Playing the saxophone Are you or were you self taught?

[Grumps]

The imagined prestige is all they got in life.

And the blue ribbons. Lots of blue ribbons back in the day from that lady.

Same! Mine even threw a chair at us once, and that was in middle school!

Mr. Knight? I always wondered where he went after they fired him for that in my elementary school. He was the first to terrify me, but also prepared me for what was to come in junior high. Miss North. A bandmate/friend from back then actually tried to track her down not too long ago. He wanted to put on some sort of appreciative get together for her. I also wanted to find her. For other reasons...

 

[turf3]

Yep. After a person posts that they've been playing for x years and still cannot get a good tone or control their intonation, it's a good idea to reconsider whether "self-taught" remains a prudent path to practice. They don't have to take the advice, but maybe it's worth a thought to get them on track.

For those that take pride in flailing their way through mediocrity, go for it. I would get frustrated and quit (like I did with my first guitar that was really quite terrible). I support their endeavor as long as I don't have to listen to them.

Well, this is kind of where I was when I graduated college; I'd been playing a TON of gigs for six years, and people generally liked what I was doing, but I wasn't satisfied with my tone (intonation was never a problem).

When I took up seriously playing baritone, it became apparent that I needed to get a grip on the fundamentals of this thing. I decided (whether rightly or wrongly) that having read all the appropriate instructional literature, I didn't necessarily need to take formal lessons to get my embouchure and airstream worked out; but that what I needed to do was to PRACTICE, seriously, with ATTENTION and INTENTION, to take those lessons I'd read about, and understood intellectually, and INTERNALIZE them to my own personal structure.

So, that's what I did, in those hours in the practice room, or out on the city park soccer fields doing interval studies and long tones.

Was that "self-taught"? I mean, you could say it was, in the sense that I did not have a formal lesson every week with a teacher telling me how to form an embouchure, how to breathe, how to get my finger action efficient. But on the other hand, you could say I was taking lessons from Larry Teal, Sigurd Rascher, Lennie Niehaus, and a number of other famous saxophonists, just second-hand by reading their words. In the end, the only way I was going to internalize how it feels to play with a good embouchure, good airstream, and adjust voicing to hit intervals without bobbles or squeaks, was to spend that time by myself in the shed, whether with or without weekly lessons. So in that sense, we're all either "self-taught" because we've spent that time in the shed (whether with or without weekly interactions with an instructor), or we're "self-untaught" because we haven't spent that time in the shed (whether with or without weekly interactions with an instructor)>

After all, you can take weekly lessons with an instructor for years, but if you never go off by yourself with your instrument and practice the exercises, you won't magically be able to control tone, or intonation, or have clean technique. You'll remain "self-untaught" no matter how much you spend on lessons, if you don't PRACTICE.

 

[Nick Wyver]

A year or two of violin lessons at age 10/11 taught me to read music. I kept it trundling along with school choir and a bit of guitar until 18. I bought a clarinet at 18 because I couldn’t afford a sax. Played that for a year without any teacher then spotted a small ad in Melody Maker for a soprano sax. Buescher True Tone for £45. Student grants were wonderful things in those days. More self-teaching and band playing until I was about 30 when I decided I needed a kick up the bum. So I got some lessons with a view to doing ABRSM grade 8. Having achieved that I briefly thought about a diploma but the thought of spending a lot of time practising a bunch of pieces I didn’t really like put me off. A few years later I started teaching other bods to play sax. 30 something years after that I’ve stopped teaching but I’m still blowing.

 

[SuperAction80]

You'll remain "self-untaught" no matter how much you spend on lessons, if you don't PRACTICE.

Yeah, but you can offset that by purchasing more gear and coming up with verbal justifications for your lack of technique. Right?

 

[JayeNM]

lol... those are power chords. I played around with them for fun when I was learning the guitar. Add some right hand palm muting technique and you can do a pretty convincing performance to easily fool non-musicians.

A couple of other instruments have such "cheats":

With bass, just learn the same power chord, play the 1st and maybe the 5th on the beat (easiest maybe just play the root note every beat) and you can fool people, lol.

Drums, can just learn some very basic rock patterns and maybe a simple 1-beat or 2-beat snare fill and you're good to go!

Piano might be a bit trickier, but just play 1 and 5 on the right hand, and 1-5-8 arpeggio on the left hand.

Get these four "pretenders" together and, as long as the drummer can keep a steady beat, and everyone else can follow, and you've got a pretty neat band -- albeit just doing power chords and roots and 5ths will get pretty boring and samey quite fast! 😀

First three yes...piano much less so, however. You hear of Power Chord guitar, it can apply to bass too, throw in some pentatonics.

But i think folks expect to hear the keys player offering a bit more than that. But ten again, maybe not ?

 

[JayeNM]

About reading. I read well and was a good high-school musician. Then, while a senior, I joined a funk band. No reading involved. We played for dances every week. We all soon learned what was required to keep the kids on the dance floor. Which also meant we would have a gig or three the next week 🙂

I did get a lot of very good professional jobs because I read music well. But I have never ever forgotten the musicianship lessons I learned in that funk band.

Absolutely, I get it. You can acquire all of those great things simply by playing alot with good musicians...was just saying a non-reader will be at a disadvantage in a fair number of potential band and performance contexts...

 

[turf3]

As for reading music, first of all the fact that one can read music does not in itself make one dependent on it. That old misconception needs to be written out of the popular mind.

I suppose a lot of the desirability or sense of need for reading notation comes from one's sense of what it means to be a sufficiently complete musician. There are a variety of skills:

- playing the instrument
- playing by ear
- improvising (over structures of varying complexity from the simplest two chord song to some of the very elaborate compositions of Tadd Dameron or Charles Mingus)
- Being able to read music from the dots without a time constraint
- Sightreading (again, material of varying complexity from simple beginning-band stuff to Super Sax charts; but "Sightreading" means "at tempo")
- Extended techniques of one's instrument
- Mastery of a wide repertoire
- Mastery of the related instruments (for example, clarinet and flute for saxophonists)
- Arranging
- Composing
- Conducting
- Rehearsing musical ensembles
- Teaching other musicians

So, how complete a musician do you feel you need to be, to be comfortable with what you can do? For my part, for example, I simply have not bothered to develop skills in composing, arranging, conducting, rehearsal, or teaching. I have very limited command of extended techniques. I do not play clarinet, don't plan to.

Some others of you may feel that you can meet your musical goals just fine by playing by ear a limited number of tunes of simple form.

Certainly the more skills you have (and I mean actually having those skills) the more things you can do. I can't work musical theatre, because I don't play clarinet. I can't teach private lessons. But if someone calls me for a big band gig day after tomorrow, I can sit down and sightread any chart in the book adequately and take solos as needed. If I couldn't sightread standard notation, I wouldn't be able to do those jobs.

 

[Zasterz]

I can't teach private lessons.

Actually anyone can. For example, I’m sure if a neighbor kid begged you to show them some stuff, you would have a lot to offer.

From Randy Halberstadt’s Metaphors for the Musician:

​

 

[mizmar]

Actually anyone can.

Although I've not had saxophone lessons, I have a flute (Nay) teacher. Chappie can sit there, on the other side of Zoom (or submitted recording), and pick up on exactly how my tuning is to within a few ¢ (and the Nay music uses half-flats) and details of timing of 16ths at any speed in can manage (which, admittedly isn't much). More than anything, it's those skills in realtime. Building the curriculum, pedagogical approach happen the background.
Them's what makes a teacher; not having the Table of Contents of a book.
I'm sure Skilled colleagues here have ears like that. But not everyone. And even fewer have a tried and tested pedagogical method.

 

[Vlad]

lol... those are power chords. I played around with them for fun when I was learning the guitar. Add some right hand palm muting technique and you can do a pretty convincing performance to easily fool non-musicians.

A couple of other instruments have such "cheats":

With bass, just learn the same power chord, play the 1st and maybe the 5th on the beat (easiest maybe just play the root note every beat) and you can fool people, lol.

Drums, can just learn some very basic rock patterns and maybe a simple 1-beat or 2-beat snare fill and you're good to go!

Piano might be a bit trickier, but just play 1 and 5 on the right hand, and 1-5-8 arpeggio on the left hand.

Get these four "pretenders" together and, as long as the drummer can keep a steady beat, and everyone else can follow, and you've got a pretty neat band -- albeit just doing power chords and roots and 5ths will get pretty boring and samey quite fast! 😀

Well I've 'dep'ed on guitar a few times pretty much just with the power chord malarkey and seemed to fool 'em..😀
I remember an amusing comment made in the 50s about the 'new' rock n roll craze.
''... three chord nursery rhymes that don't swing''

 

[thomsax]

Well I've 'dep'ed on guitar a few times pretty much just with the power chord malarkey and seemed to fool 'em..😀
I remember an amusing comment made in the 50s about the 'new' rock n roll craze.
''... three chord nursery rhymes that don't swing''

"Rock & Roll" is straight, not shuffle or swing.

 

[mark_addy]

Actually anyone can. For example, I’m sure if a neighbor kid begged you to show them some stuff, you would have a lot to offer.

From Randy Halberstadt’s Metaphors for the Musician:
View attachment 34046

​

That's a nice quote. My two girls did pretty well out of posh parents wanting their 6-10 yr olds to start piano. Their own first piano teacher (a nice but stern girl called Sarah) was amenable to passing on the snotty little ones to my kids, and getting them back when they were less of a pain in the a*** and knew a bit. And when the small kids got uppity, my girls got good at 'channeling Sarah'. (They also got better at handling posh parents, which is quite a useful life skill).

Anyway - another self-taught saxophonist here - no money for lessons when I was small (my kids were lucky my wife earns reasonable money). Our big band hires a young-ish RNCM-grad (Royal Northern College of Music - the conservatoire I suppose around here) to run our rehearsals, which almost counts as lessons. He's good with audiences at our occasional gigs and also good at handing recalcitrant 50- 60- 70- yr olds who won't practice and can't read properly 🙂

 

[Woodpad]

I was asked to join a band in middle school, borrowed a piccolo for a week and started to play by ear. There where other instruments and 45 other bands, even some short encounters with teachers. In hindsight I learned most by listening to directors and my instruments.

 

[jazzdoh]

I think most players experience long periods of their journey using the self taught method, my 50 years is made up of 40 years self taught or self improvement which followed after about 10 years of lessons, the grounding of 10 years lessons for me shaped the musician i am today, but i get that is not for everyone.

Being able to read music well opened up doors of playing in various big bands and from there meeting like minded musicians that are still friends today.
What's most important is how you use your time, in other words what you learn rather than the time you spend, it's no good doing an hour a day if the content isn't there.

 

[Grumps]

Just realized I am totally self-taught on piano, though my father had a classical education in its regard. I'd just sit and bang on it as a kid when my father wasn't around until things came together. Flash forward many decades and I recall one early morning when I was at his care facility playing the piano there. He wheeled in, came up to me at the bench with a look of surprise and said, "I never knew you played piano..."

 

[Vlad]

"Rock & Roll" is straight, not shuffle or swing.

Indeed, I'm not 'knocking the rock' ( quick Bill Haley reference there 😉 ) I just thought it a v.amusing period critical put down !
I've had much fun over the years playing various types of Rock music, in the broadest sense, and even got paid for it on occasion !

These days I'm being 'sensible' & trying to get back into reading notation, though I feel a bit dyslexic with it sometimes, I have a great long-standing resistance to anything resembling algebra / hieroglyphics !

 

[Hoosierken]

I couldn't claim to be self taught since I have used so many online resources in my journey. It would have been nice to at least have someone to learn with in person even if they were just at my level.

 

[jazzdoh]

I couldn't claim to be self taught since I have used so many online resources in my journey.

Well i think this would apply to 95% of all saxophone players, so it depends on your definition of self taught.

 

[dexdex]

Well i think this would apply to 95% of all saxophone players, so it depends on your definition of self taught.

This is also true for all the shared advice you can get from bandmates. I learned a lot from experienced fellows, some of them pros and teachers.

 

[JayeNM]

Actually anyone can. For example, I’m sure if a neighbor kid begged you to show them some stuff, you would have a lot to offer

​

Thing there is, is that good teaching ?

Any player can show a non player a few things, I mean probably two or three lessons worth of material.

But being a decent Teacher..is a Gift, honestly.

It has as much to do with a person's ability to communicate, ability to read the kind of "learner" the student may be, and ability to come up with a logical, linear lesson plan which is consumable for the pupil.

Then the ability to recognize a student's strengths and weaknesses and adjust the material and pace of your teaching accordingly.

None of those qualities are ones which are necessarily possessed by a respectable or even Great "player". Those "skill sets", to use a term which I abhor, do not necessarily overlap. In some they may, in some they may not...just a thought.