Galopus posted a question on Sax Station earlier, he’s been playing sax for six months.

Asking about how playing piano can help with sight reading, music theory, and his ear.

The short answer, is playing and learning music will help you be a better musician.

Doesn’t matter if it’s on sax, piano, banjo, harmonica, or a shoe string (if you know that reference, you’re awesome, haha).

When a friend of mine in college was learning a little guitar, I helped him with music theory by showing him some examples on a piano keyboard diagram.  How everything arranged ‘makes sense’.

There are some great saxophone players who actually made records on which they played piano, one example being Joe Henderson.

A suggestion I hear consistently from musicians, to play more piano…. I play a little, to which they respond, “play a little more”.

A huge advantage of the piano is that everything is laid out in front of you.

The notes ‘look’ like the notes an octave below them – very unlike a saxophone where things have some consistency because of the octave key, but not that much.

On a piano, notes always increase by a half step if you go to the next key up.  Saxophone has all sorts of crazy ways to get notes out.

You can also play harmony on a piano or a bass line and a melody at the same time or any number of combination of things.

There’s not as much control over the actual ‘sound’ of the piano relative to the saxophone.  That’s a degree of freedom that we enjoy as saxophone players.

There is the issue of focus, think about what you really want to play and play that instrument more.

But playing the piano won’t tire out your embouchure, so you could play sax, then play piano, and be ready to play sax again.  Like switching between muscle groups in the gym.

It’s all music!

Asked some Sax Station readers about their experiences with piano:

Sterling – I play sax and piano and i tend to play and practice piano more it seems

Nicole- I started out on the piano.. Then a year later moved to Saxophone in grade school. To this day, my first year in college, I still play both, plus guitar! 🙂

Jasmine – I hardly play piano which is comparable to how much I play my saxophone. Haha. but I know that playing piano is essential to becoming a better musician because it helps you focus in on chords and harmonies which if necessary in becoming a great improviser, unless you just memorized what you need to know. Also you can get better familiarize with different keys and pitches. 🙂

Ron – I can pick out chords and slowly play progressions. Progressions, it seems to me, is what the saxophonist needs to hear, and he/she can’t do that simultaneity on a sax. I am sure that I will never be able to say “I play piano,” but it doesn’t matter.

John – When I’m not playing my sax. I’m on my digital piano!

Michael – Nice thing about piano is that you can see a lot of note relationships between chords in a progression, which can also show you that sometimes you don’t have to keep playing a lot of notes. Miles Davis was great for that in his soloing. No lack of meaning in his playing.

Ron – I agree with Michael. Also, Louis “Pops” Armstrong, the virtuoso jazz trumpet player and vocalist never played a lot of notes. I was fortunate in hearing Louis Armstrong and His All Stars when I was nineteen. Louis Armstrong (trumpet), Barney Bigard (clarinet), Jack Teagarden (trombone), Arvil Shaw (bass), Billy Kyle (piano), Barrett Deems (drums)! Unforgettable!

Rachel – I played piano for years before I started playing sax, and it has definitely helped with my improvisation. Also, having “piano knowledge was great when I was first learning scales on the saxophone- I could just picture the piano!