Now in conjunction with 
, we'd like to offer one-click shopping for your favorite books relating to the saxophone.
The Rock and Roll Saxophone by John Laughter and Scott Page has been getting a lot of mentions lately. Looks pretty comprehensive, covering many effects that the rock and roll saxophonist needs.
Celebrating the Saxophone, by Paul Lindemeyer. This is a fun book that tells the story of the Saxophone in words and pictures. A great coffee table book.
A favorite series of books I can recommend is The Complete Saxophone Player, by
Raphael Ravenscroft. This
four part series is approachable and not overbearing or over authoritative. It
moves quite quickly, and the final book (part 4) is a fine source of technical
material. -- Michael Wells
Here are the other books in the series. Note that the books are listed under Saxaphone, which sometimes makes finding Saxophone books hard!
The Art of Saxophone Playing, by Larry Teal. This is a larger book and well-regarded. The ISBN is 0.87487.057.7.
"As for the content - its great! Worth every penny. Its a soft covered American size (8.5 x 11 inches ??? i.e.. wider + shorter than A4), and is a bit of a tome. Most music publications are seldom more than 3 or 4 mm thick. This one is 9mm! Its absolutely stuffed with sax info, and illustrated with photo's and drawings. I almost creased up when I saw the one for Eb-Db shift. Ah-ha thinks I. That's Eb->C->Eb across the rollers with the pinkie. The photo is a double exposure showing the right pinkie in a state of vibration between the two - like twanging a ruler." - Graham Seale
Absolute Beginners : Alto Saxophone. It sure seems like there are a lot of questions out there from people who have never picked up the horn before. There's no substitute for a teacher of course, but it looks like this book might be a good place to get started.
Technique of the Saxophone: Scale Studies
by Joseph Viola.
A highly effective and comprehensive book for developing complete technical and musical skills on the saxophone. This Volume One Berklee Workshop features innovative exercises, solos and performance tools that will help you learn melody, harmony, rhythm and improvisation techniques for the saxophone. Covers general practice tips, all major scales and related modes, plus 210 exercises designed to enable students to perform any major scale, beginning on any scale degree
Universal Method for Saxophone by Paul Deville. One of the best known of all instrumental methods Paul de Ville's Universal Method For Saxophone has been the basic training method for countless generations of saxophone players covering all the basic pedagogical requirements for teaching saxophone.
You can search for other saxophone books via this useful search engine:
A good source of music by mail order (UK particularly) is:Music Sales Ltd.
Newmarket Road
Bury St. Edmunds
Suffolk
IP33 3YB
England, UK
Tel. +44 1284 702600
Videos, play along tapes and all manner of other materials do exist, naturally. Please get in touch if there are any other books you would like to see listed here. Specifically, Phil Woods has a CD-ROM sax tutor out which costs (RRP) $99.
"I get all my reeds, and other bits and pieces, from: Mev Taylor's Music Shop, 212 Morrison Street, Edinburgh EH3 8EA Tel. 0131-229 7454 Fax. 0131-228 5913 They are by far the best for woodwind in the area (East Central Scotland). I don't know if they do mail order but I guess they would. As a beginner, just over a year ago, I found their advice to be sound and they even pointed me in the direction of a good tutor. One of the guys who works there plays tenor semi-professionally and he's a really friendly guy who often gives me good advice and practice tips whenever I see him. One of the better music shops in my area!" - Brad Moffat ([email protected])