THE SECRET TO PLAYING FAST...

...is to practice slow.

I have never been able to figure this one out, but, virtually all of my clarinet and saxophone students, especially the intermediate and the more advance students play through their practice exercises as fast as they can.

It's almost as if they hate the sound of the individual notes coming out of their instruments! 

But, those individual notes are the only tools that we have to work with, and our gig is to make them ring. 

For example, listen to any major sax players you like - say, John Coltrane, Hank Crawford, or Tom Scott.  Notice that when they blast through a run of 16th notes, each one is clear and tone-centered.

The way it's supposed to be. 

And you get that by practicing slowly.  You must sound each and every note.

Speed appeals. But when you practice a piece faster than you can handle it,  you've robbed your future. 

Why?

Perfect practice makes perfect. Sloppy practice makes, well, you get it. 

Practice everything slower than you humanly think is possible. Go for clarity and beauty of tone on each and every note, and do not increase the tempo until you can play each measure perfectly.  A good rule to follow is to never play a piece faster than the most difficult measure, the one that slows you down each and every time.

Yeah it takes discipline, and yeah, it's way more fun (and ego-satisfying) to scramble along at break-neck speed, but slow it way down in the beginning. 

It's the best way I know of to get fast. 

speed up your sax playing, tricks, practice tips, private lessons, saxophone

What To Do When  Having A Bad Sax Day

First, let me apologize for lagging on the posting of new stuff. It's been a busy teaching and performing schedule lately, and some things had to go on the back burner. 

It occurred to me that playing any musical instrument has its good days and its not-so-good days, especially for those of you who are performing out in public on a regular basis. 

I have them. And sometimes, I find myself obsessing over having played wrong notes or a flat line or repeating my own musical cliches. Whatever. I can find myself going dark for days on end after giving what I consider a poor performance.

You feel me? 

But this is part of the experience of being a musician. We all have off days.  Next time you have one, run down the following check list and see if any of this helps you :

1. I try not to have any expectations when I go to a gig. If I do show up with expectations, I am almost always disappointed. I've learned to take things as they come, control what aspects I can control, and live with the rest.

2. I try not to dwell on complements. I learned this from a sax teacher of mine long ago. He said that if anyone complemented him, that meant he had to practice an extra hour. I don't think he actually did that, but I got the point: getting hooked on praise will hurt your playing just as badly as does the next item.

3. Criticism. Especially un-constructive criticism.  When that happens, I try to take it in stride, consider the source, and if there is anything behind it, correct as best I can.

4. Negative self-talk. Oh man, this one's the worst of all, because we are our own worst critics. Again, what I've learned to do is objectify and apply: is there something I can do or practice to improve my perceived shortcoming on the bandstand, whatever it may be?  If need be, take it to your sax teacher for some deeper ideas.

Finally, you've got to put it behind you and move on to the next gig. When you catch yourself going back and re-thinking it all, remind yourself that the gig in question is over. What's done is done. Pick up, and move on. 

You'll do better next time.

performance psychology, saxophone playing, private lessons, how to practice, best practices

YOU NEED TO PLAY MORE

I've been spending a lot of time lately, studying and listening to Lester Young. Considered by many to have been one of the main architects of what we now know as jazz tenor saxophone, Mr. Young had a detached style and an approach that was all his own and in the day, considered highly original. 

He was a working sax player and all accounts say he was always up for a jam session, even if it meant losing sleep.  He, like every other musician in his era, played long hard hours. It was an expectation first, but also a deeply ingrained part of their culture. For example, listen to Young's solo in this Count Basie recording from 1928. It was made around 10 in the morning -- after the band had played a 9 pm to 5 am gig and then jammed before the recording session. 

And still, they played the session with energy and verve.

Most of us don't play nearly as much as our saxophone forebears. And that is precisely what we need to be doing -- playing as much as is possible.  We don't play nearly enough.

And by that, I mean playing, not practicing. Jamming with others, playing gigs, one-nighters, whatever. 

Play more -- and everything about your own musicianship will improve.

sax lessons, count basie, lester young, jam session, practice, improvisation

The Two Worst Words a Music Student Can Say 

Last week, I counted how many times a student said the two words during a lesson: seven. 

It took a lot of energy, but each time, we figured out a way to work around her words and find a means for her to achieve. 

But she's not the only one. In fact, most all of my students (and prospective students) chant these two words as if they were a mantra. 

Okay, perhaps I exaggerate, but consider the alto sax student who brought Chick Corea's "Got a Match?" to her lesson, along with a time limit to learn it all and at 220 bpm. 

She said those two words, but by the end of the 30 minutes, she had the head memorized and was well on her way to perfecting the rest of it.

If only we hadn't had to spend so much energy dealing with those two words.  You already know what the two words are, because I'm guessing you've used them yourselves. 

Here they are 

I can't. 

Some of you are laughing right now, but, those two words are deadly. The negative response kills creativity. Those little words have the power to keep us stuck in place. And if we say them enough, we begin to believe them.

I spend a lot of time dealing with student/performance psychology with my private and group students, and I have come to learn that our mindsets determine our outcomes in so many cases. 

So don't burden yourself with 'I can't.' Instead, make it a habit to say yes, to frame your various concerns about your musicianship in a more positive way, and you will  hear the results in your playing.

Yes, there's a Part Two to this, and I'll get to that in next week's blog entry.

private lessons, saxophone instruction, positive, attitude, learning skills

Breaking it Down for Better Soloing

If you really want to hear where you’re at as a soloist, try jamming with either a bassist or a drummer – but only one, or the other, and never both together for this exercise.

That’s right, just you on sax, with bass or drums for accompaniment.

Don’t just free-form it. Work on an actual melody from beginning to end. Play the head, the bridge, and then the solo. Go back to the head and finish the song, as if playing with an entire band.

If possible, record the session.

On playback, listen and ask yourself: was the melody recognizable? When you soloed, did the playing reflect the changes and the melodic/harmonic structure of the song? Or, did your playing veer off into left field somewhere? Did you work the changes, and hit the tone centers and the 3’s and 7’s on downbeats?

This exercise is a skill-builder because there are no other instruments to hide behind. Working without a net shows how structured your solos are in terms of melodic technique, instead of just blasting away using scale-based runs or your own stock riffs.  

It puts the entire burden on your shoulders.

You are the soloist, and as such, you alone have to give the entire song its melodic shape. There won’t be a guitar or a keyboard to do that for you. You will be carrying the heavy weight here.

How to get started: take it slow and easy at first. Pick something with a strong melody and few changes, a blues for example like Tenor Madness or Blue Monk. It may be frustrating in the beginning for newcomers to improvising, so allow for that (without allowing yourself to feel like a failure.)

Keep coming back to the melody in your soloing and in your explorations. Play just the chord tones on some passes, and just the 3’s and 7’s on other passes. You should be able to 'feel' the melody of the song in whatever you play, even with just those two notes, okay?

And as always, have fun.

sax lessons, improvisation, soloing hints, improvisation exercises, jamming

LISTEN, AND MEMORIZE

Think about it for a moment – how did you learn to speak?

By listening first, then, by repeating what you heard as best you could, and finally, by memorizing.

Nobody handed you a book or a page with words printed on it and said here – now go learn how to talk.

That’s not how it works.

You mimicked everything you heard as a baby and as a toddler. Your adults also helped by saying words and encouraging you to repeat them. They were happy when you got it right, right?

Well, maybe you don’t remember how it went for you, but when my daughter said her first word (31 years ago!) her mom got on the phone to everybody in the family with the big news. We laughed, we celebrated, and we got her to say it again, and again....

By the time you got to kindergarten, you were well on your way to being fluent.

Unfortunately, this is rarely the way we teach anyone to play music. Instead, we give students an instrument and a book and a fingering chart.

Yes – those tools are totally necessary. But what we leave out is listening, then mimicking, and remembering.

Granted, the job of any fifth-grade level band teacher is complex. And there is probably no way a teacher can get an entire class of beginners on various instruments in shape for spring concert by having them sit around and listen/mimic/memorize.

We shouldn’t toss out the other sensory input in exchange for classroom management. But we do, and it is often years (if ever) before a student begins that far deeper and more rewarding work of listening and finding the same notes on one’s instrument, repeating them, and then memorizing.

So how do you do this?  Simple. Start with a song you really like. Doesn’t matter what kind of music. All that matters is that you really like it. Get a copy of it via download or CD or whatever so that you can listen to it several times. Then, find the notes on your horn and learn the melody.

Little steps. Go slow at first. You’ll get it eventually. Memorize the tune, and incorporate it into your daily practice. Then, learn another. And another, and another.  My promise to you is this: the more you do it, the easier it comes.

 Jazz improvising, tools to improvise, music memory, composition, sax lessons

My Sax Equipment and Setup

The choice of saxophone/mouthpiece is highly personal. In effect, the saxophone (or any instrument for that matter) becomes a working partner in the creation of music. The equipment needs to synch with the player and allow her or him to express ideas without impediment. 

I tend toward gear that many consider to be less than ideal, which probably dates back to my formative years as a musician. In the fifth grade, at the age of 10, I got a Conn student alto, clunky as all heck, and stiff, but which I would play in many student rock bands before throngs of adoring 11 year old classmates. 

Later, in high school, the band teacher put me on their bari sax. It was an ancient piece of metal that leaked and was in bad repair.  It stunk. But, that's the horn I was given to play in an award-winning jazz band that made waves and would produce Grammy Award winners and famous bands like Fattburger. It was that, or nothing -- then, I was not a soloist. And so I made that stinking bari work, and likely with the same reed all year! Possibly this is why I tend to favor the uphill battle in my choice of instruments as you will see in today's blog post. 

There are many many fine brands of saxophones being made today; consider them all before you decide on purchasing a horn and a mouthpiece. Better yet, try every combination possible. Many music stores, Sam Ash for example, will let you do this to your heart's content. 

Today, my main tenor sax (I own two of them) is a Buescher True Tone that was made somewhere between 1923 and 1927, judging by the serial number. Satin silver finish (now vastly blemished) with the remnants of a gold wash bell. (The one pictured is not mine, but is nearly identical.)

My mouthpiece is a wide-open Otto Link Super Tone Master 10* that I found in a box full of used mouthpieces in a seedy old used instrument shop one day. I replaced the standard Link ligature with one made by Rovner. I added a couple of cardboard shims to the inside of the ligature.

I use Fibracell 2.5 or Legere synthetic reeds. With the STM, they are quite bright. Baffling with the modified Rovner helps tone that down a little. The benefit of this setup is the ease of playing in the altissimo range. I can also push this setup as hard as I want to get a full overblown Texas tenor sound, and I can lay back and get something closer to an acoustic jazz sound or a thick pop R&B sound.

  

I also fashioned a little homemade wedge and positioned it inside the STM, right at the point where the roll-over baffle falls off. I made it out of that sticky clay you can use to post things like photos on walls.

I got the idea for the wedge from listening to a fine sax player named Ernie Watts. I experimented with various shapes for years before settling on a design that resembles a step-baffle.  The little wedge speeds up the air flow and adds a little bite to my overall sound.

The True Tone blows freely and remains in tune through the octaves. It has a darker sound, possibly due to the age and manufacture of the horn. The older metal resonates and buzzes at a different frequency than my other tenor. I can feel it. 

For years, I played on a tenor sax made by the Olds Company in Fullerton, California. It has low serial numbers that make it very old in the company history. No one really knows how old, because Olds's records no longer go back that far. Olds was known for selling student-grade instruments, especially brass. 

I had the tenor re-padded, but even then, it still blew sharp or flat on so many different notes that it was work to keep it in tune on a gig. That said, I still love that horn to this day, mainly for the strong, focused, buzzy sound that it makes. It is not unlike that of an old Selmer cigar-cutter. In fact, many times on gigs, people have confused the Olds for one. 

But now, the True Tone is becoming my horn for all occasions because being of better design, it opens my playing up to more possibilities. So many sax players complain about the Buescher’s ancient ergonomics (key-work,) but that doesn't bother me in the least.  This is among the kinds of horns that our forebears in music (like Ben Webster or Coleman Hawkins or Lester Young) may have played in their time.

The True Tone has wide-open key work, and with the STM 10* piece, it makes a huge shock wave of tenor sax sound. Everything is in this horn, every tonal/sonic possibility. 

The added cachet is that I restored the True Tone myself. It came to me from a storage unit that I’m sure had flooded. The horn reeked of mildew and crabs. On a whim, I bought a set of very small screwdrivers, and I took it apart and discarded the old rotted pads. I soaked the works in buckets of machine oil for weeks and gently scrubbed away the crud buildup. Buescher’s snap-on pads made the job of replacing them much easier than seating modern pads with shellac would have been.

A bona fide repair tech adjusted the key heights. This is one of those jobs best left to a true pro. In fact, restoring a sax is not something you can do by watching You Tube videos.  It is an exacting job, one that requires skill and training and experience.

Still, I’m glad I did the cleaning and the restoration and the re-assembly myself. Why? Because if for nothing more, I understand this particular horn in a way that I can’t adequately describe. Having the parts spread out on my dining table for six months, and now playing it at gigs, well, that’s a bit of history I have had with no other saxophone I’ve ever owned. 

tenor sax, Buescher True Tone, Olds tenor sax, sax restoration, saxophone equipment, Otto Link