Informative Essay

I am going to teach you a little bit about the alto saxophone. We will start off with the components, how to put it together and adjust it, and how to clean it. Next, I will teach you the right way that you should put your mouth so that you will be able to play good. I know it may seem hard at the beginning, but when you keep practicing you will agree that it is easy.

The smallest and one of the most important components of an alto saxophone is the reed. These do break, so you want to be careful with them. For an alto saxophone you will want to pick up a box of 2 1/2 size reeds. They are relatively inexpensive so you do not have to worry very much. The reed makes the instrument vibrate. When something vibrates, it creates sound. Without the reed, there would be no sound. Next is the mouthpiece which the reed goes onto. Next is the ligature which is a round metal piece that holds the reed in place so that you get a good sound. Next is the neckpiece which kind of looks like a banana. There is a cork at one end which you put the mouthpiece onto. If the mouthpiece is hard to get on, then you will need to apply some cork grease to make it easier to get it on. Next is the body of the instrument which is the main part that has all of the buttons. You connect the neckpiece into it at the top.

The things that you have to adjust are the ligature and the front top of the instrument where there are two little knobs. You can tighten those knobs to make the neck piece stick in more and loosen them to make the neck piece loosen and go all over the place. I would just go with a pretty tight fit on this one so that you can slide it in and out. You should only be able to move it with your hand. With the ligature, you should tighten the top screw and put the thin part of the reed lined up with the front of the mouthpiece.

To have your mouth in a good position, you have to have your teeth on the top of the mouthpiece and your lips over your teeth on the bottom. If this does not really work for you, you can come up with something else as long as it works. If you are going to be playing a low note, you will have to make your mouth longer like an O to get it out.

To clean it, you use these towels with strings and weights connected to them. You put a small one through the mouthpiece and pull it through. You put the big rag through the neck and pull. It will not go through, so pull it back. You then put the big towel in the body of the sax. You put it in the big side and tip the body over until the weight comes out. Then you pull on the weight to get it out.

I hope that you learned something about the alto saxophone and the right care of it. I hope that will do this in your own saxophone work.