How do you form an embouchure for the saxophone? As with all the other wind instruments, thousands of pages, diagrams, and drawings have been offered forth, detailing every minute action that needs to occur before a single breath enters the instrument. Actually, forming an embouchure is a fairly simple act, certainly simpler than forming an embouchure for the flute. Here’s why.
On a saxophone or clarinet, the mouthpiece and reed serve as the sound producing mechanism. On the flute, the lips, in combination with the embouchure hole (specifically the back wall of the lip plate) produce the tone. The accompanying photos of my grizzled personage, along with shots of my students with a good deal less wear and tear show a rather simple approach of embouchure formation. Often I ask my students to tell me in simple terms how to form an embouchure. We pretend that they are the teacher and I am a nine-year-old student with severe attention deficit disorder, and they must tell me quickly, simply, and in a manner that will capture my limited attention span what they are doing. This keeps them away from long, scholarly explanations, using terms like “the soft palate” and “musculature.”
What we find is this; open your mouth, put the mouthpiece in, close your mouth, blow. As the mouthpiece enters, perhaps a small amount of the lower lip is caught on the reed and is slightly drawn over the lower teeth. Remember, as mentioned in the paragraph on mouthpiece angle, to find a position where maximum air can enter the instrument. Often, in search of this proper angle I will have students mimic the postures of David Sanborn, extremely high, to Dexter Gordon, very low.
Your goal in embouchure formation should to allow for maximum vibration of the reed, then shaping this vibration using your oral cavity position. Close your lips around the mouthpiece, at first producing a spread, often bright sound, then proceed to the exercises below to gently reign in this beast you’ve created. Why not start with maximum sound, with a full rich spectrum of frequencies present, and shave off those sounds not needed, rather than clamp down on the reed, stifling it’s vibration, producing a weak, anemic tone? Your tongue position is key; your embouchure just keeps you from drooling down your chin.
Below are some concepts and exercises loosely based on those of Joe Allard. Often, students don’t need to delve heavily into the embouchure-based Allard ideas; I primarily use them when problems arise from too much embouchure tension.