In 1925, Russian grandmaster Alexander Alekhine played twenty eight games of chess at the same time while blindfolded.
He won twenty two games, drew three, and lost three.
Did Dr. Xavier from the X-Men train him? Was he bitten by a radioactive rook?
Probably not. The X-Men weren’t around yet.
Did he know how to play chess when he was born?
No.
Some people argue that natural talent is a very large part of success in sports, art, music, etc. And it plays some role, but not nearly as big of a role as dedication and practice, in my opinion.
Basically what happened was he spent thousands of hours learning and practicing the game of chess. He could ‘speak’ the language of chess. He saw combinations of moves in chess, similar in the way we piece letters into words. He could ‘see into the future’ the results of what would happen. And he could do all this very quickly.
Creating order in his mind of many pieces of information and ideas.
Master saxophone players do the same thing and it takes time and dedication to get there.
On saxophone, we take all the dimensions of saxophone and put them together. And we don’t even philosophize between playing phrases (generally).
And it takes a lot of time to be able to play all the dimensions of saxophone fluently.
Think about this……
Who sounds better, the sax player with ‘natural talent’ who is just starting or the sax player who has put in 10,000 hours of dedicated and focused practice?
Your embouchure doesn’t develop overnight. The control in your throat doesn’t develop overnight. Creating sound through a saxophone and manipulating the keys and making music isn’t something anyone is born knowing how to do.
Charlie Parker Parker and John Coltrane practiced a lot. And they both took saxophone lessons.
Sonny Rollins and more locally (for me) George Young continue to practice an insane amount of hours even in their later years.
All great saxophone players practice a lot. They also listen a lot and have guidance.
So if you want to sound great on saxophone, practice saxophone and practice it effectively. And enjoy the path of getting there, because the path never really ends. Have fun with the music.
What do you think? Leave a comment!