Flats and Sharps and Teachers

[thenewstarter]

Be been practising my scales all week long and think got them down to a tee. C, D, G and A Major. Also can now play "Oh when the saints" pretty well.

Went to see my teacher on Thursday. He set me some homework, to work out what are the notes in the Bb Major scale, which I believe to be Bb, B, C, C#, D, E. F,Gb. Is this correct?

Also learnt from my teacher about sharps and flats. Which I must admit has confused me. His told me that each sharp has an equivalent flat. For example F# is also called Gb and is the same fingering and tone as one another. God knows why this is? Is this to do with different scales?

I am considering changing my tutor. I have learnt lots a new things from my current one, but he does seem to be a be random with his teachings. I mean, he never remembers what I have been learning or what we have covered already.

Went into a music shop in Southampton on Thursday, and asked if they could give me a list of Sax Tutors in my area and to my surprise they printed a A4 piece of paper full of names. Can anyone help with what I should look for in a tutor.


Anyway bye for now
Richard

 

[elmer]

Hi Richard.

I'm sure an experienced player / music reader will put you right for the first part of your question, but as for the music reading I too am like you .... getting the brain, fingers and sax to play fast enough to make a decent tune is a challenge at the moment.

So I bought a theory of music book and use this site >>> http://www.teoria.com/

to help me understand timings and what the book says.

It's helping me so give it a whirl 😉

 

[Pete Thomas]

Learn ing some basic theory on a piano will be very useful.

 

[Rogerb]

I found that the problem is in translating the dots on the stave into finger positions.

An 'intermediate' step is to write the letters above the dots, until one can identify them without thinking.

Then it's *simply* a matter of knowing which keys to depress, how to form an embouchure, how/when to breathe, how to blow, and how to keep the correct time....

Not much really 😉

BTW, my teacher and I keep a diary(just a small exercise book), in which he writes down my 'homework' for the week (always just a bit more than I can do!), and I make notes of any problems encountered.
Helps greatly to see where we've got to.

He's also giving me typed notes and music to copy as I progress, using Leslie Evans' method, as I've mentioned elsewhere.

 

[saxsectionleader]

A sharp raises a note one half step and a flat tlowers it a half step, so if we look at say F as 0 and G as 1 then you see the following. 0+1/2=1/2 and 1-1/2=1/2. By the way two notes that sound the same but are spelled differently are called enharmonics.

 

[paul_grant]

At 10:07:00 AM 09/04/06, Elmer wrote:

So I bought a theory of music book and use this site >>> http://www.teoria.com/

to help me understand timings and what the book says.

It's helping me so give it a whirl 😉

Hi Elmer tried your link and it's a fantastic site. I'm sure I will learn a lot from it
Paul

🙂