so you've decided to play the saxophone well the saxophone comes in its own dedicated case and it's nice and snug and warm in there but it's very important that when you take it out that you take it out in the correct manner now if you take it out using the keys you can bend them put the whole thing out of adjustment and then your first lesson means that it won't work so all you have to do is pick the sax own up by the bell and the end and just bring it out like this now the instrument is out of the case we have to assemble it now this is the main body of the saxophone and this is the crook to assemble take out the end stop now this is just a piece of plastic tubing but it's absolutely vital that when you finish playing you put it back in again the reason for this is there protects this lever this is the octave lever and if this gets bent it can stop the instrument working the next thing to remember is that to fit the crook into the instrument we have to insert this tenon into this socket it's very important that it's kept clean so all you have to do is use some paper kitchen towel wipe out the inside and wipe the tenon once a week at the very least I would suggest because you do get a little bit of water forming on here which can then mix with little bits of dirt and it can make it very difficult to put together now then what you must not do is to put your hand on here and press down because we can bend this tube and then again instrument won't work okay so very important you place your hand over here like this so we're pressing downwards so taking it apart and putting it together you're always pressing downwards and then we do up the wingnut making sure that the vertical lever is in the middle of this bow now some instruments will actually not have this shape of key sometimes the key will come around and then around the bottom like this so it works in the same way just slightly different design but at the end of the day you've got to have the vertical lever in the middle the next thing to remember is that when you're putting the mouthpiece on that you don't press down again this constrained this tube here so it's very important when you're pushing the mouthpiece on you hold with your right hand around here and press towards your right hand with your left hand so there's no downward pressure just pushing this way but horizontally now the mouthpiece is the engine of the instrument and it's very important that we keep it clean because this is gonna be going into your mouth so just with some cotton buds now and again clean out the inside of the mouthpiece and just with a piece of damp cloth just clean the outside okay now the mouthpiece has a flat table which the reed fits on and the reed has a flat part to it which fits on the table like so now you want the tip of the reed to be just level with the tip of the mouthpiece and then we put the clamp or ligature on now the ligature will only fit on one way it won't go on this way because of the shape it will only go on this way okay like that and then we can do up these wing nuts and the reed is then on the mouthpiece once you've finished playing you would have put quite a lot of moisture down inside of the instrument so it's very important to remove this now the way to do this is first of all to remove the crook like so and then we have a saxophone pull through now this is just a piece of chamois leather you can use anything really but chamois leather is nice and absorbent and also a brush now the reason for using the brush is that a saxophone is a conical instrument so it's much narrower at this end than at this end but we need the cloth to be able to absorb all the water through the whole length of the instrument so we place the weighted string down the bail and the widest dent and gradually shake it around and down through now this may take a bit of practice but gradually you'll get quick ratted there what you mustn't do is pull too fast pull slowly because you want the moisture to be absorbed by the cloth okay once you've done that lay the saxophone down on the table and put the plastic end plug back into the instrument now what you must never do is to use this pull through in the crook because it's far too big and it will get stuck after a while you may find that it's difficult to put the mouthpiece on all you have to do is first of all remove any dirt that may have accumulated on the cork so just wipe this off with paper kitchen towel like this and you get a little bit of dirt coming off then renew the grease after you've done that the mouthpiece will then slide on it's very important that the mouthpiece is allowed to go as far as is necessary if the mouthpiece only goes on halfway it may affect some of the notes lower down the instrument as you get better on the instrument you will need to use more notes now some of these notes may not come out properly and there are reasons for this what are the notes that you may have difficulty with is G sharp and bottom C sharp now the reason for this is that the key gets stuck down this is because the moisture that is inside the instrument can get absorbed by the leather of the pad now this is the G sharp pad okay now then what we have to do is remove the moisture from that pad so what we do is you cut a piece of a4 paper just ordinary computer paper and place it between the pad and the hole in the instrument that's called the tone hole so we placed this between the two okay hopefully you can see that's okay and just press this down a little bit firmly pull this out very gently very slowly okay and what that will do is absorb any water that's on the pad and also maybe a little bit of grease a little bit of dirt that may have accumulated there now the same thing happens with the c-sharp pad this one down here as well the reason for this is because these two keys the C sharp and the G sharp are all connected to this array of keys here now this is called a floating plate this is very important to know this because if I open up this key the C sharp it also opens up and you see that the G sharp key so to stop the keys and the pants getting stuck all you have to do is to cut a piece of card and reasonably thick piece of cards about the size of a credit card or a store card and place it underneath the C sharp pad that will then allow the air to circulate between the pad and the toner hole and also open up the g sharp key very slightly whether you can see this very well the C sharp key as well as moving race lightly now and again the air can circulate drying it all out so all you have to do is when you come to play next time take out that piece of card and then your piece will be nice and clean