YouTube: Great Resource, Lousy Teacher

Would you hire a contractor who said he learned everything by watching This Old House reruns to teach you the building trade?

That's a rhetorical question. Meaning, I already know the answer. 

Which is no.  

Then why do you take sax "lessons' on YouTube, watching whatever new video this or that sax pro posts? 

YouTube tutorials are the road to getting nowhere fast. Here's why: 

First, the lessons as such are loss leaders that are designed to sell you something, usually more lessons, lessons access, a book, a CD, and so on.

In other words, You Tube tutorials are little sizzle reels that make the teacher and his/her lesson of the week seem like the solution to all of your playing problems.

Which they never are. 

In fact, the danger of learning via the free weekly lesson in your inbox is that your approach to music knowledge will be disjointed and not follow any sort of development or logic. It becomes a dazzling deli platter or newer-bigger-better, and in time, the actual work of sitting with a teacher and working out in a practice room seems oh so dull by comparison.

The YouTube scholar likewise has no idea where to put this all this new-found stuff into the matrix of a performance. Why? Because there is no actual teacher to guide the student through the process. 

Instead, there's next week's all new must-have solution to all things saxophone. 

If you are learning saxophone, then you are worth the cost of sitting with an actual teacher in an actual studio.  

Find the right teacher for you, meaning, a skilled educator who is actually helping you reach your playing goals. 

Then, pony up the bucks; it will be worth it in the long run. 

YouTube lessons? They're worth what you pay for them: nothing.

But wait, you say. Part of the header says YouTube - great resource. What gives?

I say this because YouTube is also the world's biggest basement full of every saxophone record or live performance available. And that's where the online resource does it's best -- by providing you, the student, with endless hours of great saxophone music to listen to, study, and transcribe as you and your teacher see fit. 


Key words: sax lessons, private lessons, online tutorials, apprenticeship, learning curve, teaching methods

  

PLAY WITH ENERGY

Think about it -- this is the one area that separates most amateurs from pros. Playing music with energy, no matter how many times you've practiced or performed any given material.

Your scale practice, for example. Try running them the same old way, and then, run them with expression and articulation. Energy, in other words. 

Play them as if you'd never heard the notes before, and let the notes jump out of your horn. 

Feels a whole lot better, doesn't it?

If you guessed that playing with energy is a mind game, you are partly correct. It begins inside, with a true enthusiasm for the music, no matter how mundane.

And I know just how mundane some of your practice material can be. 

You can also fake it until you make it. Use dynamics and articulation and emphasis and shading and make your exercises into little masterpieces of energetic playing. 

You will be amazed at the difference.

Key words: la mesa saxophone, energy, performance tips, private lessons, articulation