as for getting better sound... the key is long tones. just keep playing the long tones. as for marching band; keep the horn parallel to your body, keep you elbows up, chin up, very clean posture, and a slight lean forward

...try marching with the corps style... becasue thats a heck of a lot easier than show... find talk to the drum majors or your director.... that'll help. as for tone, yes long tones are the best. air support is wonderful too ;o)

Maddmax...I went through a similar situation. I was given a rental sax for my birthday, spring of my sophmore year. Technically, sax and clarinet are very similar. However, the hardest part is embocure based. With the clarinet, you have a very tight embochure. Your corners are pulled back. A saxophone embochure is completely different. You have to have a very relaxed one, think almost nonexistent. A TEST TO SEE HOW TIGHT YOU ARE: Get by a piano and take off that mouthpiece. Blow into only the mouthpiece and stabalize a sound. See what pitch that is on the piano. It should be an A on the piano (F# on the sax). I, myself, was blowing quite sharp (thus too tight) at first. Also, with the corners of your mouth being pulled back, the bottom lip cushion is not enough to produce a vibrant sound. You will receive a thin sound b/c the reed is unable to vibrate as fully. I'm fortunate enough to have a great private lessons teacher who is almost psychotic about embochure and sound quality. Finally, make sure you are taking enough mouthpiece. You should be taking more mouthpiece than you would for a clarinet. That information is weeks of classical private lessons basically. It took me awhile to fix my embochure...but now it's pretty good. I gotta lot to learn...but learning sax well is so worth it. Jazz=stuff of the gods. I'll be happy to elaborate on information mentioned if you are serious about wanting to play sax. Although private lessons are a good idea.