Harvey S. WhistlerPares Scales: Saxophone

I like the exercises in this book quite a lot. There are, however, a number of typos and notation mistakes in it. You'd think that a book that's been around as long as this one has would have been cleaned up by now.

It’s a classic. Great for all players, but especially useful for beginners and intermediates who want to create a sound foundation (pun kinda intended) for jazz as well as classical. Remember, the jazz greats can do everything the classical players and much, much more.

I started played a tenor a little over a year ago, I made the best progress reading music and playing solid consistent tones by practicing my scales. Scales can get a little boring but such progress is made by sticking to playing the scales. This book has scales in all of the different keys.

Good book for serious students

I like it. It does what I wanted.

Excellent scale studies to keep you tip-top in your sax playing. I wouldn't want to live without them.

Provides a solid foundation for the major and minor scales.

Worth its weight in gold. Use it everyday.

When you first look at the scales, you think there are a lot there and it's all very bewildering, then you realise that they're just exercises of the scale starting on different notes and not just up and down the scale. That's useful, but making it clearer that's what they are would have been good. There's no contents or index page, so finding your way to the key you're looking for is harder than necessary. It follows the pattern of 1 sharp, 1 flat, 2 sharps, 2 flats etc up to 4 sharps/flats, so it's not too bad once you've got that figured out, at least if you know how many sharps or flats are in the key you want to practise. If you're after any other scales they're not here. At the back there are the the same 9 major and minor scales shown, harmonic and melodic minor, though a little header to name each would have been good for the more novice player. Very useful at the back are some exercises for strengthening both low tones and high tones. It's a useful book, just suffers from a slight lack of organisation and clarity.

My Sax Teacher recommended these exercises. When I first looked at them I was very disappointed - they looked trivially simple. However, having got stuck into them I have found that they are helping to develop my accuracy of fingering, my articulation and my reading. A bit tedious, nevertheless.