When you play a ballad on saxophone, everything you do is right out in the open….
Playing fast can cover up a lot of details that might not be quite right. If a note that lasts only a moment before moving onto the next in a fast run of notes is out of tune, you probably won’t notice. Or if you play a lot of notes it might distract the listener from the lack of finesse with dynamics.
Ballads will have you and the audience hear the nuances of how you play- the details in phrasing and articulation and many other elements.
Practicing them helps in the same way that long tones help your sound too since you have to sustain notes with control.
It shows your versatility as a player.
And people aren’t always in the mood to listen to lightning bebop. Playing something slow can change up the pace.
So learn some ballads!
I learned Goodbye Porkpie Hat the other week. Alone Together, Skylark, Naima, and many others are very beautiful.
Let me know which ones you like!
skylark is my fav i play this very very slow
of coarse it is still a work in progress
Cool Barry, I really like that one too
A couple of my faves are Moonlight in Vermont and Tenderly, and My Funny Valentine has been my spotlight tune in a big band I play with periodically. Nature Boy has been on my mind lately; that’s one I want to learn. What a haunting, beautiful tune! And Autumn in New York…well, I keep learning that one and then losing it, learning it and losing it. Overall, I love playing ballads. A player really gets to throw pretty much everything into them–long notes, double-time, various effects–it’s all about feeling and emotion.
Yep, those are great tunes. Nature Boy has a distinct sound. Kurt Elling does a cool version of it too.