THE BEST ADVICE I EVER GOT AS A SAX PLAYER

I was at a festival years ago, listening to a big-name (but rather boring) blues band grind through the usual standards.  I wouldn’t have given them two minutes but for their sax player.

He was a tall, elegant man, graying, wearing a black suit. He played a tenor sax. When it came time for him to solo, he literally changed the band’s energy. He lifted them – and the audience - up and out of the doldrums.  His tone was pure and gorgeous, and every note he played fit. I wandered back stage after the band was finished.

I introduced myself and told him how much his performance had moved me. The sax player was kindly. He smiled. But when I asked him if I could pay him for a lesson or two, he seemed embarrassed. He told me he didn’t think of himself as any great tenor player. It would take two or three phone calls over the next couple of years before he finally agreed to talk to me.

  

This is what he said -- five simple sentences that changed my life as a sax player :

1. Blow enough air into your horn to make it vibrate, enough air to make the metal itself buzz.

2. Keep your tone the same all the way through the range of the horn.

3. Play with attitude. Conviction. Intensity. Every note means something. So, don’t be lackadaisical about anything.

4. Soloing is not about playing fast and pretty notes. It’s about people believing what you are playing.

5. Record your practice and your gigs, and listen back to it. Be honest with yourself. 

When he was finished I asked him how much I owed him, and where to mail the check. He said that no money was owed. 

Instead, he turned gruff, almost angry, and he said “No -- learn this stuff.”

I’ve been working on it every day.

tenor sax, tone, performance, technique, sax solo, mentor, sax lessons