IntroductionI have often read that the saxophone is a "versatile" instrument. Maybe it's because its inventor; Adolph Sax, intended the saxophone's role to be somewhere between a loud woodwind instrument and a versatile brass instrument. In fact, even the saxophone professor at the Paris conservatory, Claude Delangle, states: “What instrument could be more suitable than the saxophone, with its variety of forms and cultures, to adapt to the expressive mechanisms of the shakuhachi?”1 Delangle is the most likely referring to the jazz and dance band cultures to which the saxophone has adapted, not to mention its dominance in gospel, pop, funk, and American sacred music. This seems to suggest that Sax's instrument is somewhat chameleon-like, adapting as easily to changing musical styles as it does to imitating the Japanese shakuhachi2 or the Greek Duduk3. Indeed the saxophone has become an icon of popular culture, making appearances in television programs and cartoons, and being used in industrial manufacturing experiments (Ornette Coleman used a Grafton saxophone that was almost entirely made of white acrylic). the saxophone's reputation as a novelty or music-hall instrument, forged in 1920s America, when novelty acts utilized the aforementioned versatility of the instruments for comedic purposes. This association created a negative reaction from saxophonists who became very protective of the saxophone as a "legitimate" instrument. In 1944 the Paris Conservatory revived the saxophone department under the direction of Marcel Mule. Mule then went on to create a saxophone pedagogy based largely on transcriptions of Haydn, Bach, and famous etudes of the time such as Ferling's oboe etudes. This pedagogy is still......middle of the paper......a position that maintains the dominant F#3 but eliminates any blending effect, which due to my belief that this note is the basis of the entire composition, became my individual interpretation of this multiphonic. In preparing this movement a performer can show an awareness of the context of the piece while maintaining the freedom to manipulate the acoustic and temporal aspect of the passage. This thesis will take acoustic and physical manipulations as its main theme to enable the performer to control extended techniques and therefore maintain interpretive control over the work based on analytical and contextual understanding. This author does not intend to present a foolproof methodology for artists to perform an artistically intelligent interpretation, but rather to present my and other saxophonists' opinions and approaches to the same problem..