Music Practice Commons^™

Understanding And Implementing Extended Saxophone Techniques, Tyler R. Bokman

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Contemporary classical music often pushes the boundaries of how instruments should be played and what kinds of sounds they should produce. A great deal of contemporary music requires the player to utilize playing techniques that may seem very strange and difficult to those who are unfamiliar with them. These unusual practices, known as extended techniques, can include playing in extreme ranges, manipulating pitches in particular ways, and applying abnormal articulations. While once seen as a sort of novelty, these extended techniques are becoming increasingly essential to the contemporary musician. This is especially true of the saxophonist.

While nearly every other …

An Exploration Of The French And American Schools Of Classical Saxophone, Sarah E. Miracle

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project is an exploration of the relatively short history of the classical saxophone genre. It will focus mainly on the styles created by Marcel Mule, the second professor of saxophone at the Paris Conservatory, and Larry Teal, the first full-time professor of saxophone in America. Mule and Teal’s contrasting ideas of playing and teaching created distinct French and American schools of classical saxophone playing. This project explores the similarities and differences between these two schools of thought, and places them each in historical and cultural contexts. In addition, it traces the subsequent lineage of prominent saxophone performers and pedagogues, …