Bari Sax Improvement

[SOTSDO]

Even so...

We've got a whole league that drives to Houston all the way from Beaumont TX, a little more than an hour away. (They had a rink over there when they had their minor league team, but once the team left, so did the rink.)

When I lived in New Orleans for six months during my agency's (OSHA) hurricane recovery program), I drove a similar distance to Lafayette LA two nights a week. But, then again there wasn't much to do in New Orleans after 5:00 PM (and not very much before that time).

Not pleasant, but when you've got it in your blood, you make it happen.

When we buy a new car, I always take an empty baritone case to the dealership to check on the fit in the vehicle. My son does the same thing, only he takes his hockey bag.

 

[JCINMA]

Even so...

We've got a whole league that drives to Houston all the way from Beaumont TX, a little more than an hour away. (They had a rink over there when they had their minor league team, but once the team left, so did the rink.)

When I lived in New Orleans for six months during my agency's (OSHA) hurricane recovery program), I drove a similar distance to Lafayette LA two nights a week. But, then again there wasn't much to do in New Orleans after 5:00 PM (and not very much before that time).

Not pleasant, but when you've got it in your blood, you make it happen.

When we buy a new car, I always take an empty baritone case to the dealership to check on the fit in the vehicle. My son does the same thing, only he takes his hockey bag.

I used to live in Baton Rouge, and I was at a hockey camp at that ice rink in Lafayette.

I really do have to find the time to get into hockey again (and do all my homework, and hang out with my youth group, and go rock climbing, and go backpacking...). Yeah, I like to do a lot of stuff.

 

[pete]

I curl baritone saxophones in cases. Keeps me buff.

Now, if you were going curling WITH a bari sax, that might be something the Canadian folks on this forum could get into ....

 

[JCINMA]

I curl baritone saxophones in cases. Keeps me buff.

Now, if you were going curling WITH a bari sax, that might be something the Canadian folks on this forum could get into ....

I think that if held correctly, you could use a bari sax as a hockey stick...

Just a thought.

 

[Helen]

Going back to your original question about “going over the break”, I have another exercise that I had completely forgotten about until last night when I used it as a finger warm-up before our show. This particular exercise starts on G1 and goes up to D2 and back down again and works on 2 things: 1) On that tricky C to D transition, and 2) Left ring finger speed & fluidity.

Here’s how to do the exercise: Start on G, get a solid sound, once you do, move to the A, then to the B, then the C, and so on. Make sure you don't move to the next note until you’ve got a good, solid sound on the note you’re on. Ideally you shouldn’t have to take a breath during either the ascending or descending portion of this. If you do have to take a breath, make sure you do it before the ascending C, so you don't have to breathe before you have to transition to the trickier D.

Once you’ve mastered the going over the break, then you can use the exercise to develop the dexterity of your left ring finger—the finger that is the hardest to move fast. I start this exercise slowly at first, and build up my speed until I’m going at break neck speed within a few up and down reps. I do this as a left hand warm-up before shows.

So your notes for the exercise look like this:

And again, and again, and again, and again, and again... And so on....

Does this make sense to you? I’m suffering from lack of sleep today, so I’m perhaps no expressing myself as clearly as I might otherwise. If you’re got any questions, or you’re not sure what I meant by something, please ask.

Try this not only on bari, but do it on all the saxes you play. It will work wonders on breathing and technical techniques. Really it will!

 

[pete]

... and, as a comment, do it with an electronic tuner.

 

[jbtsax]

Playing a clarinet (with a narrower bore) while burping immediately puts the horn flat. The effect of the heavier than air laden with CO2 (which is heavier than normal "air" apparently damps things down for a while. The effect goes away in a few seconds, so the burst of CO2 loaded "air" is moving somewhere during that period. The effect is easy enough to test, and you can do it without smoking...

The mental picture of someone burping and playing a clarinet at the same time is priceless, but it doesn't prove that the air goes through the instrument at any appreciable rate. The drop in pitch is due to the reduced speed of sound in the upper end of the instrument which is caused by the elevated level of CO2. The speed of sound in the warm moist air of an instrument is approximately 345 m/s while the speed of sound in pure CO2 is 259m/s

The formula is Frequency = speed of sound/wavelength. The speed of sound is also influenced by the temperature. Sound moves faster in warm air than in cold, hence instruments play flat when they are cold and go sharp when they are warm. The opposite unfortunately is true with stringed instruments making orchestral tuning a challenge in halls where the temperature fluctuates.

If one takes a "hit" from a helium filled balloon and then plays their instrument the resulting tones are about a minor third higher than the note usually sounds.

http://jbtsaxmusic.homestead.com/Heliumexperiment.html

 

[pete]

There ya go, folks! A way to get that high pitch horn in tune! Be sure to try sodium hexafluoride, too!



As a more serious note, you may have seen or heard warnings about not putting a helium-filled balloon over your head and/or don't take helium hits off the container. The reason for this is that you're replacing the oxygen in your lungs with helium. At best, you'll probably pass out. At worst, you'll die.

 

[SOTSDO]

Most "commercial" helium is cut with substantial amounts of oxygen to guard against that very eventuality. Only laboratory grade and industrial grade gas is substantially pure.

To show you how dangerous playing around with concentrated gasses can be, I offer the following tale:

Once, I found an insulated box out in the hall near my office. Checking it out, I found that the Styrofoam container had within it a sizable block of dry ice - frozen carbon dioxide. Apparently, someone had received some steaks through the mail, and had dumped the shipping container.

Being of a playful, innocent nature, I took the container home. Dry ice is fun to play with, and I thought that the boy would make some hay out of it.

I took the container in the house, set it down in front of the fireplace, and went about other business for a while. Then, I returned to the container, lifted the lid, and moved down close to the top so I could see the top of the block within, hoping to view the famous sublimation process up close and personal.

Due to the higher level of CO2 in the air immediately above the container, I passed out briefly, falling to the one side. Had I fallen straight, face down into the container, my wife and son would have returned home in an hour and a half to find a corpse with a pre-refrigerated face.

Once I came to, and figured out what had happened, I went into the kitchen with the container, held the ice up with tongs under the hood to let the fan suck the transmogrifying solid to gas CO2 out of the way, and did my examining there. You can actually see the solid evaporating off of the surface of the ice.

It was nice to know, but I'm pretty sure that dying while seeking that knowledge would have been a poor tradeoff. And, you would think that a forty year veteran of OSHA would have foresaw that happening. Well, I didn't...