saxandbassplayer, a good and thoughtful answer!!!..................Kelsey

Nice comment saxandbassplayer A tendency I've always noticed is that low notes speak better when I hold the horn out a little bit - so the mouthpiece is going straight into my mouth rather than at an angle. This allows the most air into the mouthpiece and keeps the pressure on the reed even so as not to supress any range of overtones in the sound, unless I want to do that for a timbral variation. I would also advise experimentation with the amount of mouthpiece you take in. See how much mouthpiece you can take whilte maintaining tonal control, and how little you can take and still get a full sound. As far as practicing the lower register, I like to do intervallic excersizes in the low register with different dynamics and tone qualities. I start with chromatic patterns and increase the size of the intervals up to 9th based patterns and beyond. This is rigorous - especially small ascending intervals particularly on vintage horns, and large descending intervals - but it does wonders for your control. Hope this helps.