How hard is it to learn saxophone? My dream would be to play bari, but for now I'm gonna get a cheap as fuck alto to learn on.
If Mike Love can play it im sure you can
>>73343714
Thanks for inspiration
i only tried once but that shit was hard as fuck, all about breath pressure
>>73343675
It's literally just a giant recorder. There are six buttons for 6 of the 7 main musical notes. It's easy as hell, you could literally learn it in about a half hour.
t. Alto sax player
>>73343675
It took me about 4 or 5 hours to get down how to blow properly. The rest is remembering fingering patterns.
>>73344020
Any cheap altos you could recommend?
>>73343675
Go for it dude. Been teaching myself flute. As this anon >>73344027 said, it's mostly learning the fingerings. And developing lung capacity, I guess, but that's not something you can force. Just stop practising when you get light-headed.
How similar is it to playing trumpet? My brother has an old one laying around and I was wondering if the breathing techniques are the same.
every wind instrument takes years of dedication to have a mature sound and play decently, but sax is probably the easiest to play overall. Definitely go for it. Just focus on proper embouchure, air support, scales, and long-tones. It's a long process, but it's actually really fun if you put in the work
>>73345411
Breathing techniques, air support, and musical phrasing are all the same, just takes a lot more air to play brass instruments. Basically everything else is different though
>>73343675
Hardest part is learning how to adjust your mouth/lips/tongue to get a smooth sound out without squeaking or honking everywhere.
Google "embouchure"
if i could play sax i would just walk around everywhere playing baker street
>>73345411
>>73346059
Edit: Apparently my mom has a clarinet I could practice on. This would probably be pretty similar to sax no?
>>73346823
Anyway to practice this without having the instrument yet?
>>73347491
am clarinet player that picked up alto later
clarinet is much more strict with embouchure (reeds tend to squeak more for beginners with bad embouchure), breath control (softer reeds on clarinet sound worse than soft reeds on sax) and fingering (like rolling and stuff, cause sax has pads, while you use your fingers to cover clarinet holes.
But basic embouchure techniques can be transfered over easily with small changes (sax has vibrato, which as a clarinet player is weird at first but a lot of fun when you get it)
Basic fingering pattersn is actually quite similar, but easier on sax. middle register on clarinet (middle D to high C is exactly the same on sax, and low E to G on clar is parallel to low Bb to middle C# on alto)
Again, sax is easier more rewarding for beginners but a lot of clarinet can be transfered easily, and then you'll know how to play two instruments