Saxophone Practice Challenge Day 1
Saxophone Challenge
Day 01 – Saxophone Challenge!
Over the next thirty days, commit to practicing your saxophone at least ten minutes per day.
The combination of musical dimensions that you should use and practice include:
Tone, technique (including finger touch and embouchure, Feel/Emotion, Dynamics, Rhythm, Phrasing, Space/Rest, Notes, Articulation, Vibrato, and Listening.
Understanding how the dimensions of music work together is crucial to understand, so take the time to make sure you ‘get’ the idea.
Tip – Set a time each day to practice and build the habit of practicing saxophone.
Mindset Lesson– Procrastination can keep you from playing your saxophone. Some of it has to do with thinking that getting better is a huge task that you can’t handle. It also has to do with fear of how you will sound.
You just need to break it down. Ten minutes isn’t a long time! If you focus on what is important, those ten minutes can help a lot.
Use some time that you usually spend doing something unimportant like watching TV.
And pick up your saxophone!
Keep Track:
Keep track of what you practice each day. Shoot me an email at the end of the week and let me know how it’s going for you! There will be a prize for people who keep track of what they practice every day and send it to me each week.
And Sign up, if you have not already.
Do You Walk the Saxophone Walk?
“Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.”
-Thelonious Monk
Dancing can express ideas too! Talking can be more efficient in expressing ideas. If it’s done by people who know what they’re talking about.
Sometimes talking doesn’t really express anything though- think about certain politicians.
You can research music and learn all the theory, but it’s not going to matter until you apply it and bring it into your playing.
So worrying about how to solo isn’t going to be as effective as just doing it.
Learning new things is great, but then apply them to the music!
Getting Started at Sax Station and on Saxophone in General
Here’s an introductory video to Sax Station
And here are a few saxophone articles for players new to the sax.
Playing Saxophone With Passion
Please tell me what you think, how can I become as good as him and even better? Where does one
find this kind of passion?
Beginner’s Mind Child’s Mind for Saxophone
In Zen, there is an idea of approaching things with a “beginner’s mind” or “child’s mind.”
In this stage you are most open to new ideas, a not afraid to try things.
Starting Saxophone at 52
I am 52 and I just started learning the sax tenor.
I had my first lesson last week.
My previous music experience amounts to 1 year of studying the piano 20 years ago.
Beginner's Mind Child's Mind for Saxophone
In Zen, there is an idea of approaching things with a “beginner’s mind” or “child’s mind.”
In this stage you are most open to new ideas, a not afraid to try things.
It is a useful mind set to return to when practicing saxophone.
You will not be afraid to try new things or worry if you sound bad.
And you will get better at saxophone more quickly.
Top Ten Saxophone Articles at Sax Station
So I was checking my stats, and here are some of my most popular articles. Let me know what you think of them!
Practicing Saxophone
Hillbilly Flamenco
Story of Captain T
Circle of Fifths (Fourths)
Sax Man (Jack Black) with Lyrics
John Coltrane Afro Blue- on Soprano
Joshua Redman Jazz Crimes
Saxophone Mouthpieces
Saxophone Sound
Saxophone Books
Saxophone Practice Long Tones Circular Breathing
Hey neal, I have a question. What is your best practice technique. My time allotted for practice daily is about 1 hour. How can i fit a good practice schedule into 1 hour?
And, how can I try to get circular breathing! I’ve been trying for days, and I cant get it.
What does an expert like yourself recommend?
Thanks for the help
-Stavros (ALTO SAX
Hey Stavros,
I always start with long tones. One exercise I do takes about 8 minutes. I spend one complete breath split between two notes. Then progress up and down chromatically one octave from low E to E. Then I usually do some more long tones from a book that I have. After that I do some scales from Jackie McClean’s book. Then I do some jazz exercises- ii V I’s, etc. Sometimes I’ll work on classical stuff out of Rubanks or some other books. And I’ll work on pieces I’m playing with groups and transcriptions towards the end. I used to do more playalongs- abersolds. All that can fit within an hour- it all depends on how much time you have. If I don’t do anything else, I’ll still do the long tones- so then you still feel like you’ve played the next day.
For circular breathing, I talked to a teacher and he told me about how the didjeridoo players do it. How long have you been playing for? One of my teachers could circular breath, and it’s a good effect sometimes, but not the most important thing to learn.
There’s an exercise related to holding water in the cheeks.
-Neal
Saxophone Vibrato Question
Hi Neal,
Thank you for your email.
As I am relatively new to playing the sax my head is buzzing with all the info etc.I have heard the terminology of” Vibrato” & I was wondering where ,when & how you play it. Are You able to help Me.
Thanking you
Kind regards
Sue D from New Zealand
Hey Sue,
You’re welcome. Vibrato is mostly a stylistic element. So you can add as much or as little as you want. Something like classical clarinet has no vibrato. If you listen to Stan Getz play Brazillian jazz, it doesn’t have much vibrato either. Most sax players do use some vibrato, but in their own way.
Violins & string instruments move their strings to create vibrato, sax players do it with the jaw. Think of making a “wah-wah-wah” sort of sound. An exercise I did early on, told to me by a teacher, was to do the “wah” thing as quarter notes, eigth notes, triplets, and then sixteenths. It is somewhat mechanical, but will give you practice and once you have done it for a while you can start adding it into your playing more easily.
Listen to sax players that you like and see how they incorporate vibrato.
-Neal
Learning Songs on Saxophone – Take 5
I’ve heard of Take 5. It’s in the book i’m learning from, and sounds great. It is really hard to reach the tempo that Desmond play it in, but i guess it take time right? Patience, time, and devotion.
😀
-Stavros
Hey Stavros,
Yep, start slow with it. The 5/4 time signature takes a little while to get used to also. You can think of it as a combination of 3/4 & 2/4 (for this song anyway).
I actually just got an alto a couple of weeks ago, so I guess I can play Take Five in the original key now.
-Neal
Playing Saxophone With Passion
Hi Neal,
This is my first time responding to one of your e-mails so its a little
odd for me. Thanks for the past e-mails, they were great and insightful. I
don’t know if you’ve ever seen this video on youtube, its a clip of
Richard Elliot’s rendition of “your secret love”. If you have not seen it,
I personally think that you’re missing out on probably one of the best
legendary performances of our time. Every time I become discouraged about
my saxophone playing or I feel like I’m not making any progress, I simply
play this video and I suddenly realize why I love playing the sax. Here’s
the link, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ-T-knjcSE. Please tell me what
you think, how can I become as good as him and even better? Where does one
find this kind of passion?
Hey Dolu,
You’re welcome, glad I can help you. I watched that video a couple of times- sounds pretty good- seems to have have quite a heated discussion too, haha. Have you seen him live?
You’re probably on the right track. Listening is really important. And just putting in the time. How long have you been playing? Getting a teacher is important too, since they will hear things you don’t.
-Neal
Hey Neal,
It would be a dream come true to see Richard Elliot live, I’m still
working on that. I’m currently an undergraduate so you can probably
imagine I have all the time in the world, lol. I play at my church on
Fridays and Sundays so I use that as an opportunity to pick up the sax and
play around a little. I used to play in the school band back in high
school (Pep band, concert and jazz band), that’s actually how I started
playing. It has been a little under 5 years now but I’ve made considerable
progress despite the lack of formal teaching. About a year ago I bought my
first Tenor sax horn, (Julius Keilwerth EX 90 Series III)this was my
graduation present. I also use a Vandoren Jumbo JAVA Tenor Sax Mouthpiece
(T75) and Rico royal reed (3.5). This summer I really want to dedicate
time to improving on the sax. I have taken several steps in this direction
by printing several solo sheet music that I found online. I also purchased
the “Art of saxophone playing” by Larry Teal and I plan on ripping it
apart this summer. Please, let me know what you think and you’re welcome
to make any suggestions or express any concerns. I really appreciate you
taking the time to respond to my e-mail. Thanks Neal.
Dolu
Chord Exercises on Saxophone
My absolute favorite piece from Julian. I am working on this song on both saxes, and it goes quiet good.
I am considering, that i should transcribe his fantastic solo. I never transcribed a good piece before, so that should be some good training.
In the play-a-long book, there is only the theme, and then a improvisation piece. I like improvising, and i do it quiet a lot, but it could be funny to transcribe a solo from Cannonball. Further on, i’ve just been playing a pentatonic scale or a blues scale and so on when i solo in bands.
Therefore I am trying to get started with a bit of piano to know the chords and stuff, and that goes fairly good so far.
Do you know any good chord-excersizes to start off with?
Thank you for another great video!
Best Regards
David
Hey David,
Glad to hear you’re learning work song. I like playing it. My sax teacher in santa clara taught me a background that you can play with another person and switch off improvising over. I’ll show that to you if you would like, taught it to another sax player the other day.
Transcribing is definitely really good for you. I’ve only done it a little bit myself, but am going to be doing more in the near future. Not sure if Cannonball Adderley is the best person to start transcribing, he plays pretty fast sometimes…. if you slow it down with a computer program it might be a little easier. The first song I used for transcription was a blues by Stanley Turrentine. Since it’s the blues, it’s easier to know which notes will be played.
Playing some piano is great for knowing chords better since it’s all right in front of you and you can see the distances between notes in a chord, etc.
-Neal