Minimum Saxophone Technical Proficiency

Minimum Saxophone Technical Proficiency

A saxophonist may be said to have good technique when he plays with a beautiful sound regardless of the circumstance. This is the qualitative measure. All other considerations such as rhythmic accuracy and evenness, pitch and intonation accuracy, velocity, range, dynamics, variety of articulation, etc., are quantitative measures. A saxophonist may play with an agreeable tone and still sound bad. This is because a good tone, while a beginning, isn’t enough. In addition to timbre, the performer must meet some minimal quantitative standards before a qualitative judgment can be rendered. Which quantitative goals are essential? Given a good tone, the following:

1. Rhythmic accuracy and evenness

2. Pitch accuracy and intonation

If you can consistently generate a good tone, on one pitch, when you want, stable and in tune, then you have good technique. Expanding your technique then becomes a matter of transferring this skill to every other note, in any order, in any range, with any articulation, at any velocity or dynamic with or without vibrato. This takes time, discipline and patience. The Course of Study and the Saxophone Technical Proficiency chart in this handbook are the first drops in a lifetime of work spent building and replenishing a reservoir of good technique. They are outlines and therefore represent the bare minimum. By meeting the standards represented in the Saxophone Technical Proficiency chart you are achieving the average–a grade of C. Many of your peers in this region and around the nation, with whom you will compete for jobs, will have more technique; some will have less. You were admitted to the Saxophone Program at the University of Alabama with the belief that you would perform better than average. It’s your life, your career, and your choice.

All of the tempo indications in the Saxophone Technical Proficiency chart below represent the quarter-note pulse while executing the chosen scale, scale-study or arpeggio in sixteenth-notes. Arpeggios will be executed in triplet subdivisions in addition to sixteenth-note subdivisions of the count. It is assumed that in a natural progression toward achieving these goals the student will practice all scales and scale studies at the level of the eighth-note and eighth-note triplet and, therefore be able to execute equally well on demand these subdivisions.

Level/ Semester	Major Scales	Minor Scales
Level 1	100	80		3rds on Major Scales
Level 2	120	92		60	3rds on Harmonic minor Scales		4ths on Major and Harmonic minor Scales
Level 3	126	112		80	72		60
Level 4	132	120		92	80		72		5ths on Major and Harmonic minor Scales
Level 5	138	132		108	108		92		60
Level 6	144	138		116	116		108		72
Level 7	152	152		132	132		120		92
Level 8	160	160		138	138		126		100
Level 9	168	168		144	144		132		104
Level 10	176	176		152	152		138		108
Level 11	184	184		160	160		144		112
Level 12	192	192		168	168		152		116
etceteras
Arpeggios in triplets and sixteenths for each level in major and minor
Overtone Studies			Altissimo scales			Pitch Studies:		Unisons and octaves to a sounding source Perfect 4ths and 5ths to a sounding source Arpeggios to a sounding source

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