Bending Notes
One of the great sounds in Rock, Blues, Funk and Jazz is note bending. Almost all sax players bend notes, as it is a great way of adding expression to the music. A note can be bent either up or down by tightening or loosening the embouchure. To bend up to a note, start with your embouchure fairly loose as you finger the desired note and then tighten it by applying pressure with your lower teeth until you reach the correct pitch. You will hear the note go up in pitch as you do this. To bend down to a note, start with a tight embouchure and then loosen the pressure with your lower teeth until the note goes down to the desired pitch. It may take some time to become accurate with your bending, but stick with it and your perseverance will definitely pay off. As with other expressions and techniques, you can learn a lot by listening to the way other sax players bend notes and imitating the sounds you hear. In this book a bend is indicated by a curved arrow above the note which indicates the direction of the bend. The note written is the note you are bending to rather than from. In other music you may see bends indicated by a crescent shape above the note. In most music however, there are no technique or articulation markings and it is up to the individual player to add these expressions.
This example makes frequent use of note bending.
