Product Description

Step by step pictures take you from first day exercises to playing along with a backing track.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #15223 in Books
• Published on: 1999-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 48 pages

Customer Reviews

A clear, intuitive intro for absolute beginners to alto sax
I thoroughly enjoyed this excellent guide. I've learned how to sight read, and to play simple alto sax melodies, far more easily than I expected.

The book follows the common theme of a gradual introduction to each of the notes and fingering on your sax, with simple notes and patterns, progressing to simple melodies (some of which require a challenging fleetness of finger!). For each of these stages, the CD (included) demonstrates the saxophone part, complete with other instruments for your "backing group", and is then followed by just the backing for you to play along with. I found this method worked very well, and of course the tonal quality of the CD won't deteriorate or get "out of tune" over time as a cassette is likely to do.

The author shows us the absolute basics - from the components of the sax, through setting it up and the correct posture, to breathing technique and tounging. There are plenty of helpful photos, and many handy hints throughout the book. All the natural notes, covering two octaves, plus rests, key signatures, rhythm and the accidentals are introduced smoothly. A sax fingering guide is included for checking up on the more "advanced" notes. The author understands how to communicate the basics very clearly. It's fair to say though that no book can totally replace a real-life teacher - someone ought to check up on you occasionally to make sure you've interpreted the book right!

The format is slightly bigger than A4 in each dimension, and conveniently opens and remains flat when you're playing your sax, despite its staple-only binding. The disk can be used as a CD-ROM in your computer (but it's not compulsory!), and has links to a couple of Internet suppliers of purchasable sheet music. I was slightly disappointed that there wasn't a site provided by either the publisher or the author from which to download some more musical scores for free (as a service to their book-purchasing customers). This, however, is a minor niggle. There's a "further reading" section at the end of the book.

Overall, I think this book succeeds brilliantly as an "absolute beginners" guide. I found the combination of clarity, intuitiveness and the backing tracks made me want to press on, engage with the music, and experiment; it's been quite inspirational. It has been my springboard to more complex music, yet I still refer to it now for reminders and clarification. This guide is an excellent place to kick off your saxophony!

A great beginners book
This book is a must for anyone who is starting out on the Saxophone. It has very clear instruction and lessons with interesting melodies to practise. The CD is a great help an I have found learning so far to be very enjoyable. I have progressed very quickly and think this book is a very good place to start.

Over-padded, sparsely arranged book with a synth heavy but well-produced CD.
I'm sorry to rain on the parade for all of you who have been excessively praising this book, but I have to say that in agreeance with both my tutor and other saxophone players I have spoken to - this is one of the worst saxophone books out there.

For anyone who has also decided to study music theory along with playing the saxophone, then this book will be almost entirely a waste of time for you. There are some excellent little tunes that sound quite nice when you're playing along to them with the compact disk, but in essence the book wastes many pages with excessive use of pictures.

My tutor was agast when he saw the use of 3 pages showing "famous saxophonists"; 3 of which I had no idea even used a saxophone! Upon further reasearch I found they had rudimentary understanding of the saxophone and nothing more than moderato 3-note backing in the majority of their contributions.

The book itself has a very strange format too. When I started the book after having tuition, I was already 3/4 of the way through it and already critical of it's approach in many aspects.

The layout of the book is quite nice, but unfortunately very sparse. The font size is astronomically large, which further appends to the notion that this book's manuscript was quite possibly 10 pages long before publication.

It's descriptions are somewhat vague and unfortunately lacking when it comes to introducing new musical notation. For instance, when the musical notation for repetition occurs (:), the book doesn't quite explain it properly. This follows on, too, to the fact that a lot of the stuff in the book doesn't seem quite "there".

Something which I learnt on the first saxophone tutorial I had was that the development of the embouchure allows you to progress to play notes with more (timbral) control, and that there are some notes which are somewhat inaccessible until the embouchure has developed.

I lifted an eyebrow when the book asked you to learn to practice a C major scale before G or F. This has been derided by those I have shown the book to; the low note can't quite be held correctly by beginners until more embouchure control has developed, yet this book suggests it be practiced before the more accessible scales.

Luckily, when I bought this book, I thought ahead and bought a book of scales and arpeggios and acquired a book with an older method of learning the saxophone.

I would recommend that unless you are buying this for a child younger than ten, you should seek out a book which focuses on a more traditional method of learning the saxophone or music in general; namely scales, arpeggios and the curriculum specified by the Royal School of Music.

It has a logical and progressive syllabus, and will provide you with a much more solid foundation from which you can build your saxophone skills.