Your Gig is now on Facebook, in Living Color

I’ve have a running argument with other musician friends about any given audience’s use of smart phones or other such connected devices to record live gigs, which they then post to social media.

Often, the quality is shaky and the audio stinks. My bigger fear? That future employers will see such low quality clips and not hire me, or, that the recording will catch me at a weak or sloppy moment, or that a potential audience might be satisfied to just watch at home and not go to a live show.

It got to the point when I was playing last week at a big festival and I looked out into a sea of smart phones waving in the air, stopped the band, and asked that people put them away and simply enjoy the music.

Their response? They got up, each of them, and they left the venue.

And me?  I felt maybe two inches tall. Righteous indignation is a true audience killer.

Later that same day, at the music store where I teach music, the managers jokingly suggested I make a banner with some embarrassing wording on it and hang it behind the band to thwart such live recording.

I half thought about doing it.

That’s when it occurred to me that we live in an age of entitlement. People now feel free to use their smart phones to record anything and everything, and social media has given them a free platform to share their whereabouts with the rest of the digital world.

Most important? This is how our fans want to enjoy music. 

 

I had to make an attitude attitude adjustment or stay home:  no more sloppy dressing, and no more trying things out on stage that may or may not fly. From now on, I play like I’m at Carnegie Hall no matter the gig, and I save all else for private jams and rehearsal.

It’s the only aspect that I can control:  me, and my performance. And if people are recording, I want to be spot on.

I brought this same subject up with a friend and mentor who happens to be a first rate blues guitarist and jazz composer named Robin Henkel. His perspective was both refreshing and enlightening:

“When I see someone recording, I invite them to get closer so they can get a better picture. If they’re going to post my music, I want it to be the best quality possible.”  He views such posts on social media as free advertising.

Meanwhile, that cranky sax player who yelled at people to put their phones away?

He has left the building.

Good riddance.

cell phones, recording, live performance, bootleg recordings, social media

BLOWN AWAY

Someone posted footage of a favorite sax player of mine on Facebook recently, performing with a combo at what appeared to be a swank joint  -- white tablecloths, chandeliers, and the band in suits and ties.

The group launched into an old bebop standard and my friend took the first solo.  His playing was big as day, bold, ripe with expression, and captivating. It's what happened while my sax buddy was playing that blew me away.

The trombone player walked across stage (behind the sax player) and picked up something from a bag under the piano.  Then, he proceeded to dismantle his 'bone, lubricate the slides with spray lube, then re-assemble the instrument.

But that's not all.

Next, he put his trombone on its stand, and proceeded to walk around on the bandstand....back and forth between the members of they rhythm section...and all the while waiting out the sax player so he could launch his own solo.

The trombone player's poor judgement and bad stage manners surprised me, considering the guy's deep pockets as a musician. You'd think he'd have known better, considering his level of pro experience.

But no, he didn't.

The rule of thumb while on stage is this:  watch and listen to the other performers when you yourself are not playing. Remain attentive to what is being 'said' by the other players so that you too can contribute to the conversation. Be polite, and do not draw attention away from the soloist.

Never, ever just walk around on stage (or lube your horn in front of an audience) while a song is in progress.  If you bust a reed, keep a spare in pocket. If you have to leave the stage, wait until a song is over.

In any combo configuration, our job is to support each other, even when we are not playing. So, stand still. Listen. Watch.

But do not walk around, fidget, make instrument repairs, or use your cell phone.

This stuff seems elementary, does it not?

on-stage manners, live performance, gigging, band life, combos, bad manners

Five for Beginning Improvisers

Whether for jazz, blues, rock, funk, pop music, R&B, or soul, give these five a try

1. Start with the melody.

“Don’t play it until you can sing it.” That was great advice from one of my sax teachers. He was right -- improvising a solo really means composing something new based on a song’s melody. Learn the melody backwards and forwards. Be able to hum it.  And that way, you can always fall back on the melody if/when all else fails during a solo.

2. Open your mind.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks to learning how to solo is the fear of making mistakes in front of an audience and in front of our peers. Most all have that fear deep inside of us, and it will probably never go away. So, we get used to it, and we stand up anyway and we perform and we make mistakes. Lots of them, if necessary. Making mistakes is part of how we learn. As Miles Davis once said, make them loud.

3. Learn your scales, but not out of a book.

Learning scales out of a book means having to unlearn those scales at some point. Why? Because, as Kenny G himself told me (I managed to sneak a quick sax lesson out of him once,) you will never, ever, play a scale in front of an audience. Ever. He’s right. Instead, try learning scales by ear through an exercise I learned long ago.

Pick a simple song you know cold – for example, “Happy Birthday.” Now, starting with middle C, play it on your horn from memory. Congratulations – you’ve just used an F major scale starting on the fifth note of the scale, C -- (F-G-A-Bb-C-D-E-F)                                        

Next, play the same tune beginning with C#...which uses the notes in an F#M scale. Keep at it until you’ve done this using all 12 notes as your starting point, and you will not only have learned all of the keys, you will have taken a giant step toward connecting your mind and your fingers and your horn. 

4. Listen.

All the time. Listen to other sax players (or soloists of whatever your instrument.) Listen to their tone, their timing, their use of space, how they approach the melody, and how they interplay with the other musicians. This is how we learn music --- by listening, and then by imitating what we heard on our own instruments. Think about it --- when you were a child, you learned to talk by imitating the adults around you, right, and not by reading a book. Every art is learned in this manner. So, listen to other soloists, and then imitate.

5. Play.

As often as possible with other musicians in all styles of music – be it music you study or like, classical, country western, folk, rock, bluegrass, whatever. Try not to limit yourself to only one style or genre, because all music has something to teach us.  Finally, when you get with other musicians for a little jam session, which should happen often in your instrumental life, put practice time aside and just play music. Save practicing for the practice room on your time.           --- ©Dave Good    davegoodmail@gmail.com

beginning improvisation, transcribe, solo saxophone, sax lessons, composing, Kenny G, Miles Davis, jazz advice, soloing

Five Things You Can Do to Improve Your Saxophone Playing 10 Times Faster

1. Practice at the same time and place each day.  Short bursts of active concentration for five minutes at a time on something that you are having difficulty with are better than playing things you already know and are comfortable with for 30 minutes or an hour.

2. Practice playing long tones. First, blow air through the horn without making any sound other than wind gusting out of the other end. Put your stomach muscles into it – that’s where tone and control comes from. Then, fill up with as much air as possible and hold a single note as long as you can starting soft, then getting loud as you can, and bringing it back down to soft again.  Do all the notes in a scale this way.

3. Practice playing scales – but not just any scales. The ascending/descending structure teaches the range of your instrument and all the notes, but it can become a roadblock to creative soloing. Try this instead: learn your scales, and practice playing them in intervals, especially the 1-3-5 notes. Learn all major, minor, and dominants first.

4. Practice using a tuner and a metronome.  A tuner will help dial in intonation, and a metronome will help to learn to stay on tempo. 

5. Keep a practice log. Set goals for yourself, and measure your progress weekly. For example, if you start playing a new scale (or a difficult passage in a score) at 50 bpm, try increasing by 10 bpm per week.

Feedback: let me know how these ideas work for you -- 

better sax playing in a hurry, music, saxophone, lessons, private instructor

BRINGING IT ALL BACK TO NUMBER 1: YOUR TONE

Many of my sax (and flute and clarinet) students work their long tone exercises faithfully but get nowhere. Week after week they come back with little or no improvement to show for their efforts.

If indeed they are putting effort into it.

Yes, there are some among them who aren't practicing long tone exercises. I know that, because I hear the continuation of problems that daily long tones -- even if practiced for only five minutes -- will fix.

But then there are those among my students who really do their long tones and still make little improvement.

Yes. It is possible to practice long tones the wrong way. If you are one of the ones who is putting in the time and not hearing results, stay tuned for some more ideas below.

I keep harping on this subject because tone is number one. It's the first thing someone hears when you put air through your horn.

Repeat after me:  tone is king. 

And the way to having a great sound is by including long tone exercises in your daily warm-ups and your practice routines.

We've talked about a variety of long tone exercises. My favorite is to fill up with much air, then blow soft-loud-soft on each note in an ascending scale.

Another way is to do the opposite: fill up with air, but blow the softest clear tone you can manage while maintaining the integrity of the note. Maintain your embrochure from note to note. Don't loosen up. Breathe thru your nose.  And yes, this should cause your smile muscles to hurt, but that's the point: to build up your embrochure.


If you're doing all the above and still not getting where you want to be, here are some suggestions.

1. LISTEN to yourself. Don't zone out mentally while playing long tones. I know; it's more fun to do long tones while you play GameBoy or watch TV or look at the computer.

Don't.   Focus instead on the sound coming out of your horn and your relationship to it. Make adjustments with air flow and embrochure until you hear some improvement.

2. POSTURE   stand with your back to any flat wall in your house and rest the back of your head against the wall. Hold the sax up and then blow your long tones. Much of the time, poor horn posture limits the air flow or causes a player to bite down on the mouthpiece.

3. THE GREAT OUTDOORS   find a place outside where you can blow long tones without disrupting the neighbors. Stan Getz once told an interviewer that's how he got that powerful sound of his -- by practicing outside.  Without anything to bounce off of, your tone goes everywhere outside and sounds thinner and flatter.

Time with long tones will fix that, and just about everything else that ails your individual sound.

long tone exercises, saxophone lessons, woodshedding, tone, air flow, tone production 

ONE THING THAT WILL IMPROVE YOUR SAXOPHONE PLAYING

And -- everybody can do it.

It's a simple adjustment-- in fact, you will be amazed at just how simple it is. But then again, much change leading to improvement often comes from the simplest of life re-alignments.

Here it comes. Ready?

Practice every day at the same time and in the same place.

I learned this the hard way...by allowing outside influences to dictate my practice schedule. I ended up practicing whenever and wherever, which led to a general decline in my focus and skills.

Me? I hit it at 8 am every morning and I use the guest bathroom so I can isolate my sound, not wake up the neighbors, and use the mirror. My metronome is right there on the counter.

Many of you who have used the guest bathroom at my house have probably wondered, but that's my routine.

Is it always easy? No -- especially not after a late night gig.

But, it works.  Try it, and see for yourselves.




saxophone lessons, better practice, technique, woodwinds, private lessons, metronome

I KNOW YOU PRACTICE. BUT -- ARE YOU PRACTICING THE RIGHT STUFF?

My Sunday sax student had an epiphany -- he told me that he practices at least an hour each day, but he admitted that he wasn't getting where he wanted to go fast enough.

"I'm practicing wrong, aren't I?" he asked.

Yes. He was repeating the same errors over and over in his practice, but not knowing it until he brought it in for lessons.

He was in the same place each week as a sax player, not getting worse, but not getting better.

It's so easy to fall into the habit of playing the same things over and over in practice, and for a variety of reasons. How to escape this trap?

I'll give you three ideas to try out BEFORE you start a practice session.

1. THINK about what it is that you want to work on in the practice session. What are you having difficulty with? How can you break that down into smaller steps that you can work on?

2. Warm up the hands. I've showed each of you how to do those palms-out arm stretches that work the muscles that we use to control the keywork.

3. Finally, get the instrument warmed up with some breathing and some long tones, from soft to loud.

Then, get started.

sax lessons, rehearsal, practice, evaluations, goal setting, practice routine, clarinet, flute, provate lessons