beginner and stuck

[jaxx]

i've been play/practicing the alto sax for a few months now i did try a tutor for a short time but it was moving very slowly, but now i'm little bit stuck and confused. i carried on using the book my tutor suggested but have now come across a piece of music in A major, the book tells me not to worry about the G# in the key signature so i didn't, i am playing it note for note exactlly as it reads but it sounds way too low, is this as it should be ? its meant to be an upbeat version of 'when the saints'

 

[Linky Lee]

do you know the twelve semi-tones? C, C#(Db), D, (D#)Eb, E, F, F#(Gb), G, (Ab)G#, A, Bb(A#), B and round and round they go. (You know now 😛 )

I use those twelve semi-tones, the ones in brackets are other names for the same notes, you find them in music with lots of sharps or flats in the key signature.

take every single note up 5 semi-tones and write the music out again. This will make it higher in pitch and have only 2 sharps instead of three, supposedly this means it is easier to play.
(A will go to D, B to E etc. etc.)

Personally I think key signatures are all the same to play, just slightly harder to read.

I would recommend sourcing yourself another tutor. If he/she was no good doesn't mean all of them are, and a Tutor at the beginning is very very helpful.

Enjoy The March.

P.S. If you feel like it, you could learn it off by heart in the other keys to do some ear training!

 

[jaxx]

thanks for that , i didn't know they are called semi tones. i got that little exercise sussed i went back to a previous exercise which was 'the march' in C major and playing one after the other seemed to work and not sound so bad either. I think my next purchase could very well be a theory book or the very much talked about DVD

😉

 

[Linky Lee]

The DVD is very highly regarded, and not just on this forum, everywhere.

If you do buy a theory book, take a flick through it forst and make sure it's not to crazy. You get some that are pathetic and don't actually help, and you get some that are ridiculously fast paced and don't explain things in language simple enough to grasp the concept before applying the specialist vocabulary.

There are many that will do the job nicely though. Do a search for Theory Books, there was a thread about them somewhere. Remember to listen, listen and listen, music is an aural art.

 

[Linky Lee]

One I recommend is 'The right way to read music' by Harry and Michael Baxter.

It doesn't do much on the basics but does a lot of advanced things.

Give it a look once you get comfortable with reading music.

 

[jaxx]

Linky_Lee wrote:
One I recommend is 'The right way to read music' by Harry and Michael Baxter.

It doesn't do much on the basics but does a lot of advanced things.

Give it a look once you get comfortable with reading music.

brilliant i'm making notes as i read

 

[Linky Lee]

I want to emphasise again the point about getting a new tutor.

It is incredibly important, there is no substitute when learning to be shown visually instead of reading and looking at pictures on how to set the saxophone up, stand, play etc.
Having a teacher at the beginning will save you huge amounts of hassle and pain later on for the majority of people.

They'll help give you focused practise and a routine to suit your lifestyle and what you want to do with your playing. This is probably the most important thing about learning how to play saxophone, you don't learn much if your practise isn't focused or suited to you.

 

[jersey_mike]

Take that emphesis to the bank!!!! I was 'noodling' on my own for far too long, trying to remember what I had learned in 6 months of lessons 10+ years before. It wasn't working. No book, internet site, cd, or dvd is going to help as much as hands on instruction with immediate feedback.

 

[Linky Lee]

The other great thing about a tutor is that if you start doing something wrong they'll pick you up on it.

If you're playing from a book you tend to focus on what it's asking you to do and you might randomly start standing differently etc. etc.
Teachers will pick up on this and make sure you don't develop these 'bad habits'.

 

[tris]

I agree...

It takes a certain type of person to be able to do it themselves.

 

[jaxx]

Thanks all for your sound (no pun) advice, i did buy a theory book recently only to bring up immediate questions of how i put it into practice, such as tonic triads and as i sat here reading i thought how much quicker the learning process would be if shown.

So as far as a new tutor is concerned there seems to be one name that keeps popping up locally as a highly regarded tutor and technician .. so my next port of call will be there.

 

[tris]

Use the book that you have as an"ear training course." That is it pure and simple. Play the examples and learn the sounds like an artist learns colour.

 

[bobk]

I have played untutored guitar for about a quarter of a century and it is, I have to admit, pretty rubbish (although still fun and with one or two highlights). With eight weeks of lessons, each only for half and hour and shared with my daughter, my sax playing is probably up to 5 to 10 years of noodling mark...

 

[tris]

bob,

what you have to remember... you have been a musician for 25 years + Even noodling around you will have learnt a huge amount. All you are doing is naturally applying it to the sax.

jaxx... reading is NO GOOD... you should be playing the notes and listening... did I mention LISTENING... you get the idea I am sure. The most important thing is to hear the relationships between the note. Otherwise the theory is just a load of meaningless waffle...

Music is an aural art... never forget that.... knowing a lot of names is useful at times but if you don't know what a triad sounds like..

 

[bobk]

Thanks for the compliment about being a musician for 25 years Tris!!! I'm still a total play-for-fun amateur though - I've been known to favour the lying back in the chaise-longue position for guitar and sax on occasion...

You are right that some of my experience has made learning the sax easier than it would have been without. I do disagree on one point, however. I think the thing that keeps you progressing (unless you are so good that you are going to earn a lving through music) is having fun. If you haven't got the ear to play a tune that you like without the score then I think you should get the dots (score) and learn it. By learning it you increase your chances of workng out the next tune by ear - my experience anyway...

So, for me at least, playing by ear is good but dots can help.

 

[tris]

Dots can help and are an important part of what we all do... but having a good ear will help you progress much further, quicker and more smoothly.

OK I think very much over exaggerated the "reading is no good" comment, (I don't know what i was thinking at the time!) Reading my post again I was trying to say that burying your head in books, reading about playing music, music theory etc will not make you any sort of a player... an academic possibly!

Fun.. even pros are allowed to have fun once in a while... we would have to as you gotta put up with 50 hours of rubbish for 1 hour of something good on stage!!! 😉

Going back to jaxx's original post. He said that the note sounded way too low... he should have a bit more confidence and say well if that sounds too low it is!!! I'll play the next note up and see if that sounds hip. If not then try the next etc. His ears could tell him the answer!

From the sounds of it he might be playing the G rather than the G#. So having used his ears to get the right note he can look back at the notation and try and work out why he was playing the G. (Possibly due to not playing all the G's as G#'s as the key signature instructs.)

 

[Simon]

Yeah, let's get a balance on the tutor vs books debate - there are advantages of using both for learning, provided the student understands that at the end of the day, you're learning HOW to learn.

A good teacher will help you alot, but then you're assuming that s/he is good at teaching and has the observation skills and teaching experience to back this up. A common misconception about music teachers is that cos s/he is a good player, they'll be a great teacher. Another assumption is that sax tutors can play in all styles - eg think classically trained musicians who have got 'Syrinx' down but couldn't swing their way through a single chorus of blues.

From personal experience I know that articulation and embouchure are two areas that are critical to a student's sound yet I've had students come to me who have been taught clarinet and double lip embouchures, weird articulation approaches involving the side of the tongue, not enough mouthpiece in the mouth etc plus the gem "the harder the reed the better the sound" by some well-intentioned saxophone teachers.

Enter books/DVDs/media. They're collections of theories, short-cuts, demos, exercises, tunes, playalongs etc, to get you thinking, on and away from the sax. Many of them are written by people who have the playing and communication skills to get their points across succinctly. In turn they get rated by users and generally speaking if the majority of people hates a product and give valid reasons that you agreed with, you and many others won't buy it and it disappears from the market.

Many books now come with audio so you can hear and improve. To simply malign the dots is shutting out alot of valuable opportunities.

(Incidentally, 'When the Saints' in A Major... and it has a G / G#?)

Simon