Here is an exercise to help with developing dexterity and key signatures.
I came across this article a good few years ago in a magazine call ‘Saxophone Journal’
It was written by David Pope (Google David Pope Saxophonist and you will find him). David gave me permission to share his exercise as long as he was given credit for writing it.
He had suffered with Tendonitis very badly, and along with his teacher, he wrote these exercises to prevent it happening again.
Each bar is a separate exercise, and should be played a minimum of 10 times each.
You can do all the left hands followed by the Right ones, or L1 then R1 etc, the choice is yours.
The tempo is 60 bpm or less, never more because as you add more notes per bar, that will increase the speed that you play at.
Breathing: Vary where within the bar you breath, otherwise you will always separate the same to notes, and we need to practice the slur between all notes.
Articulation: Slurred to start with, then you can tongue, Staccato, Slur 2 tongue 2. The limit is your imagination.
Key: Start in the key of C, then change to different keys but always start on the C and G.
The idea is to make the transition from one note to the next as smooth as possible. As each bar is quite easy to memorise, I practice it against a wall so that I can hear any key movement problems. Then I break it down until I can make it smooth again.
That should be enough to be going on with, if you have any problems or ideas of how to make this exercise more useful, please comment below.
Feel free to share with your colleagues, and let them know where you found it please.
Dave Plummer Saxophonist 