Efficient Practice is Good Practice

So, what style of music do you find yourself playing most often? Rock? Blues? R&B? Jazz? School concert band? Where is your heart and soul, your first and best effort when it comes to playing saxophone?

That's where you want to be when practicing. Make your practice sound like you when you are playing with other musicians. 

In other words, if you play blues sax, don't play those daily arpeggios from the Klose workbook or even your daily scales (with metronome, of course) as if your were going to audition for a concert band slot.   Play them, yes, but instead, play every note the same way you'd play them if performing with a blues band. That means pay attention to rhythm, and work in the growls, bends, trills, triplets, and so on. 

Or, if you're a jazz player and you dig Joe Henderson for example, then try to play your exercises like he would have. How? Listen, and emulate.

If you play in rock bands, perhaps Clarence Clemmons is among your faves. If yes, then by all means practice your scales and exercises with that same lusty growl with big tone production.

Most all of my students at SaxLessonsSanDiego.com don't practice this way. They live in dual universes in which the practice studio and the stage are separate entities. The goal of practice is to bring the two closer together. And you do this by practicing everything, even long tones, in the same way that you'd perform them. 

You will never in this lifetime play a C major scale for anybody except your teacher, right? So when you practice playing it, tear it up. Invert it, play it in thirds, fourths, sixths. Growl. Or whatever it is that you do most often.

Make all of your exercises sound the way you play.  Questions? Drop me a line at davegoodmail@gmail.com 

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