Saxophone technique consists of the physical actions required to play the instrument – a simple definition, but this is nevertheless a very wide and often daunting subject, both because of the large number of actions and parts of the body used in playing, and because of the bewildering variety of styles and idioms in which the chameleon-like saxophone family of instruments is used. However, I believe that it is possible to identify a few important common fundamental principles, and that observations can be made with regard to saxophone technique which are widely applicable throughout the members of the saxophone family and across all styles of playing.

A framework of approach: breaking music down and using models

Instrumental technique does not exist in a vacuum. Rather, it is one aspect of musical performance; others include phrasing, interpretation within an historical and stylistic context, and of course sheer flair for communicating with listeners. It is a cliché that music is like a language, yet the analogy is a useful one. Like music, spoken language has both spoken and written forms; it can express ideas ranging from banal to profound, can be used either improvisationally or in set forms such as poems, stories, plays, novels or speeches, and there is a performance aspect to speech which we see most obviously in actors. In speech the simplest unit is the word, enunciated by a variety of vocal and oral actions. Words are connected by conventions of grammar into meaningful arrangements (phrases, sentences, paragraphs) which communicate ideas, large or small, of a practical or artistic nature.