Why take a class on music by ear?

So that you are able to hear musical ideas and play them.  You also want to be able to play what you hear in your head.  Getting to that level of control on the saxophone will make you a much better musician and give you freedom within the music.

It’s  fun and becomes easier with a little practice.  And once you get rolling, it’s a great skill to have.  There’s more freedom in the music, more control, and it’s easier to get in the zone if you have a developed ear.

If you’re interested in learning more about music by ear on saxophone, enter your name and email address here:

Reading music is important too, but listening and being able to play by ear is a vital part of being a great saxophone player.  It involves taking in the music and being able to play rather than going from the music to paper to music.  Things are lost in that transition…..

The first piece of the puzzle is probably to focus on a small piece of music at a time.

Beyond that, it’s good to know the intervals in music really well.  Having a melody in your ear that has each of the intervals is something that can help.  Generally, we’re more comfortable with ascending intervals as well.  When you combine intervals with several notes, you get chords.  And we can hear the characteristics of chords.

However, really, getting the rhythm of something is harder than getting the pitch in my opinion.  There are only 12 pitches, but the variation in rhythm and getting the articulation just right seems to be the more difficult part in transcription to me.

We have a 6 week online ear training class specifically designed for learning music on sax by ear…

It’s a systematic approach to learning the different dimensions of music through progressively more challenging pieces.  You can work through them at your own pace in the comfort of your home or bring it with you.

The weekly lessons will be sent to via email and you can download all the files through Sax Station.  You can see a sample lesson (here).
There are two choices for the class – standard (with the lessons only) and the Premium (with additional challenges). Full details are listed.

Learn More:

For my ear training lesson on ‘It Don’t Mean a Thing’ by Ellington, I decided to post it again here. The ‘solutions’ to the music (the notes for this lesson) are listed below the video. They’re not listed all at once though. They’re listed one at a time. You can scroll down to see one and then if you want to check the next one, you’ll need to scroll down farther. In this way, it’s a slight bit of a hassle to check the next note and I would encourage you to not look unless completely necessary.

Try it out! And let me know how it goes and what you think of the format.

Share it on Facebook and Google + if you like it!

Thanks

First Note

Tenor Saxophone & Soprano Saxophone:

E

Alto Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone:

B

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Second Note

Tenor Saxophone & Soprano Saxophone:

A

Alto Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone:

E

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Third Note

Tenor Saxophone & Soprano Saxophone:

A

Alto Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone:

E

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Fourth Note

Tenor Saxophone & Soprano Saxophone:

C

Alto Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone:

G

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Fifth Note

Tenor Saxophone & Soprano Saxophone:

E

Alto Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone:

B

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Sixth Note

Tenor Saxophone & Soprano Saxophone:

A

Alto Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone:

E

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Seventh Note

Tenor Saxophone & Soprano Saxophone:

C

Alto Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone:

G

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Eighth Note

Tenor Saxophone & Soprano Saxophone:

Eb

Alto Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone:

Bb

 

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Ninth Note

Tenor Saxophone & Soprano Saxophone:

D

Alto Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone:

A

 

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Tenth Note

Tenor Saxophone & Soprano Saxophone:

C

Alto Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone:

G

 

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Eleventh Note

Tenor Saxophone & Soprano Saxophone:

A

Alto Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone:

E

 

 

 

Tenor Saxophone & Soprano Saxophone:

E A A C E A C #D D C A.

Alto Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone:

B E E G B E G Bb A G E

 

Check out Saxophone Tribe for more quick lessons like this!

To sign up for the saxophone ear training class, go to this page

https://saxstation.com/big-ear

I was helping a student study for the SAT mathematical questions the other day.  He has a prep book with concepts and practice questions.  And the answers are available to check out if you flip back to a later page.

That means you can check instantly whether you have the correct answer or not.

If you use this option the right way, it can help, but it can also prevent you from really learning something.

The right way would be to try a math problem, attempt one method and if that didn’t work to try a few other methods.  Then you would attain an answer, check it if possible and think about whether it seems reasonable.  If you’re obtaining the height of a person, two centimeters wouldn’t be reasonable.

The wrong way would be to look at a problem for two seconds, exclaim that you do not know how to solve it and then flip back to the answer and look puzzled at how they got it then examine the solution steps to see what they’re doing.

When you look at a solution and have some idea of what’s going on, the solution is probably going to make sense.  You might feel like you understand it even, but if you hadn’t looked at the solutions it would have taken you much longer to figure it out if you could.

The thing is, that longer time and the struggle enables you to learn things better.

You’re far more likely to remember something if you struggle while learning.  With one student I went over a problem with him, finding the height of a triangle inscribed in a parabola.  He looked at the problem, unsure of where to start, so I helped him with some steps.  It was a somewhat complicated problem.  Then three days later we encountered the exact same problem.  Not a similar problem.  The same problem.

He wasn’t sure how to solve it or even get started even though we had done the problem before.  I had the steps to the problem with me that I had written out three days prior.  He saw the solution and it made sense on the previous day, but when he encountered the same problem again, he wasn’t able to figure it out without more help.

I thought about the process of how this happened.  Ideally, you want to try something, anything when you encounter a problem.

If you’re learning music on saxophone and want to play it.  Try playing a note that you think you hear.  You might be off by two octaves.  But once you play it, you should hear a difference.  Then if you play a second note, it ought to be closer using what you have learned.  If you try to instantly guess what the note is and have no experience learning music by ear, you might feel overwhelmed and not even try to play a note, simply giving up.

Looking at the sheet music will give you the answer instantly all at once.  If you were working with a saxophone teacher, he or she could probably give you the first note and then let you work from there.  It would give you a starting point.  And if you got off track, you might learn from the teacher where exactly you got off track.

Check out the lesson where you can check yourself by scrolling, Ear Training lesson for It Don’t Mean a Thing

Learning saxophone by ear involves many dimensions and situations.

You might be trying to get a sax solo that you heard, pick out a horn line, or get an entire arrangement by listening. If you listen for certain key elements, it will help you get the music faster. The main thing is just practicing this skill though.

Having a good ear is crucial to being able to improvise well on saxophone.

So here are a few saxophone ear training videos.  I’m placing them here in approximate order of difficulty.  Leave a comment letting me know which ones you like and what you would like to see more of.

I’m also making a class focusing on ear training for saxophone that will go much farther than these videos.

Struggling with Playing by Ear on Saxophone?

Want to work more on ear training?

Nino Rota composed ‘Speak Softly, Love’ or the Godfather Theme.

The ‘solutions’ to the music (the notes for this lesson) are listed below the video. They’re not listed all at once though. They’re listed one at a time. You can scroll down to see one and then if you want to check the next one, you’ll need to scroll down farther. In this way, it’s a slight bit of a hassle to check the next note and I would encourage you to not look unless completely necessary.

Try it out! And let me know how it goes.

You can buy the sheet music if you would like, but I would recommend buying the original recording and learning the rest by ear. You can also check out Saxophone Tribe to get help playing this.

Share it on Facebook and Google + if you like it!

Thanks

First Three Notes

Tenor Saxophone & Soprano Saxophone:

B E G

Alto Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone:

F# B D

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Fourth Note

Tenor Saxophone & Soprano Saxophone:

F#

Alto Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone:

C#

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Fifth Note

Tenor Saxophone & Soprano Saxophone:

E

Alto Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone:

B

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Sixth Note

Tenor Saxophone & Soprano Saxophone:

G

Alto Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone:

D

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Seventh Note

Tenor Saxophone & Soprano Saxophone:

E

Alto Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone:

B

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Eighth Note

Tenor Saxophone & Soprano Saxophone:

F#

Alto Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone:

C#

 

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Ninth Note

Tenor Saxophone & Soprano Saxophone:

E

Alto Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone:

B

 

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Tenth Note

Tenor Saxophone & Soprano Saxophone:

C

Alto Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone:

G

 

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Eleventh Note

Tenor Saxophone & Soprano Saxophone:

D

Alto Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone:

A

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Twelfth Note

Tenor Saxophone & Soprano Saxophone:

B

Alto Saxophone & Baritone Saxophone:

F#

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If you want help with notes 13 through 25, enter your name and email address

Check out Saxophone Tribe for more quick lessons like this!

To sign up for the saxophone ear training class, go to this page

https://saxstation.com/big-ear

Saxophone ear training video lesson with an old jazz standard.

Song by Duke Ellington and Irving Mills.

First note for tenor sax is an E, first note for alto saxophone is B.

Let me know how it goes!

The song is ‘Take Me Out to the Ball Game’. Another exercise in ear training for saxophone.

The first note for tenor sax and soprano sax is C and it’s G for alto sax and bari sax.

That first interval is an octave, like the first interval in Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

Just the first phrase here.

Might start doing some lessons in more interesting keys…..

Leave me any questions, comments, or suggestions!

Lisa Simpson played the bari sax. And there was a bit of saxophone on the show for a while. Back when Bleeding Gums Murphy still lived.

Here’s a lesson teaching you that riff. It starts on concert Bb as I’m playing it here, not the original key. But it’s an easy key to play on saxophone. It will be good for you to be able to play it in multiple keys.

The point of learning musical ideas is to bring them into what you can play and you don’t want to be restricted by the key!

Let me know how it goes and if you have any suggestions for the format.