Question:
Using "Top Tones for Saxophone"
Hey, i recently purchased this amazing book I love it. It's exactly what I want and all but i'm confused on some of the stuff.
Obviously if you own or have used this book I'm looking for you to answer these questions for me.
...I play Tenor Saxophone - Yamaha YTS52 with a Brilhart Level-Air Mouthpiece.
ok first question - What does 8va and 8 mean? it's normally like above a group of notes or something and i have no idea what it means. if you could explain that, that would be great.
second question - on the fingering chart he has fingerings for a top line F# chromatically all the way up to the Ledger line F before it goes into the altissimo range. well, why are those fingerings so different? i try them and i get the fourths i believe. what is the purpose of those fingerings?
third question - in the natural overtone excercises when it has like a:
:lowbd: ______________
underneath the measure does that mean i have to slur up to the octave and then to the 5th? or do i do one at a time? it says that line means i keep that fingering throughout but do i slur or do i not slur it?
fourth question - Basically for anyone who uses or has used this book -
What is/was your daily excersise with it? i just go from the chromatic "half-note, half-note, whole-note" excersise right through that to the tone imagination, through that to the "hidden 5th" excersise and eventually the natural overtone stuff. that is around 20 minutes b/c i do it at a slow tempo as i figure i should. now is there anything else i should do or do more of?
fifth question - I'm having trouble getting the double octave out in the natural overtones section of excersises i.e. fingering low Bb and going to the middle Bb, and then i can't get the High Bb out. is there a trick to it and/or an excersise in the book i should go back to?
sixth question - back to the fingering chart - it says for 2 of the notes to use in the right hand the "E Key". now i looked that up and it was the top side key. the key you use to get the High Natural E out. but the dilemma i'm having is that he says for other notes "Top Side Key". now is that the same key with an inconsistency in the book or just 2 totally different keys?
seventh question - Could someone kinda explain the whole overtone series or whatever that is that is in the book as a reference. are those the only possible notes that can be played or something? and i just don't understand it. an explanation of that would be awesome.
That's all i can come up with now but i think that's enough.
please take the time to answer those questions. i can't tell you how much i'd appreciate it. Thank you very very much!

Answer:
ok first question - What does 8va and 8 mean? it's normally like above a group of notes or something and i have no idea what it means. if you could explain that, that would be great. 8va means go up an octave from the given note (eg if the 8va is above a high G, it would mean to play an octave above that, the altissimo G).
Sorry, that's all I know, and I don't have the book. Good luck with it though.

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Originally Posted by Grey 8va means go up an octave from the given note (eg if the 8va is above a high G, it would mean to play an octave above that, the altissimo G).
Sorry, that's all I know, and I don't have the book. Good luck with it though.
so when it has an 8va above an altissimo G then it's just a really really high note. and i guess to lesson confusion they do that instead of the millions of ledger lines. thank you

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Remember also that 8va Alta means the same thing, and 8va Bassa means that the passage is to be played an octave below what is written.

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Originally Posted by Razzy Remember also that 8va Alta means the same thing, and 8va Bassa means that the passage is to be played an octave below what is written.
way to answer my other question.....ha it's ok

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In response to question seven: 'Can anyone explain overtones...'

Check out the SaxShed coverage at .

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Originally Posted by Robenco15 sixth question - back to the fingering chart - it says for 2 of the notes to use in the right hand the "E Key". now i looked that up and it was the top side key. the key you use to get the High Natural E out. but the dilemma i'm having is that he says for other notes "Top Side Key". now is that the same key with an inconsistency in the book or just 2 totally different keys?
I don't own this book (yet) but I think this site can help:
on the site they have an explnation of all the names of all keys.
By the way, the E key is the top one of the side keys of your right hand.
Hope I helped.

Answer:
This book has been on my music stand for the past 8 years and it's the best pedagogical resource I have ever owned.
In answer to all of your questions, I have a question to pose to you, the original poster: How long have you been working out of this text?
The reason I ask is that this text is something that saxophonists should spend every day working on throughout their playing careers. Mr. Rascher (and his students) promote this.
Be sure to read through the text portions before playing any of the exercises. In some cases, I had to re-read sections because I didn't understand at the time where Mr. Rascher was coming from. Tone imagination should be done everyday. This is to ensure our success in not only the altissimo register, but also in playing tones within the "standard" range of the instrument. The tone color exercises are also good to use for a period of time (I use them as long-tone warm-ups). The overtone studies should also be done everyday, but I wouldn't spend an hour a day working on them. 10-15 minutes is plenty of time, but it must be done daily to see results.
I would not even attempt the altissimo fingerings or the overtone scales at the back of the text until you are comfortable with the exercises in the beginning of the book first. It might take a few months, but don't get discouraged. Once you've mastered the beginning exercises the later ones will come rather quickly when you start working on them.
Now, for your other questions: the low tones (Bb, B, C, C#, D) with the line extending from them indicates the tone you are to finger and play the overtones given above it. Mr. Rascher clearly indicates this in the text. If particular harmonics are not speaking, keep practicing the exercises until it does come out. The 4th harmonic in particular can be a little tricky.
Don't neglect the dynamic exercises either. They are just as valuable as the overtone studies.
Hope this helps.

Answer:
I've been playing out of it religiously for the past 3 days of practice(that's as long as i've had it). so 3 hours.
probably a combined 2 hours worth of practice out of it. that other hour was District Piece, Bach stuff, Ferling, etc.
I start with the chromatic half note half note whole note excersise at 80 beats per minute. then i move into the tone imagination exercises and do those at 80 beats per minutes. then i do the "hidden fifth" excersise at 40 beats per minute as it says. that is around 25ish minutes of warming up. then i go to the overtones and keep going measure by measure until i get stuck. and then when i get stuck i keep at it and if i can't get it out i move on to other stuff and go back to it next time i practice.
that routine will change a little in the way that i'm going to practice those overtones as longtones and spend more time on it than i do already.
i read everthing before the excersise all the time.
what do you suggest i do with the dynamic excersises? he sorta gives 3 notes and the just says "etc." and i don't know exactly what to do with that.
what's your daily routine with the book?

Answer:
My daily routine usually involves playing the "Uniformity of Tone Color" exercise (I usually do it at 60 beats/minute, but's that's just my choice). I also do the crescendo/decrescendo exercises on each tone of the instrument within the normal range. The terrace dynamic exercise should be done at first on only one tone until it is comfortable. Then practice it on the other tones. Then overtone exercises (some from the book, others that I've created for myself), and finally the fingering exercises given later (again, some using Mr. Rascher's fingerings, others using my own). In all, I spend probably about 15-20 minutes total working out of this book every day. This seems to be the best approach for me.

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By the way I think that the term 8va etc came originally from organ stops and the size of the pipes. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

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I'll try to answer your questions specifically, then I might pontificate a little bit. Originally Posted by Robenco15 second question - on the fingering chart he has fingerings for a top line F# chromatically all the way up to the Ledger line F before it goes into the altissimo range. well, why are those fingerings so different? i try them and i get the fourths i believe. what is the purpose of those fingerings?
You probably already guessed this, since you now know what "8va" means, but those are all altissimo fingerings. That top line F# is really the first F# above the staff.

Originally Posted by Robenco15 third question - in the natural overtone excercises when it has like a:
:lowbd: ______________

underneath the measure does that mean i have to slur up to the octave and then to the 5th? or do i do one at a time? it says that line means i keep that fingering throughout but do i slur or do i not slur it?
Like BKauth already said, just finger that low Bb, B, C, C#, or D throughout that "measure," while creating the pitches shown by the whole notes.

These "lip slurs" are the same as with brass instruments. When they warm up: :space3: :line2: :space3: :space4: :space3: :space4: :space5: :space4: :space3: :line2: :line1: :line0: etc., they're doing the same thing Rascher's asking us to do. They're fingering a really low C, which I believe is two octaves below the C just below the staff (:line0: 15vb), and then constantly eliminating a few overtones (most trumpet players are unable to play that low) and doing lip slurs just as Rascher's described.

I feel the need to point out, also, that you're not going up an octave and then to the 5th, and so on. If you're fingering the :line0: , for example, the :space3: is the 8th (or octave), but then the :space5: isn't a 5th but rather the 12th. The high C above that is the 15th, then the high E is the 17th, the altissimo G is the 19th, and so on. The intervals for the pitches should be given in reference to that low C.

Another way to think of them is in terms of the number overtone they are, like Rascher describes on the bottom of page 11. That is, the :space3: is the second tone, the :space5: is the third tone, the high C is the fourth tone, and so on.

Originally Posted by Robenco15 fourth question - Basically for anyone who uses or has used this book -

What is/was your daily excersise with it? i just go from the chromatic "half-note, half-note, whole-note" excersise right through that to the tone imagination, through that to the "hidden 5th" excersise and eventually the natural overtone stuff. that is around 20 minutes b/c i do it at a slow tempo as i figure i should. now is there anything else i should do or do more of?
I've owned this book for something like 7 years now, but to be honest I hardly ever use it. When I got it, I'd already been playing long tones, overtone excercises, altissimo, and all that for some time, using stuff my teacher wrote out, the Larry Teal book, and a few other things. But that's kind of beside the point. "First you get to really know the rules - then you know which ones you can break," as one of my professors often says.

The routine you posted is missing the two most important exercises listed in the entire book. Don't skip over the "sustained tones" and "terrace dynamics" exercises. They're extremely important, as any good saxophonist will tell you, in that they develop both your ear and your embouchure. They do look really easy, but in actuality they're harder than anything else he's asking you to do, and will help more than anything else he's asking you to do. Even professionals practice their long tones, and you can always tell when another player has been neglecting his.

When you play a sustained tone, nothing can change. It has to be the exact same volume, the exact same pitch, have the exact same tone quality... The pitch has to be in tune... And just like he wrote, you have to be able to do this at ppp as well as fff. It ain't easy.

The "terrace dynamics" exercise is really just an extension of the sustained tones, and it's still very difficult. All those little pictures he drew underneath it properly show what he wants you to do.

For both exercises, it doesn't really matter what order you play the pitches in, so long as you hit them all. When I was first starting out, my teacher would have me start on a middle C and work down chromatically to a low Bb, then play that same middle C and work up chromatically to a high F#.

Originally Posted by Robenco15 fifth question - I'm having trouble getting the double octave out in the natural overtones section of excersises i.e. fingering low Bb and going to the middle Bb, and then i can't get the High Bb out. is there a trick to it and/or an excersise in the book i should go back to?
Well...

Try singing the pitch before you play it. Sing a high Bb without the horn in your mouth, then put it in your mouth, set your embouchure, finger a low Bb, and blow.

If that doesn't work, try playing a high Bb with a normal fingering, then without changing your embouchure, switch to a low Bb fingering and try to play the same pitch. Just like long tones, this ain't easy. It takes a while to get a hang of.

Can you get the F (the 12th) out alright?

How well does it work when playing with the B's and F#, or the C's and G?

Just work at it, and it'll come.

Originally Posted by Robenco15 sixth question - back to the fingering chart - it says for 2 of the notes to use in the right hand the "E Key". now i looked that up and it was the top side key. the key you use to get the High Natural E out. but the dilemma i'm having is that he says for other notes "Top Side Key". now is that the same key with an inconsistency in the book or just 2 totally different keys?
Chalk it up to sloppy editing. "Top side key" = "E key."

It's a lousy fingering chart, anyways. When you're ready - and you're not ready - go for a much more comprehensive fingering chart.

Originally Posted by Robenco15 seventh question - Could someone kinda explain the whole overtone series or whatever that is that is in the book as a reference. are those the only possible notes that can be played or something? and i just don't understand it. an explanation of that would be awesome.
Yes, they're the only notes that can be played - actually, they're always played. When you play a low Bb, for instance, you're not just playing a low Bb. The low Bb is just what's called a "fundamental tone." You're actually playing a chord, consisting of that low Bb, then the Bb on the staff, the F above that, the Bb above that, the D above that, the F above that, and so on - a whole series of overtones. When you do a lip slur, playing the Bb on the staff while fingering a low Bb, what you're doing is eliminating the lowest note of the chord by making it impossible for your instrument to create that frequency, and so the Bb on the staff becomes the lowest frequency your instrument is creating, and that is the pitch you hear.

[disclaimer - I'm fairly certain about everything in the next paragraph, but I'm not as sure as everything else I've written and will write. Don't wholeheartedly believe]

When we describe a sound as "bright" or "dark" or "thin" or "full," we're referring (oftentimes without realizing it) to the horn/mouthpiece/player's treatment of overtones. While the lowest frequency will always be the loudest, it is still possible to make some overtones louder than the others. "Dark" sounds have loud lower overtones, and "bright" sounds have loud higher overtones. "Full" sounds (eg. Joshua Redman's big, fat sound) have lots of loud overtones, and "thin" sounds (eg. Kenny G's dentist's-drill sound) have only a few loud overtones. Every portion of our instruments - our throats, our reeds, our mouthpieces, our necks, our finishes, etc - encourages the reverberation of some frequencies more than others, and that's how they contribute to our sound.

[/disclaimered portion]

Originally Posted by Robenco15 he sorta gives 3 notes and the just says "etc." and i don't know exactly what to do with that.
When writers do that to their lesson books, the "etc." means to continue with the exercise with the pattern they've already established. You'll see this a lot once you start working in jazz pattern and theory books, like Dave Baker's Bebop books. In the case of the sustained tones exercises, the pitches seem kinda random. Just hit all the pitches... Do chromatic scales, or a circle of fifths, or the two whole tone scales, or something of that sort. Actually, chromatic scales are probably the best.

Answer:
wow. that was perfect.
that was exactly what i was looking for. thanks a lot man. that helps sooo much.
awesome.
and do answer your one question -
i have no problem getting the 12th out for the low Bb,B,C,C#, or D. i just have trouble with the 15ths.
Thank you so much again.

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RickBusarow,
Very informative and helpful reply. Welcome to the forum!

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I'm glad I could help, and I'm glad to be here. :)