Why Learn the Saxophone?

April 18, 2025

Why Learn the Saxophone?

Welcome to the best instrument ever! (I hope the piano isn’t listening.) My two favourite instruments are the sax and piano, hence my name, Sax and Piano. The piano is truly the most impressive and awesome instrument when played by a virtuoso master. But why learn the saxophone? Because it gives you the power to not only put people in awe but really groove with what you’re playing. Your audience is not just left stunned by your skill, they are dancing around, crying out, and having a great time. And the practice you need to achieve this is way, way, way less than you would need for piano. So, if you want the easiest instrument that will make you and others fall in love with your music and have a great time, the saxophone is the one.

But let’s also compare the saxophone objectively (and a bit of my own bias), to all the other instruments to see what makes it stand out from the pack and why it’s a fantastic choice for any aspiring musician. I will crudely compare it to other instruments at times, but I am just speaking from the heart.

1. You are the Leader of Expression

Think of your musical instrument as a way of expressing yourself, your deep emotions, and your thoughts. The saxophone, with its warm, rich timbre, mimicked a real human voice crying out with passion on those bold, bright high notes. Now, imagine trying to do this on a bass guitar.

Now, I’m not trying to mock it; it might be my third favourite instrument, and I love nothing more than a slick, hip-hop bassline. But it’s much harder to express yourself on certain instruments designed for accompaniment or sound nothing like human expression. Even the fellow woodwinds, like a flute, sounds more like a bird, while the saxophone sounds much more human. You have much more opportunity to shape your sound, using vibrato, exactly like a singer would.

So why not learn to sing then? If you’d like to, go for it. But it’s much easier to stay in tune and modify your sound on the saxophone. You can push yourself on the saxophone and reach extreme sounds that would damage your vocal cords if you did it singing. And while your voice might sound lovely, nothing beats the groovy, warm sound of the saxophone.

Saxophone teachers near me would agree that the saxophone, along with singing, is the leader of expressiveness of all the instruments. While singing uses the human voice, the saxophone has more freedom to explore extremes of sound without compromising tone quality, pitch and one’s vocal cords.

2. You Can Play Almost Any Style You Want

Sure, you can play jazz on the oboe, but it’s not ideal. On the saxophone, pretty much every genre is available to you, including jazz, blues, rock, funk, classical, pop, electronic, and the list goes on. This means you can play any song you like, regardless of the genre, and it will suit the saxophone. And you can play in almost any ensemble or group of musicians you want, except those proper nerdy symphonic orchestras. Just kidding!

Many students who take saxophone lessons in Sydney have fun playing their favourite rock and pop songs while developing their technical skills with classical and jazz. The saxophone brings you the best of both worlds in so many aspects.

3. Easy to Start, Rewarding to Master

The saxophone is probably one of the easiest instruments to start playing and sound good as soon as possible. There’s a learning curve with every instrument, but the sax will reward you for hard work with fast progress, much more than other instruments.

It can be a bit challenging getting used to blowing air properly and adjusting your embouchure across different notes. After this, you will want to fine-tune this to create the perfect tone without squeaks and perfectly in tune. Apart from this, it is an easy instrument that requires reading only one line of music instead of two (like piano) and pressing buttons rather than precisely covering holes (like clarinet). A saxophone’s embouchure adjustment is much easier than that of the trumpet and flute, where micro changes make very large impacts on the sound.

Saxophone lessons for beginners help students run through these fundamentals, while sax lessons for intermediates and advanced focus more on practice techniques and musicality. The best saxophone teacher in Sydney will discuss all of these elements depending on the student’s needs.

4. You Can Speak with Confidence, Loud and Proud

What’s this got to do with playing the saxophone? Properly playing the saxophone requires you to engage your diaphragm and breathe deeper than you ever have. Over time, it strengthens your lung capacity and health. This is not to say that you will have the respiratory function of a marathon runner. But, by learning to correctly blow air from your diaphragm, you can learn to speak deeper and fuller, projecting your voice with more confidence and volume, which is great for socialising and public speaking.

Many music teachers in Sydney don’t discuss this, but it’s key to apply knowledge learned from music to all walks of life. There’s probably no more important skill than learning how to speak, you will need it for life and it will influence your success in almost every endeavour. A professional sax tutor will walk you through how to fully engage your respiratory system to play fully and speak fully, so you can, without fail, capture your audience’s attention.

5. You Are Valuable and Powerful

The saxophone allows you to enter almost any group of musicians. The sax is a popular and well-liked instrument, and any group or ensemble would benefit from this addition. It’s so valuable and powerful that it has the potential to overpower the other musicians, which you must keep in mind. An experienced saxophone tutor will tell you: When playing with others, know your role. If you are supporting, don’t play too loudly, but if you are soloing, let her rip.