One of the more modern versions of the metronome is electronic, you would just turn this on, and can you can set the tempo this way, to whatever tempo you want to be practicing to. Although the saxophone does come tuned to itself, eventually you may want to buy your own personal tuner. Which you would just you can turn it on, and tune directly to the instrument or you can listen to the sound and try to match that and make sure you play in unison and you can match whatever tone you are going to be playing. Again it is recommended that you get a strap with some kind of padding, again the strap that does come with your saxophone is generally not too comfortable, this one is not that thick either, but it is comfortable than just a plain nylon strap. So they do have it with all different types of padding whatever you would want. Of course you’ll need to swab, your sax may come with a swab but you may want to get a nicer one. The silk ones do work well. You may want to get a little reed case, this one holds two reeds, but some of them hold four or more, just an easy way to carry your reeds. It may help to get a screwdriver, one that again you will able to see on your saxophone the size of the screw-heads to know about the right size to get. It is just a good idea even though the sax screws don’t tend to loosen up too much, it’s just a nice thing to have. So these are some of accessories that you may want to purchase as you become more advanced.