The Practice Log, Part Two

What'd you practice yesterday? What, exactly, and for how long? How about last Thursday? What did you work on then, and how did it go?

If you don't have total recall on practice room matters, rest assured that you are not alone. Most all of my students give a generic answer when I ask them how long and on what did they practice. Their eyes glaze over from the effort.

Help comes in the form of the practice log. Yes, there's probably an app for it, but I prefer the old fashioned pencil and paper method: you write the date, and for each element you practice during that session, you also write details such as the metronome speed.

And you keep that practice log in plain view where you can see it each and every session.

By doing the above, you set little markers in place that you can look back on in order to measure your progress -- or lack thereof.

Think about it: you could be stuck on the C# melodic minor scale at 40 bpm for eons and wonder why you aren't getting any better at playing it. Unless you take notes and make a conscious effort to advance. The practice log changes everything.

And that's what a practice log really is: not an ugly reminder of practice room difficulties, of stuff you struggle to play. Nope - it's a chart of your success, of  you taking charge of your own forward momentum as a music student.

Consider it your secret weapon, especially when it comes time for auditions, year-end juries, scale tests, and so on. Along with your tuner and your metronome, the practice log is your best friend. Why?

You can't manage what you can't measure.

Key words: La Mesa saxophone teacher, woodwinds, music lessons, secrets to success, practice aids

The D Word

A couple of my advanced saxophone students display great promise. They can play their instruments quite well, and they have both shown steady growth in most areas except for one: discipline. 

I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but bear with me.

Neither of them has finished a single objective. Not a one. In my classes, we are big on goal setting. My students bring something, whether for school or a personal need, and we make a plan that includes a series of exercises and a deadline.

Sounds good, doesn't it?  But it's not so good if you never actually finish anything.  

These particular students jump from one thing to the next. And they do manage to improve in a half-way sense, but there is that one thing that is missing: the mastery that comes from discipline. 

Which happens to be a common trait among all of the major artists you can name. Discipline. Monk, for example, is said to have practiced a single song at performance tempo for an hour at a time. 

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In the end, non-finishers never get that fully-developed sense of completion of a job well done. And I think that's vital to the pursuit of  anything -- not just music, but anything, really. 

Never actually finishing something (learning your major scales, for example) means that, as a musician, you will always have that unfinished business to get back to. In time, the stack of unfinished business adds up and becomes a burden. And eventually, it will show up in one's performance on the band stand. 

There's a simple solution:  ready?  FINISH WHAT YOU STARTED.

Key words: discipline, practicing tips, self esteem, la mesa saxophone, Thelonius Monk, goal setting, achievement

When I Play My Scales Slow, I Make Mistakes. Lots of Mistakes

Each week I assign a new scale exercise for my students to memorize. I test the following week. And just about 100 percent of the time, the student can rip through the scale no problem.

But when I ask them to slow it down, well, that's when the mistakes start arriving.

Why is that?

Simple answer: because scales,  vital as they are, are boring. They require seeming endless repetition, and scales become something a musician practices for the duration.

Just like long tone practice, scale exercises never go away.  And it is only natural to want to knock them out as quickly as is possible.

And it is easier to get that rote thing going than it is to actually slow down and listen to your own tones each time. But that's what you want to do. Listen. Practice slow. Speed can come later.

And it will.

The overall goal is not just to be able to play fast and with agility, but for each note to be beautiful, to sound polished.

Play slowly, build the scale tones with strength, and concentrate. That's a tall order in a high speed world in which so many of us spend time involved in virtual pursuits, but so be it.

And remember: your metronome and your tuner are your two best friends in the practice room when it comes to scales.

Key words: saxophone practice tips, learning scales, private lessons, la mesa saxophone teacher

You Have to Show ALL the Notes Some Practice Love

It's unanimous:  almost all of my sax students come to lessons with little or no skill in making the low notes:  C#, C, B, and good old low Bb, the lowest of the low (unless they play a low-A bari sax.)

Why? Because they have rarely been challenged to perfect (or even to play) those notes anywhere in their elementary to middle-school music rooms. For reasons of under-staffing and over-crowding, most of the classrooms don't have time to work on anything more than the notes required to get through the set pieces for class performances.

But facility with the notes will be needed eventually, so include them in one's long tone schedule. Yep. Long tones again. There's no other way around it.

First, make sure the low keys actually seal. If it's a rental or school horn, there's a good chance the keys could be out of alignment, which causes frustrating leaks and prevents mastery.

Second, remember to breathe into the sax by filling your stomach and feeling your stomach push that air up and out.

Don't tongue the low notes. Rather, allow them to play on their own. Yes, that's way harder, but the player will develop control that goes a long way toward being able to play semi-tones or ghosted notes on all the lows.

The same goes for the upper octaves as well, by the way. Most of my students have little experience playing anything above a high C#.....meaning, D, Eb, E, and F. The palm keys, in other  words. The remedy is the same for both ends of the sax: long tones, allowing the notes to establish rather than tonguing them in.

Finally, after the ability to make and control both low and high notes has been reliably established, the job is to make them play pretty, and in tune.

Key words: sax lessons, low notes, high notes, breathing techniques, tonguing