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In this 2 minute tutorial, I am going to show you how to play the Gerald Albright front F sound on the sax. If you’ve ever heard Gerald Albright play live, then you’ve definitely heard him use this really powerful super-articulated way of playing his front F. The good news is that it is a pretty easy concept to add to your sax toolbox.

GERALD ALBRIGHT FRONT F

  1. Play the front F on the sax.
  2. Repeat the front F several times and make it sound short and squatty with your articulations – using a dop sound.
  3. Scoop down as you articulate so it makes the sound doo-wah.
  4. Lower your tongue as you scoop down. The lower your tongue the better.
  5. Use at the climax of your solo.

Check out Gerald Albright’s version of Georgia On My Mind – Live at Birdland West

INSIDE THE SAX SCHOOL

This tutorial shows you how to play the Gerald Albright front F, but inside the Sax School, I dive very deep into tons and tons of concepts concerning articulation and style. There are entire courses dedicated to both jazz style & funk style, and throughout all of the main Pathway Courses, I discuss articulations for every song and exercise in the Sax School. If you are looking to take a huge step forward in the way you approach articulations and style then enroll in the Scott Paddock Sax School today!

A full-text transcription is available by clicking the accordion below. The timestamps line up with the video’s timeline.

THE GERALD ALBRIGHT FRONT F SOUND ON THE SAX

0:00:00.0 Scott Paddock: What's up, everybody? My name is Scott Paddock, and it's time for another two-minute tutorial. In my last video about articulations, I mentioned the Gerald Albright front F, and I got tons and tons and tons of requests to show you guys how to do it. So here is the tutorial on the Gerald Albright front F.

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0:00:25.0 SP: If you're watching this video, I'm assuming that you are a fan of Gerald Albright. If so, leave me a comment below with your favourite Gerald Albright album or song. Mine is Live at Birdland West, Georgia on My Mind.

0:00:37.0 SP: If you're new to my channel, please make sure that you subscribe, give me a thumbs up, and click the bell for notifications. If you're not sure what the Gerald Albright front F sounds like, it sounds like this.

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0:00:51.0 SP: The first time I heard Gerald Albright play that front F sounding like that, was on his Live at Birdland West album, on the tune, Georgia on My Mind. If you've never heard his arrangement or him playing that tune, you should absolutely check it out. It is amazing. It's one of my favourite saxophone solos and songs of all time.

0:01:08.7 SP: So let's learn how to play it in under two minutes starting right now. I call this the Gerald Albright front F because Gerald Albright played it, and it is a front F. If you don't know how to finger a front F, it is with your C key and the front F key, which is this teardrop-looking key above your B key. So it's your C key with your front F key. Now, if you play that front F...

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0:01:34.9 SP: That won't give you the Gerald Albright sound. We need to add a couple things to it. The first thing is, everything on your right hand. So one, two, three, plus your E-flat key. One, two, three, plus your E-flat key. So it will look like this...

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0:01:53.1 SP: Adding the right hand gets us a whole lot closer, but we still need to do a couple more things to make it sound the way Gerald Albright sounds.

0:01:58.9 SP: First, you wanna play it short and squatty like a marcatto, or what I would call a dop. And you wanna scoop down on each of the notes.

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0:02:11.7 SP: When you scoop down, it gives you a doo-wah, doo-wah, doo-wah. So just think about the word doo-wah and do that with your tongue, and you're gonna get that sound.

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0:02:21.9 SP: The lower you get your tongue, the better it's gonna sound.

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0:02:26.6 SP: Now, this isn't a pretty sounding articulation. It's gonna sound really in your face and raspy, and if it sounds like that, you're doing it right. So you're gonna wanna use this at the high end, at the climax of one of your solos. That's where it's gonna sound really good. You don't wanna just throw it in there any way, you have to build in to this front F sound.

0:02:43.1 SP: And that's how you play the Gerald Albright front F.

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0:02:48.0 SP: If you'd like to learn a lot more about style and articulation and improv and just the saxophone in general, I'd like to invite you into my saxophone world at the Scott Paddock Sax School where I will teach you step-by-step how to become a better saxophone player.

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Additional links:

YouTube link

www.scottpaddock.com