Saxophone beginners Finding purpose in practicing

[AlonW]

I am slowly gaining experience playing with other people, the other day I played music with my dad, the songs were What a Wonderful World, Blue Moon, Yesterday, and Summertime. I definitely want to be prepared next time, with written lead sheets and knowing what keys the songs will be in beforehand. It was a chaotic and frustrating jam session because none of that was ready. There are some interesting playing and learning opportunities in my city I want to check out where I can network with other musicians and get playing experience, but unfortunately I haven't been doing enough of that yet.

So in my day to day practicing I am usually doing one of the following:

Practicing/recording a song in the studio
Practicing songs at home
Making backing tracks so I can perform/record new songs.

My next step is to go a music workshop led by an educator, or a friendly intermediate jam session. But in the mean time sometimes I wonder why I work so hard practicing alone since I am isolated and usually learning obscure songs that I find interesting that day, and not necessarily learning jam session tunes.

I'm not sure what the point of this post is, except maybe to rant about how meaningless practicing can seem sometimes. It can take hours to get my breath, reed, ligature, and song notes in order to be able to play something semi right, and even then I can make enough mistakes to seriously ruin the performance. I have a bad habit of starting over, and over, and over again when I am by myself, which makes the practicing even more grueling.

 

[atwl77]

I have a bad habit of starting over, and over, and over again when I am by myself, which makes the practicing even more grueling.

I feel like that's one of the many purposes of practicing -- to do it over and over and over again until you can get it right all the time and not make any mistakes when performing?

So in that sense, I don't think you're doing anything wrong here...

 

[Pete Effamy]

It can take hours to get my breath, reed, ligature, and song notes in order to be able to play something semi right, and even then I can make enough mistakes to seriously ruin the performance.

This. Your practice is aimed at improving these areas. Identify the things that go wrong, isolate and practice.
It’s going to be the basics of technique:
long notes for breathing / air support / embouchure development / intonation improvement;
attack / note production etc etc

Setting the reed / lig should be easy and take a focussed 30s. I put the mouthpiece on the neck before I put the reed / lig on - it sits in the hand easily and you can see what you’re doing. Mouthpiece-only - easy to drop and then you have to attach to neck and the reed might move.

Practice is a deep-dive into technique problems or a mitigation of losing good technique. Doesn’t have to be lengthy, just thorough. And probably often.

 

[skeller047]

Do you practice improvisation? I often try to incorporate a specific pattern at a specific spot in a tune I’m working on. I might practice the same pattern for several weeks, or I might pick a different pattern each day. But I find doing this helps my concentration. And it keeps me from being bored.

If you don’t practice improvising, maybe add that to your day. When you play the backing track, alternate choruses - one chorus the melody, one chorus improvisation. I find that improvising a chorus will help me phrase the melody better. And vice versa, playing the melody guides my improvisation.

These kinds of things keep me fresh and interested in what I’m working on.

 

[thomsax]

So in my day to day practicing I am usually doing one of the following:

Practicing/recording a song in the studio
Practicing songs at home
Making backing tracks so I can perform/record new songs.

Sounds like good practicing! To play/practice music you keep close to your heart is never wrong. At home or elsewhere. I played along with recordings I heard on the radio.

My next step is to go a music workshop led by an educator, or a friendly intermediate jam session. But in the mean time sometimes I wonder why I work so hard practicing alone since I am isolated and usually learning obscure songs that I find interesting that day, and not necessarily learning jam session tunes.

Try to find other saxplayers that are into the music you want to play. Form a group practicing group. The group can learn to play songs and organize jam to play songs you know/learned in a more free way. Try to find a jamleader who is a saxplayer. Open or closed? Many songs I like are also perfect jam songs. I don't know where you live but I think there is saxman that can be a jamleader.

Here is a video from a jam with rock & roll saxophonist.in front. The song is based on a R&B song called "Last Night". Just three chords and you just blow three tones. A song that beginners can join or players who want to stetch out in a longer and improvised solo. Surf beat and lots of fun!! A jamleader that help other players ... .

View: https://youtu.be/dugWaKLhBU8?si=JMdK5UjD5chjTKWm

I'm not sure what the point of this post is, except maybe to rant about how meaningless practicing can seem sometimes.

Most of us comes to a point when we don't understand why we are doing things. I started to play the saxophone in 1968, Why lay down my saxes when I still can play and have ideas how to continue to play? My motivation is to keep on doing things I have learned to do. It's good for me (I'm over 70 years).

 

[Pete Thomas]

Try to find other saxplayers that are into the music you want to play. Form a group practicing group. T

This can really work well. When I was learning I had a practice buddy, we'd play long notes together. Probably good to do it in 3rds or other inteval so you can hear yourself better. We'd do 4 hours with his mum bringing us cups of tea for a hydration break.

 

[Pete Effamy]

This can really work well. When I was learning I had a practice buddy, we'd play long notes together. Probably good to do it in 3rds or other inteval so you can hear yourself better. We'd do 4 hours with his mum bringing us cups of tea for a hydration break.

I agree, motivation is a massive factor. Same as a gym buddy -

“come on, we’re off to the gym”
“Nah, it’s snowing “
“Get your ass down that gym!”

 

[PiccoloPirate]

Never met Sax Gordon, but I did play with Flash Gordon, and he was very bright, in a staccato kinda way. 🎶🏴‍☠️🎶

 

[Colin the Bear]

We all make mistakes, the trick is to incorporate them. A note isn't wrong until the next note.

Get into the habit of continuing when you think you've gone off path. It feels wrong to you but it's just a different path. If you think about it, improvisation is just wrong notes that sound nice and harmonise.

I've been considering lately, the wisdom of an old quotation attributed to Beecham, I may be paraphrasing someone else.

"As long as we start and finish together, the audience doesn't mind what goes on in the middle."

Follow the "wrong note" with a little flurry. Stay in key and pick up the melody at an appropriate point. Call it improv. It may even help you to construct a solo.

Don't beat yourself up. Live music is full of live. Only recordings are perfect every time, and you get several goes at making them. Some albums take years.

 

[PiccoloPirate]

Curious as to your reading skills.
Played slowly, can you sight read these?

 

[Colin the Bear]

Sad masochism in print form. 😳

 

[AlonW]

Curious as to your reading skills.
Played slowly, can you sight read these?

View attachment 35549View attachment 35550

My sight reading has gotten better and sometimes I think I'm pretty decent at it. I'm so impressed by studio musicians who get little time to practice something and then play it with a band perfectly AND with feeling!

 

[MikeMorrell]

I am slowly gaining experience playing with other people, the other day I played music with my dad, the songs were What a Wonderful World, Blue Moon, Yesterday, and Summertime. I definitely want to be prepared next time, with written lead sheets and knowing what keys the songs will be in beforehand. It was a chaotic and frustrating jam session because none of that was ready. There are some interesting playing and learning opportunities in my city I want to check out where I can network with other musicians and get playing experience, but unfortunately I haven't been doing enough of that yet.

So in my day to day practicing I am usually doing one of the following:

Practicing/recording a song in the studio
Practicing songs at home
Making backing tracks so I can perform/record new songs.

My next step is to go a music workshop led by an educator, or a friendly intermediate jam session. But in the mean time sometimes I wonder why I work so hard practicing alone since I am isolated and usually learning obscure songs that I find interesting that day, and not necessarily learning jam session tunes.

I'm not sure what the point of this post is, except maybe to rant about how meaningless practicing can seem sometimes. It can take hours to get my breath, reed, ligature, and song notes in order to be able to play something semi right, and even then I can make enough mistakes to seriously ruin the performance. I have a bad habit of starting over, and over, and over again when I am by myself, which makes the practicing even more grueling.

Hi @AlonW,

This sounds like all 'good news' to me! Both your motivation to play more often with others and your motivation to go to a music workshop or friendly jam session. I'm sure that you'll get a lot of enjoyment out of it and learn a whole lot from it.

FWIW, I think that most of the songs you played with your Dad are quite difficult chord changes. Certainly without a 'lead sheet'! 'Summertime' is mostly a minor blues song, so if you know the main minor chords, you should be OK.

Especially when you just start playing with others at jam sessions, etc, you're definitely out of your 'comfort zone'! In general, some form of 'maj/min blues form' (I, IV and V chords) is IMHO by far the easiest to get used to when playing with others! I've participated in 10-week (one evening a week) 'jazz improvisation workshop' for 4 years Without exception, the tunes we learned to play (and improvise on) during the first 4-5 weeks were all some form of 'Blues' numbers. Only then did we we start to learn to play (and improvise on) a couple of non-blues tunes. Usually with written-out scales that participants could improvise on in each section of these tunes.

So don't beat yourself up! Yes, some kind of 'lead sheet' is essential. But also choose the numbers that you want to 'jam on' wisely.

FWIW, my personal experience playing in a band with just 'lead sheets' has been:

• 'lead sheet chords' are often written in 'concert C' for piano, guitarists, bassi players); so as a sax player you need to learn to 'transpose' these lead sheet chords to your sax (alto/bari or tenor/sop); yes, you can 'pencil in' your transpositions on the spot but I followed the advice of a cafe member and gradually learned to 'transpose' concert C chords to my tenor sax (B♭ in my head. It took a while but now I read the (concert C) lead sheets and play in the equivalent (B♭ scales
• My 'sax parts' in a band consist generally of one or more of:
  • 'fills' at the end of vocal lines
  • 'supporting' (long notes) during vocal choruses
  • short 'punctuation marks' during vocal solos or choruses
  • occasional 8-16 bar solos
• the original 'concert C' lead sheet is occasionally transposed on-the-fly because a vocalist finds the original 'concert C' key a bit too high or a bit too low for his/her voice.

I think my second point is the most important. IMHO you don't need to play solos in any jam session You can pass up on any invitation (or just tell the jam session leader in advance that you won't be playing any solos). But even without solos, you can still make a great sax contribution to any song during any jam section.

So my well-meant advice is to:
- try to find a way of 'setting up' your breath, reed, ligature in 5-10 minutes max. Read my (perhaps 10th link) to Emeritus Professor Steven Mauk's article on Reed and Lig adjustment. The article completely changed my approach to 'setting up' (and finely adjusting my set-up during performances).
- choose your 'jam session' numbers wisely and don't feel that you need to play solos to contribute!
- Find out which 'concert C' keys guitarists and keyboard players often play in. Such as E, G, A, B, C and D
- Work out what the equivalent keys are for your B♭ or E♭ sax and practice playing in these keys

Hope this helps,

Mike

 

[cappers]

Sad masochism in print form. 😳

I've renamed Hyacinthe Klosé's 25 Daily Exercises the 25 Daily Tortures.
Makes me sweat but finding them very helpful.