THE ONE THING

No, I didn’t come up with the phrase ‘the One Thing.’  That came from that old Billy Crystal movie, the one with Jack Palance, where the guests at a dude ranch spend most of the movie pondering what, exactly, the one thing really is.

In this case, the one thing is that single phrase or turnaround or scale or passage that, once perfected opens up the doors to smooth sailing on everything else.

For me, it was mastering the F# M scale through the octaves in both directions with triads and inversions and arpeggios. For some reason, after I learned that one, everything thereafter in terms of playing scales seemed easier.

Another recent example: a student of mine was facing end-of-school-year juries. There was a simple eighth-note phrase in a particular song she was scheduled to perform that included a note she was weak at playing – - low C#. 

What I noticed was that her performance stalled both before and after the phrase with that C#. In other words, she choked in anticipation of its arrival in the chart, and, she flubbed almost everything after.

The solution? We isolated the phrase, and she practiced it over and over, starting very slowly and gradually building speed until she arrived at a place where she could NOT make a mistake.

And after that, after mastering that ‘one thing,’ the rest of the song came together.

As students, we all tend to get caught up in the big picture and we fail to see that there is usually one thing we can work on that will have the greatest impact on the entire spectrum of our playing.

So, what is the One Thing for you? 

saxophone lessons, private instruction, soloing, effective practice, instrumental