Tips on Finding Your Voice

Tips on Finding Your Voice

(0:44) One of the things that I'm big on with the saxophone is how the saxophone is really an expansion of your voice. I'm a big believer in this for a number of reasons. One: I love helping students find their voice on the instrument and often if we can just channel what they're doing in their oral cavity and with breathing, we can often help them get a very unique and very personal voice on the instrument.

There's a number of different exercises for this - hundreds - that I have a lot of my students do over their years at the University of Michigan. One of the big ones that I love to do is have my students play the mouthpiece alone. What this does is (for those of you who are already in music school or for those that are headed to music school) I'm sure that you're going to hear that voice people are really annoying. But we're going to send it right back to them because they walk down the hallway and they do things like Awww and AWWWwww. What they're doing with a lot of that is manipulating aspects of their tongue position. One of the things I like to have a lot of my students do are a lot of the vocal exercises here on the mouthpiece alone. This makes that really annoying voice person in the practice room. Be careful, I ended up marrying one of them. But what you can do is steal one of their exercises.

I like to do voice exercises on the mouthpiece alone. This is accomplished through tongue position. If you say the words tip and boot, it'll give you a sense of where the tongue is in your oral cavity, and you can manipulate the pitch just on the mouthpiece without moving your embouchure.

*Plays exercise

(3:22) That's one particular exercise. I sometimes call it "the trombone" because it bends down. Again, largely done by the tongue position and oral cavity and not by moving the embouchure.

Some people ask me what pitch do you start on? Go ahead and play what pitch comes out naturally and that can be your benchmark. Often on Tenor, I use G as a general, baseline place but who knows. Based on the size of your mouthpiece and other factors, I tend to not worry about that and let students find their comfort zone.

Another exercise I like to do is something you would hear a voice person do.

*Plays exercise

(4:40) If you begin to do some of that. It might mean is that all you get is a half-step and you might have to spend 1 month- 2 months- 3 months to even get a whole step - maybe a minor 3rd. That's OK. Patience is very important when you're doing this kind of activity, what I sometimes call "saxophone yoga." You would never take your arm and stretch it beyond your ability. Remember, the tongue is a muscle and what we're learning is the micro movements of tongue motion.

About Andrew Bishop

Andrew Bishop is a versatile saxophonist, clarinetist, flautist, composer, improviser, educator, and scholar comfortable in many musical idioms. Dave Lynch of All Media Guide wrote, “A composer of contemporary orchestral and chamber music, Bishop combines a jazzman’s fire and flow with a rigorous compositional sensibility, resulting in a potent and highly satisfying blend.” He maintains an active national and international career and serves as an associate professor and chair of University of Michigan Department of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation in Ann Arbor where he teaches applied jazz saxophone, composition, and improvisation. He is a Conn-Selmer and Vandoren artist.

Bishop studied jazz and improvised music with David Baker, Jerry Bergonzi, Tom Fowler, Dave Liebman, Craig Owens, Ellen Rowe, Ed Sarath, and Reggie Workman; saxophone with Jean Lansing and Donald Sinta; and composition with William Albright, William Bolcom, Evan Chambers, Michael Daugherty, and Walter Mays.

Bishop’s three recordings as a leader, De Profundis, Time and Imaginary Time, and the Hank Williams Project (Envoi Recordings) received widespread acclaim from TheNew York Times, Downbeat Magazine, The Chicago Reader, All Music Guide, Cadence Magazine, All About Jazz – New York, All About Jazz – Los Angeles, The New York Jazz Record, StereophileMagazine, and TheDetroit Free Press, among others. Elliot Simon of the New York Jazz Record recently wrote, “De Profundis impresses with its astute combination of musicianship, spirituality, and compositional insight.” Furthermore, De Profundis received a “Record of the Year (Honorable Mention)” by the New York Jazz Record in 2015.

Bishop also leads a variety of his own projects. As a sideman he has performed with Reid Anderson, Geri Allen, Karl Berger, Dave Ballou, Sandip Burman, Kenny Burrell, Eugene Chadbourne, Ray Charles, Gerald Cleaver, Kris Davis, Marty Ehrlich, Michael Formanek, Drew Gress, Jerry Hahn, Robert Hurst, Chris Lightcap, The Either Orchestra, Mat Maneri, The Manhattan Transfer, Tony Malaby, Ben Monder, Jeremy Pelt, Mario Pavone, Tom Rainey, Hank Roberts, Jacob Sacks, Tyshawn Sorey, Craig Taborn, Clark Terry, Ben Waltzer, Matt Wilson, and John Zorn, among others. He has participated in over 40 recordings as a side musician.

As a composer and arranger, Bishop has received over 25 commissions from professional organizations, universities, and numerous residencies. He has also received recognition and awards from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP); The Chicago Symphony Orchestra; the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation; and a nomination from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His orchestral composition “Crooning” was recorded by the Albany Symphony Orchestra on Two American Piano Concertos (Albany Records) featuring pianists Ursula Oppens and Ian Hobson. He has also completed composition and arranging projects for Ellery Eskelin, Steve Houghton, Robert Hurst, Dave Liebman, and Matt Wilson.