Leslie Evans lessons

[nu_mike]

It's a long story, starting with a headstrong twenty something who went to Leslie Evans for tuition in the mid sixties. Then, on the basis of a month spent in a Hamburg dormitory with a collection of people your mother would lock the front door to, went on to find fame and fortune as Britain's answer to Junior Walker, King Curtis et al.
He rose triumphant from the floor of the Jobcentre to carve out a career in various I.T. industries and on his retirement, his family bought him a saxophone. After a year's intensive practice he joined a local big band as second tenor and found out that all Leslie had taught him had vanished!

Is there anyone out there who could lend, or tell me where I could find Leslie's series of lessons on reading syncopation?

If not, is there anyone who could recommend an alternative.
I'm so stressed out by counting one and two and whatever.

Please help - it might be you, one day!

 

[ManEast]

It's a long story, starting with a headstrong twenty something who went to Leslie Evans for tuition in the mid sixties. Then, on the basis of a month spent in a Hamburg dormitory with a collection of people your mother would lock the front door to, went on to find fame and fortune as Britain's answer to Junior Walker, King Curtis et al.
He rose triumphant from the floor of the Jobcentre to carve out a career in various I.T. industries and on his retirement, his family bought him a saxophone. After a year's intensive practice he joined a local big band as second tenor and found out that all Leslie had taught him had vanished!

Is there anyone out there who could lend or tell me where I could find Leslie's series of lessons on reading syncopation?

If not, is there anyone who could recommend an alternative.
I'm so stressed out by counting one and two and whatever.

Please help - it might be you, one day!

Hi

I think I have them ...I will try to dig them out. They have not seen light of day for a long time. P.M me with your email address.

Kind Regards

Ricky

 

[BigMartin]

If not, is there anyone who could recommend an alternative.
I'm so stressed out by counting one and two and whatever.

There's no real substitute for practice here. If you haven't got a metronome, get one. Choose a couple of selected passages in your big band parts and work at them thoroughly. Play them as slow as you need (and figure out the rhythm with the "one and two and" thing if you need to) so you can get them right every time (you don't want to be stressing over whether you can fit the notes in, you want to reinforce the feeling and sound of the right rhythm in your mind). Increase the speed gradually, always making sure you can play the current tempo comfortably before moving on. Much more important to get it right than get it fast. Notice which bits you get stuck on and concentrate on those. Try playing both with straight (even) quavers and varying degrees of swing. Keep at it, and you'll find sight reading starts to come natuurally. When you get more confident, put the metronome at half speed and treat the clicks as beats 2 and 4 (assumng you're in 4/4 time). It forces you to be aware of the tempo you're playing and anticipate where the downbeats will fall. That's done wonders for my sense of time over the last few months.

It's a lot more fun to do than it sounds!

Please help - it might be you, one day!

It was, and is, and with any luck will be for some time to come.

 

[rhysonsax]

It's a long story, starting with a headstrong twenty something who went to Leslie Evans for tuition in the mid sixties. ...................... Is there anyone out there who could lend, sell, or tell me where I could find Leslie's series of lessons on reading syncopation?

Was that the handwritten A4 sheets with memorising tricks like "merrily", "di dum de", "tickets", "beautiful" and so on for different rhythms ?

I think I have one or two of the lesson packs somewhere amongst my sheet music. I'll have a look.

I also bought my first proper mouthpiece from Les Evans, an Otto Link STM tenor piece. I remember that he included a colour leaflet for Lawton mouthpieces and I thought they looked very space age. Still have the STM (refaced several times) and also a large collection of Lawton pieces !

Rhys

 

[saxplorer]

Was that the handwritten A4 sheets with memorising tricks like "merrily", "di dum de", "tickets", "beautiful" and so on for different rhythms ?

Sounds just like what I need, will watch this thread with interest.

 

[Justin Chune]

I hated all that counting when I started out and when a friend gave me a set of Leslies "Counting Principles" and I read rule number !. Make no attempt to count any beat on which you commence a note. 2. Make no attempt to count any note that comes after an off beat quaver. Don't count crotchets or anything less etc, I knew I'd found what I was looking for. Those of us who use this method only count the second and subsequent beats of any note longer than a crotchet. The left-overs as Leslie called them.

Jim.

 

[Tenor Viol]

There's no real substitute for practice here. If you haven't got a metronome, get one. Choose a couple of selected passages in your big band parts and work at them thoroughly. Play them as slow as you need (and figure out the rhythm with the "one and two and" thing if you need to) so you can get them right every time (you don't want to be stressing over whether you can fit the notes in, you want to reinforce the feeling and sound of the right rhythm in your mind). Increase the speed gradually, always making sure you can play the current tempo comfortably before moving on. Much more important to get it right than get it fast. Notice which bits you get stuck on and concentrate on those. Try playing both with straight (even) quavers and varying degrees of swing. Keep at it, and you'll find sight reading starts to come natuurally. When you get more confident, put the metronome at half speed and treat the clicks as beats 2 and 4 (assumng you're in 4/4 time). It forces you to be aware of the tempo you're playing and anticipate where the downbeats will fall. That's done wonders for my sense of time over the last few months.

It's a lot more fun to do than it sounds!

It was, and is, and with any luck will be for some time to come.

Good advice - remember it's more important to play in time than to play the right note 😱

 

[SwingJazzer]

Hi

I think I have them ...I will try to dig them out. They have not seen light of day for a long time. P.M me with your email address.

Kind Regards

Ricky

Hi! I've long been looking for scanned copies of Les Evans' Beginner Course Lessons 1-5 (both the typed sheets and the accompanying music manuscript sheets). Because they are taller than A4 they'd need to be scanned twice (once from each end) to prevent losing the bottom bit. I'd be very grateful if you could scan them and email them to me. Thanks. nickcharles628<<at>>gmail.com

 

[kevgermany]

@ManEast Ricky, if you have them, I'd also appreciate a copy. I'm really struggling with it at the moment.

 

[Colin the Bear]

ManEast was last seen Oct28 2015.

 

[brianr]

I have all of his lessons somewhere in a box.

when I was just starting sax, I lived in the north of scotland and there wasnt a teacher for miles.

somehow I found out about Leslie Evans ( I think I was looking to upgrade my mouthpiece ) and ended up buying the whole course.

it helped me greatly, but I never got very far in to it, and certainly not the advanced stuff.

i do remember the timing stuff being very useful.

i will see if I can find them, but dont hold your breath. they are in the attic somewhere.

 

[Jaejae]

Hi

I think I have them ...I will try to dig them out. They have not seen light of day for a long time. P.M me with your email address.

Kind Regards

Ricky

Hi Ricky, I see this post is from a while ago, but do you have Leslie Evans' Advanced Course? I have all his courses, still in punch hole binders, but I've mislaid the advanced (or accidentally thrown out) since a house move a couple of years ago. Of course I'd reimburse you any reasonable amount for a copies.
Thanks,

James