Saxophone Help?

Question:

Saxophone Help?

I've been playing the saxophone for about 9 years now, and have a question about a technique. I've heard of a technique of playing a note, while creating a secondary note, which I think might be an overtone. How do I do this, I believe on a brass instrument it is done by humming the note one is playing at the same time, is this also the technique one would use on a sax?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: What you are speaking of is called multiphonics. What basically is happening is that you are finding a spot between the overtone and the fundamental that voices both notes, or even more above it. If you remember when you first started and had issues playing low D, low C, etc and you got that gurgling/jumping sound, you were actually really close to getting multiphonics.
Most multiphonics are created by using a false fingering much like altissimo fingering where they are not standard note fingerings, and there are no set fingerings for any set of multiphonics. There are many different variations that can possibly generate, and some work better for some players/instruments than others.
Just as an FYI, these are not "pretty" notes. This is a technique only really used in the last 20 years or so, and it is a color technique to make a piece different from standard solo literature. It doesn't sound like you are playing a duet with yourself, as we would like it to be. When I've seen it in music, it is usually when the player is playing a long, sustained note, they then use that note as the fundamental tone and play a multiphonic, and then back to the findamental tone.
Below is a link to a short video of a player hitting a multiphonic, and you can tell it is a nasty sounding note. In the way he plays it, he makes it work, but to a lot of people, that is going to sound more like bad technique than it would as a special note. The second link is another video of a guy using multiphonics, and yo ucan tell that this isn't musical in any way. Most solo saxophonists when performing a piece similar to what this guy is doing have to preface it by explaining to the crowd what they are doing and that it is supposed to sound like that. After all, if we didn't know this guy was a professional, we'd think he's just trying to play and is getting nothing good from the horn. Source(s):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=truhy5ced...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_r0hzsur...