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How to Play Thrift Shop on Saxophone (Alto Sax) + Notes for Tenor below video

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How to play Thrift Shop, the Macklemore and Ryan Lewis song on sax. The sax line in this tune isn’t too hard to play.

The diagrams in the video are correct, but when I played it in the intro, I accidentally played a C instead of an F at one point. Again, the diagrams are correct.

Let me know if you have any questions.

On tenor:

Bb (then up an octave) Bb Bb
F Eb
Bb
(higher) F C# Bb

If on Bb in the middle of the staff, you will end up at high F, that will make it in the same octave as the alto sax.

“I’ve been playing the alto sax for approximately 25 years… for some unknown reason, I’m unable to get my chords to flow like a true sax player.”

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Saxophone TribeQuestion:

Mr. Neal, I’ve been playing the alto sax for approximately 25 years… for some unknown reason, I’m unable to get my chords to flow like a true sax player.

My family and friends thinks that I’m good, but in my personal opinion, I stinks.

I can read music, but my ear training needs a lot of work….and yes, my ultimate goal is for my sax  to control the mood of the audience….

what do you recommend…..

-Danny

My Response:

Hello Danny,
It’s not so much an issue of how much time you have been playing but more what you have been working on.
You could own a car and live in New York yet still never have stepped foot in California. You have the equipment to do it, but to get there takes specific actions and consistency in those actions.
You said that you aren’t sure how to make the chords flow and that you hear runs in your head, but are unable to play them.
You could sit down and try and play one of the runs you play in your head. You should be able to work it out, but it might take quite a bit of time. Especially early on, could take some number of hours to get several measures exactly as you want it to be. With practice, the process gets much easier. Without practice, it remains extremely time consuming.
But what I would suggest doing before that is learning some sax solos you have heard and liked. By taking it a small piece at a time.
A great sax player named Charles McNeal started transposing a lot of solos fairly early on and continues to do so, it is one of the elements of how he practices that makes him really good.
Seems to be the case that artists usually start painting things they can see, copying what is around them. Art can be more abstract as well. But I would think most artists start with things that are more real.
With music, you can take a similar approach and start to learn the language and vocabulary. And how to speak on the saxophone. That includes rhythm, space, and articulation.
You probably want to work on ear training more as well as technique. Technique builds a foundation that very much affects how you sound. Bad technique will make it much harder to play the things you hear in your head, partly because there are transitions between notes all over the place that you may not have paid a lot of attention to and those transitions can easily sound sloppy on the saxophone.
Practicing everyday will also help, but practicing the wrong way will build bad habits.

You can sign up for my program Saxophone Tribe if you want to work with me on those things.

http://SaxophoneTribe.com

Thanks

-Neal

NAMM 2013 Video, Sax Station Perspective

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NAMM 2013, Spent Friday and Saturday at the NAMM show in Anaheim.

One of the coolest things was this little jam session that a bunch of sax players joined in on. Met Charles McNeal, Sergio Flores, and a few other people. Saw Jody Espina perform too as well as trying out the Vibrato plastic saxophones when I was playing them at the booth.

Jose Negrano’s trio was amazing too.

Neal Sax Solo Over Straphanging

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Brecker’s tune, gotta be able to hit some altissimo in the melody.

At the Dennis Murphy School of Music Thursday night. Solo over the Brecker tune Straphanging. Thanks Zhao (camera), Michael Martinez (piano), Gary (key bass), Robert (guitar) and Zach McDaniel (drums) and the horn section.

Play ‘So What’ Game

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kind_of_blueMiles Davis played an amazing solo on ‘So What’ from the Kind of Blue album. Recorded in 1959.

He doesn’t play a ton of notes. But he says a lot in the music. The space he uses in the solo is done very well.

It’s a good one to learn by ear or transcribe, especially earlier on. Other solos can be a lot more intimidating.

Thought I would set this up kind of like a game.

The first phrase (me playing it) looks like this:

1sowhat

It sounds like this:

The Notes:

In the entire first sixteen bars (first chorus), Miles Davis mostly sticks to a minor scale. There are two accidentals.

For tenor/soprano sax (or clarinet or trumpet) these are the main notes from lowest to highest:

tenor_sowhat_scale

And the accidentals:

tenor_sowhat_accidentals

For alto/bari sax

alto_sowhat_scale

And the accidentals:

alto_sowhat_accidentals

First Phrase Notes:

Here are the notes for the first phrase, out of order and without the rhythm written.

Figure out the order and play it with the right rhythm. You can get a better idea of the rhythm by looking at the diagram with the sound wave.

Tenor/Soprano Sax:

tenor_sowhat_1st

Alto/Bari Sax:

alto_sowhat_1st

And here’s what the rhythm looks like again:

1sowhat

Play those three notes on your saxophone and then figure out the order and play them with the correct rhythm.

Once you get it, click the Google+ button, facebook share, etc.

If it looks like people are interested, I’ll teach more of this.  Thanks

Can I play well without having to go through the stress of mastering scales?

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sax_man_frog_pond_painting_jProbably not. It decreases the chances quite a bit.  Still possible to do it, but a lot more unlikely.

You don’t need to learn them all at once, but eventually you want to know them. Spend part of your practice on scales, not all of it.

But if you can’t play a scale, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to play songs in different keys.

A scale is like the simplest song you can play in some ways. Many songs tend to stay in one key. If it’s a key you’re familiar with, you can probably play the scale. If it’s a key you’re not familiar with and it’s hard to play the scale in that key, it’s also probably going to be hard to play the song in that key.  If you can’t handle learning scales, you probably won’t get very far.

A sax player who can only play comfortably in one key is not going to get very far. Music is written in different keys and within songs the chord changes vary.

Say if you learned by ear and didn’t practice the scales, it’s going to take much more time to learn songs if you are physically unable to play a scale comfortably. It’s possible, but not an effective way to learn music and will waste a lot of time and slow you down.
Spending all of your practice time on scales would not be very much fun and probably wouldn’t motivate you to continue playing for long.

Learn how the scales relate to the music and it will make more sense and motivate you to learn them.

For instance, if I know a melody in one key and then have to switch from tenor sax to alto sax, I’ll have to switch keys. If I know the scales for both keys, I’ll be able to much more quickly figure things out.

What do you think?

Leave a comment, thanks.