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Saxophone Leverage – Getting Better Faster

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“Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the Earth.”

Archimedes

Archimedes3

He could do this by leverage.

You can also get better faster using the leverage of tools and help from other musicians.

A metronome, tuner, method book, can all make you get better if they are the right tools and you use them correctly.

Just listening to recordings can teach you a lot if you really listen.

So can recording yourself and finding things that you want to improve in your own playing.

Another way is to take lessons and use what your teacher says, if they’re good lessons.  Then you’re leveraging all the time they have spent learning the saxophone.

A scientist doesn’t build all his or her machines and come up with equations and theories from scratch.  Einstein, Newton, Galileo, and almost anyone you can think of took the foundations of science and added to it.

You can learn sax by yourself, but tools and other people can help you learn faster.

What Do Saxophone and Chess Have in Common?

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chess

“A beginning chess player faces many of the same problems.  Lacking any kind of “chess sense” as players call it, he sits bewildered at the board, moving first a pawn, then a bishop, then–why not?–his queen, all at random, hoping that something good will come of it but knowing that if it does, it will be a mere piece of luck.  He has no idea how seasoned players think at the board.  Even sitting across from them, he cannot fathom what they’re trying to accomplish with a particular move, what blunders they’re trying to avoid, what alternative game strategies they might be considering.  He can certainly appreciate the effects, but the actual thought process is a mystery.”
(pg 4 Trimble, Writing with Style)

When you play the saxophone, it’s very similar.  Both are filled with many choices and you interact and play off of another person (or people for music).

Really, most things you ever do can be thought of in the same way, but that’s a different issue.

A complicated solo, like the one played by Sonny Rollins on ‘Dig’ can seem like too much.  Too many notes, too fast, etc.

But as you grow as a player, things will make more sense.

Do You Practice Your Saxophone Every Day?

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“If I don’t practice for a day, I know it. If I don’t practice for two days, the critics know it. And if I don’t practice for three days, the public knows it.”

-Louis Armstrong

saxophone_practicing

If Louis Armstrong practiced trumpet every day, there a pretty good chance you should practice your saxophone every day!

It’s not going to help nearly as much if you practice for several hours only once a week.

Just as exercise by running once a year isn’t effective, practicing saxophone every day will make you sound much better.

Even if it’s only 15 minutes.

Ideally it won’t be, but if that’s all you have, then just practice for that amount of time.

Setting up a consistent time and place to practice can make this a good habit that you form.

Breaking Musical Rules on Saxophone?

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“And thirdly, the code is more what you’d call “guidelines” than actual rules. Welcome aboard the Black Pearl, Miss Turner.”

-Barbarossa, Pirates of the Carribean

pirate

When you’re learning saxophone, you’ll hear about many rules.  Don’t play the notes outside of the chord, which notes you can play on saxophone, etc.

These ‘rules’ are useful and will usually help you with the process of figuring out how to play sax.

However, after you have progressed enough with your playing, you can bend and even break the rules!

Converting Vinyl Records to Digital Using the Zoom H2

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Here is how you can use the Zoom H2 Stereo Recorder to convert vinyl records to digital-

zoom_h2

I figured this out over the last few weeks.

The record player needs a headphone jack and you need an auxiliary cable. I got the auxiliary cable from amazon for about $3.  You put the cable into the ‘line in’ on the H2 and the other end into the headphone jack.

You can adjust whether you want .wav files or mp3 files and the quality for either of those.

Adjusting the volume on the record player will affect the output.  I made the top volume peak at about 3/4 the maximum.

Afterward, I removed some noise with software (Amadeus for Mac) that I had.

It’s cool, but I would only do it for records that are not available digitally, since it takes some time.

Death of Jazz? Compare to Discussion in Video About the 'Death' of Classical Music

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Is jazz dying? That idea seems to be popular online right now.

I saw a TED presentation on the ‘death’ of classical music too.

Jazz is not as popular as it used to be.  Neither is classical music.  But many people have not been exposed to it.

In the video, Benjamin Zander gets a standing ovation for a simple piece from Chopin.  I sincerely think that people can connect with jazz pieces as well.

Making Arpeggios Sound Good on Saxophone

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Robert recently posted a question about chords on the Sax Station facebook page:

Robert Lewis Gay–

Any tips on chords, i play up and down, but can’t get any thing good out of them. Just sounds like rubbish. I pick notes out, but it sound rubbish, how do u get a nice lick out of a chord??

I am trying to work out chords, i just can’t get any thing out og them. I play them , but thay just sound like i am runing up and down the scales. They don’t sound bulesy or any thing jazzy.

I can do the melodys ok, it is just trying to make some thing to improvise with in the cords in the jamey aebersold books. He put’s the cord’s in when you play the melody.But when i try to inprovise with the chords, when i have played the melody, they sound like i am just play the scales and not music to follow the melody?

Any help.

Lotus_flower1

Neal –

Hey Robert, it all comes down to listening and being musical. You can play something cool with just one note.

If you’re playing with other musicians, get into the groove before you play.

Then use things like phrasing, articulation, dynamics, rhythm, tone, space, emotion & feel.

Those are the things that will make notes sound good. Playing notes up and down without these things will sound like rubbish.

Robert–

Ok, i give it ago. I play the chord notes in the scale, but that is all they sound like just note’s…Not jazzy….Any way thanks.

_____________________

So the notes themselves won’t magically sound good, you need to be musical about it- incorporate the other elements of music besides notes.

Listening! The most important musical element + listening with your whole body video

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Some deaf musicians can listen better than most of us.

Evelynn Glennie has made a career as a solo percussionist and she is deaf.   She has played with musicians including  Bela Fleck, Bjork, Bobby McFerrin, and Sting.

Out of all the musical elements, they are meaningless if you don’t listen.  You must listen to yourself, the other musicians, your environment, and the interactions.

Victor Wooten also believes that listening is the most important element.

It enables you to develop all the other musical elements- sound, rhythm, phrasing, etc.

In this TED presentation, she speaks about reading music, and other elements of music.

Groove vs Notes on Saxophone

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Notes are important!

But they’re not the only thing in music.

Ernie Watts

If you play notes without rhythm, technique, articulation, space, dynamics, tone, listening, feel & emotion, and phrasing then it’s not going to sound good.

Notes are the same throughout many styles of music.  There are a few more in Indian music.  But basically there are just 12.

So all the other elements make a musician sound distinct and give him or her style.

We often worry about notes more than anything else though!

In reality, it matters more if the music feels good than if you play the ‘right’ note.  And the note is only wrong if it disrupts the flow and messes up your playing.  If you use a ‘wrong’ note as a passing tone, it sounds good and gives some color to what you play.

Minor Scales for Saxophone – Playing the variations of the minor scales on sax

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Minor scales give a certain feel that you want sometimes.  There are three (main) flavors to choose from:

saxophone_silhouette

Dorian and melodic minor are the important ones, you can use them on minor 7th and minor 6th chords.  Harmonic minor over minor ii-v has a cool sound.  The harmonic minor sounds kind of Middle Eastern if you play it straight.

Natural minor is not used very often, maybe over a diatonic sixth chord.

The Harmonic Minor Scale, relative to major is:

1 2 ♭3 4 5 ♭6 7 8

“W, H, W, W, H, W, W”

The Melodic Minor Scale is one way ascending and another way descending,

on the way up it has only a minor 3rd relative to the major scale:

1 2 ♭3 4 5 6 7 8

And descending,  the notes of the natural melodic minor scale are played:

8 ♭7 ♭6 5 4 ♭3 2 1

It is done that way for vocalists, so saxophone players really only need to worry about natural minors and harmonic minors.  It’s good to understand what a melodic minor scale is though.  And you might sing too.

Natural minor (sometimes called ‘pure minor’, relative to the major scale is

1 2 ♭3 4 5 ♭6 ♭7 8

Saxophone Lesson by Kirk Whalum – Ideas for Practicing When You’re Stuck

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Sola told me about this video, I liked it. It gives you more to do if you’ve ever thought you’ve run out of things to practice.

Seems like the video was taken down though.

Basically though, you can always go deeper into an idea with music.

So, say you know your scales. Can you play them in thirds? Can you play another pattern? Etc.

Playing in thirds means you play a note and go up (or down) a third.  If you’re in minor, you use the minor scale’s notes.

Two up and two down means you play the first note of the scale and a third up then the second note the scale and a third up then you play the third note of the scale and play a third down and then the fourth note of the scale and a third down.