Practicing Saxophone at the Speed of a Turtle
Manny: A big weakness of mine is that I want to play without music; just from my ear and memory, but I always have trouble playing just the right notes. They are either a note or two higher or lower. I notice many players play from memory and I really want to do that. I can hum the tune very well, but can’t get that ability on my sax or translate/transpose the notes from memory. Any suggestions?
Thanks for your message. Catch you later!
Manny
Neal: To play by ear/memory you just need to practice doing it. It sounds like you’re getting pretty close to the right notes most of the time if you’re off by a little bit.
One thing that really helps is to slow down and practice less material more- that is to concentrate on a small amount. Then you’ll learn it well, instead of being able to play a lot of material so-so.
Also, starting with music that is simpler should help. It’s better to learn ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ than Charlie Parker’s solo on Confirmation. At least initially. You want to build some momentum.
You can also check out these upcoming lessons on sax ear training to get started with learning music by ear.
-Neal
Hey Manny !
Many people ask me: “Is it hard to play the saxophone?”
I tell them: “Each and every instrument has its own particularity(difficulty)”. But if you really want to progress with the sax… you better start with a “recorder” learning the very basics, note value, basic scales, the many ways of “blowing”…and chord construction(harmony) so you can progress page by page on your own, otherwise you will remain lost in space forever.
Mike Cortina
Thanks Mike,
It seems like what you’re saying is that it’s easier to learn music by ear if you simplify things and that the recorder is inherently a more simple instrument?
I think you can do something similar on sax by sticking with the notes of a major scale or blues scale, say C major and figuring out some different melodies in it. What do you think?
-Neal