Embouchure
Step 1: Relax Your Face
Before you even start forming your embouchure, take a moment to relax your face and jaw. Tension can make it difficult to produce a good sound.
Step 2: Lip Placement
Place your top teeth on the top of the mouthpiece. Your lower lip should rest on the reed, covering about 1/4 to 1/3 of it. The reed is the thin piece of wood attached to the mouthpiece.
Step 3: Form Your Embouchure
1. With your lips in position, draw your corners of the mouth slightly back and in, as if you are smiling slightly. This helps to create the necessary tension for playing.
2. Imagine saying the letter "E" but with your lips relaxed against the mouthpiece.
3. Use your facial muscles to gently apply pressure to the reed, creating a seal between your lips and the mouthpiece. You should feel a slight resistance as the reed presses against your lower lip.
Step 4: Experiment
Experiment with the angle of the mouthpiece on your lower lip. Slightly increasing or decreasing it can affect the tone and ease of playing. Finding the right spot may take some trial and error.
Additionally, it will take time to learn what embouchure is correct. Your embouchure should slightly change with each type of note you play
(Higher Note = Tighter, Lower Note = More Relaxed
Tone
The hard part of learning the saxophone is not how to make a sound but how to play in tune. For beginners it is hard to play in key meaning if you play a note such as D, you might end up playing F on accident.
I recommend playing alongside a tuner and playing long tones. Long tones are essentially playing a note and holding it out as long as your can. While playing it, it is imperative that you check your tuner to make sure that you are playing in tune and that you aren't flat or sharp. I personally use SoundCorset on the App Store.
If you are too flat, you must increase pressure in your embouchure and if you are too sharp, you must decrease the applied pressure.
It is a long, tedious, and boring process when it comes to learning the instrument, but it is fundamental. I understand that you may not have enough time to practice but everyday practice is very helpful. Try to allocate at least 10 minutes a day.
Blowing and Air
When we blow into our saxophones we want to make sure that our air is coming from the stomach and not the chest. Whenever you take in a deep breath your shoulders should not rise. Instead your stomach should inflate (just like a balloon!). When you exhale, your "balloon" should be deflating and your shoulders should not want to fall.
Additionally, since your embouchure muscles haven't strengthened, it will be very tempting to puff out your cheeks. You do not want to do that. I like to think of it as a balloon (woah, again?!). When you inflate a balloon, it is harder to do so with puffed out cheeks in comparison to using your facial muscles.
Choosing A Reed
For beginners I recommend purchasing both a reed with a strength of 1.5 and 2.0 and experimenting to see which reed is easier to play. As your embouchure muscles strengthen overtime, you will need to switch to stronger reeds (e.g 2.0, 2.5, etc)
Note: Every time you play on a new reed, it will be harder to produce sound because it hasn't been "broken in" yet, meaning that the inside of the reed hasn't absorbed water. It just needs to be played on more to allow it to be easily played. I suggest playing loudly to "break it in" faster.
(If the reed is "broken in", it will be easier to vibrate, which is why it is easier to play)
