Some Indian alto saxophone. Something of which I haven’t heard too much. Played by Ramesh Maraj . The song is Yeh Shyam Mastan.
Seems like he’s into the music, a few issues with technique, but overall pretty good. Thought I would post it.
Note: video is currently unavailable, set to private by the person who uploaded it.
“Ignorance is bliss.” – Cypher in the Matrix
Musically, some people seem unaware of how they sound and how they interact with other musicians on stage….. They might stand out because their rhythm is off, they’re out of tune, or they’re just not listening to what’s going on.
You’ve probably laughed at the misfits on American Idol who think they can sing and/or play an instrument.
But in their own minds, they could be rock stars!
The reverse problem would be oversensitivity to your own shortcomings which would lead to fear that stops you from playing your saxophone. Don’t do that either. However, most players could probably raise their awareness in order to improve their playing.
If you take one step towards awareness, you start to recognize issues, but it IS easy to ignore problems and/or blame them on external factors.
You’ve heard it from other musicians…. and it may have come out of your mouth too- you’re thinking about other things, the microphone has issues, the acoustics of the room aren’t right, etc.
Being honest with yourself can be difficult, but recognition is an early step.
Recognition leads to awareness and correction.
It’s what the best saxophone players do. You may have heard what you think sounds great and then afterward, the player talks about how it wasn’t up to their standards.
Few great players are overconfident.
You can always improve, and the best players know that.
So start recognizing areas you want to work on and then begin putting in the time. If you spend 100 hours fixing something, it almost definitely will get better (if you practice effectively).
If you hold out a note long enough in your solo, people will start clapping….
Kristen Strom told me that.
Unless it’s horribly out of tune, then you could get things thrown at you.
Vann Burchfield held a single note for 47 minutes, 6 seconds, in 2003, overcoming Kenny G’s previous record of 45 minutes, 47 seconds.
The basic idea is to hold a reservoir of air in your cheeks/mouth which you continue to push through the horn as you breath in through your nose.
I have started on the preliminary exercises myself, but I still don’t think it’s a fundamental skill to playing saxophone, just something cool you can try later on for effect.
Here’s a detailed breakdown of how it works from Bob:
http://stormhorn.com/wp/2009/09/10/how-to-master-circular-breathing-on-the-saxophone/
Comedian Dave Chapelle knows only two songs on the piano- one of them is Round Midnight by Thelonious Monk (the other is Misty). He tells us this and plays Round Midnight in his movie ‘Block Party‘ that came out a few years back.
Chapelle talks about Thelonious Monk’s timing being so ‘ill’. Which is pretty true.
The other day I was working on learning ‘Round Midnight’ – it’s a tune I had played a while back, but had somewhat forgotten.
The chord changes are not easy to play over! Even Miles Davis has trouble when he was playing the song at first.
One thing I tried, actually by accident, was reading off of a part in C. So I mostly learned the melody in that key and then realized that it was in fact in C and I was playing a tenor sax.
After that, I looked back at a Bb version, but saw it was slightly different. The C version seemed closer to the unembellished melody.
So I started learning it in the original key by looking at the version in C and transposing as I went along. For tenor sax and soprano this isn’t too bad, since you just go up a whole step. A bit trickier for alto and bari.
As I played Round Midnight like that, I saw that I was mostly looking at the shape and not the notes themselves, so it seemed like it could help me in memorizing tunes as a sort of intermediate step.
Ideally, you want to know songs in all keys, so this process forced me to pay attention to the intervals.
Any thoughts on this?
I’ve just started learning I’ve only been at it for maybe 7 weeks my teacher from the first lesson heard something in me and feels I will pick it up fast But I’m having issues with practicing a full hr without my embouchure getting tired. I have a book to learn reading music and this week he has me learning some scales plus arpeggio I can feel my embouchure tighten up during scales I do 30 mins and then lessons in book and my notes especially the sharps suffer some what because my embouchure gets tired I thought by now I would get used to it But I fight through it because I want to get good.I’ve done research on exercises to strengthen it any more suggestion.Most people say “You’ve just started be patience”
-Elliott
Hey Elliot,
Good to hear from you.
You should take breaks when you’re playing. And if you’re biting down too hard on your bottom lip, it’s going to hurt more.
Maybe play for 20 minutes at a time, then take a few minutes break. You should still play for an hour. But don’t overwork yourself by playing constantly.
It’s like if you were in a gym doing exercises, you drink water, take breaks, etc.
Similarly, to strengthen your muscles- you gradually do more repetitions and more weight. Don’t rush it too much.
Do the same thing for saxophone and your muscles will strengthen and you won’t feel as tired after playing for a while.
You’ll still need patience, but it won’t be by hurting yourself- it will be by taking breaks which will extend your practice session a little bit.
-Neal
Clarence Clemons. Great rock & roll sound on tenor sax!
Found this on Helen’s site.
More cowbell! That’s what Christopher Walken insisted on…..
With a salsa band, sometimes you’re standing next to that cowbell though.
Earplugs are pretty much a necessity if you want to not have your eardrums ringing for the rest of the night and lose your hearing later in your life.
Sound intensity is measured in units called decibels. Deci being a prefix meaning 1/10 and bels being the unit. But decibels are the commonly used form.
The units aren’t on a linear scale, instead they are on a ‘logarithmic’ scale. So something that is twice as many decibels isn’t twice as loud.
Human perception of intensity and volume also do not correspond.
I have taken advanced acoustics classes… so if you really want to get into the mathematics, ask me!
What is important for a saxophone player is that anything about 120 decibels (abbreviated as dB) will cause permanent hearing loss.
Your distance from the source of sound affects the intensity level too. You can think of sound as propagating as a sphere from the source. The intensity decreases as a factor of one divided by the square of the distance. So a sound that is coming from 1 meter away is actually four times the intensity as something that is two meters away since 1/2^2 = 1/4.
So you should probably not be right next to a source of loud noise even if you are wearing earplugs.
Earplugs themselves reduce sound by different amounts of dB. A reduction of six dB is the same as being twice as far from the sound source.
So if you’re in a really loud group, get enough sound reduction. If it’s not so loud, you still want to hear the music, so don’t overdo it with the earplugs.
And in a small jazz combo, generally you don’t need earplugs, but still you probably shouldn’t stand right next to the drums.
Earplugs also reduce certain frequencies more than others, so just be aware of that.
You can get special ‘musicians earplugs’ that are specially fitted to your ear and reduce the range of pitches equally, I don’t have them yet, but may get some.
The third weekend in September….. that’s ten days from now!
It’s the longest running jazz festival and a favorite of many players and listeners.
Artists perform starting on Friday and well into the late night Sunday on seven stages:
The Arena/Jimmy Lyons Stage, Garden Stage, Courtyard Stage, Night Club/Bill Berry Stage, Dizzy’s Den, Jazz Theater, and the Coffee House Gallery.
There is great food, great music, and the proceeds go towards funding jazz education- $500,000 a year throughout California and the country.
Musicians performing in the past have included Louis Armstrong, Dizzie Gillespie, John Lewis, Gerry Mulligan and Billie Holiday.
The 2009 festival includes:
Chick Corea, Dave Brubeck, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Lew Tabackin, Stanley Clarke, Jason Moran, Lenny White, Randy Brecker, Joe Lovano, Kenny Barron, Regina Carter, Kurt Elling, Russell Malone, Peter Erskine, Esperanza Spalding, Susan Tedeschi, Pete Seeger, John Scofield, Wynton Marsalis, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Hank Jones, John Patitucci, Brian Blade, George Duke, Conrad Herwig, Lizz Wright, Rodriguez Brothers, Raul Midon, Ruthie Foster, Jonathan Batiste, Scott Amendola, Roger Eddy, Alan Pasqua, Ambrose Akinmusire, Wayne Wallace, Henry Butler, Cyril Neville, Martin Headman, Weber Iago, Francisco Mela, Scotty Barnhart, Otis Brown Jr., Terrence Brewer, Hironobu Saito, Alfredo Rodriguez and more.
The Monterey Jazz Festival will be held September 18 – 20, 2009.
Monterey Jazz Festival 2009 Schedule
Marcus Miller and Miles talk some stories including the style of Miles suit for the ‘So What’ video.
Miles Davis on Trumpet
Marcus Miller on Bass
Kenny Garrett on alto sax- it’s a straight alto…. don’t see too many of those.
Michel Camilo on jazz piano. He plays his composition ‘From Within’. It appears in the movie Calle 54, which I loved.
Martin asked me about working on speed when playing saxophone:
For speed, you just want to start off more slowly and gradually work your way up.
Master something at the slower speed and then you can move on.
What you play will then be solid.
Using a metronome can help with that.
-Neal
Want to play saxophone, but feeling lost and not sure how to get started?
In this online/downloadable class you will see methodical lessons in a sequence and you can get feedback and ask questions at any point.
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Want to take your playing to the next level?
You’ll learn fundamental saxophone skills, building past the basics. Master rhythms. Learn about phrasing, tone, and more. Here you will get feedback which is crucial to developing good habits.
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