I read through half of this book already, and am finding it quite interesting.  The section of the book that I have found most interesting thus far involves the breathing techniques and embouchure exercises.  I apparently only was doing half of the full potential on both.  When I first started playing the saxophone in November and I wanted to take a deep breath, I did what many people do.  I would inhale and fill my upper chest cavity.  This of course doesn’t help much.  I then learned that I should be taking in a deep breath and filling my lower area where my stomach is (which is natural, and we all do it when sleeping and normal breathing).  However, once again, that is all I did.  After reading the chapter on breathing exercises however I found to get a full breath you first fill the area where your stomach is, then you fill your mid cavity, then your upper chest area, thus taking in a full breath.  In this chapter it covers a number of exercises that help you become more aware of your breathing, which will in turn improve your playing.

For the  embouchure the chapter goes into great detail on correct placement, what to do with you teeth, lips, jaw, tongue, how to use your thought, and combine all this together to be effective at playing the saxophone.  My exercise I already knew of was to form you mouth as if you are going to whistle, hold it for a few seconds, then make the biggest smile you can and hold it.  Then repeat over and over, doing this a number of times a day.  After a few months you’ll have little to no problem with you embouchure.  The book goes into another exercise I didn’t know of though, this one works on your chin muscles, which are also very important.  I’ll be combining both of these exercises with the breathing ones over the next few months.  I hope that in March or April I will see a remarkable improvement in how long I’m able to play, and in my performance as a whole.

I plan to continue to record simple tunes as I go on, I’m thinking of “On top of old Smokey” next.  This will continue to help judge my progress.  I also tried adjusting my volume on my long tones, starting with a loud tone, and gradually dropping the volume, and then bringing it back up.  I was able to do two rounds of this before needing to take a breath.  I’ll create a recording of this tomorrow as well.  The weekend should offer me lots of more opportunities to study on theory, practice more, and finish reading this excellent book.