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I only thought about this last night...
If I know a tune, I can think it and sing it simultaneously, hitting every note perfectly in my mind and then through my voice.
When I play sax, I find a tune to play, find the sheet music, read the music, translate that via conscious thought into what keys to press, and play the tune after many attempts and practice.
I can play a few songs on the sax without sheet music, as they're quite simple. I'm not really thinking about what I'm doing and the tune plays. Is that repetition? Or just thinking the notes? Or is it my fingers that have remembered the song?
What I'm getting at is that I'd love to be able to hear a familiar song, one I could sing without sheet music, think "I'd like to play that", hear it in my head, pick up the sax, and as I'm thinking the song through... just play the notes. In other words, I could play any sequence of notes just by playing the tune in my head and it coming out at my fingers. No sheet music, No thinking about where to put my fingers. I'd be controlling the muscles in my fingers with my mind in precisely the same way I can control the muscles in my mouth/throat with my mind at present in order to sing.
Occasionally my brain gets frazzled and loses the plot when I'm following sheet music. My brain hasn't a clue what I should be playing but I still hit the right notes. My tutor put this down to finger memory, but I'm not sure how it happens. I'm certainly not thinking the notes when this happens so it may not be relevant here.
Am I correct in thinking there are many experienced saxophonists who can just "think and play", and does this come automatically with years of playing or is there some short cut to learning how to do it?
Hope you can understand what I'm getting at!
If I know a tune, I can think it and sing it simultaneously, hitting every note perfectly in my mind and then through my voice.
When I play sax, I find a tune to play, find the sheet music, read the music, translate that via conscious thought into what keys to press, and play the tune after many attempts and practice.
I can play a few songs on the sax without sheet music, as they're quite simple. I'm not really thinking about what I'm doing and the tune plays. Is that repetition? Or just thinking the notes? Or is it my fingers that have remembered the song?
What I'm getting at is that I'd love to be able to hear a familiar song, one I could sing without sheet music, think "I'd like to play that", hear it in my head, pick up the sax, and as I'm thinking the song through... just play the notes. In other words, I could play any sequence of notes just by playing the tune in my head and it coming out at my fingers. No sheet music, No thinking about where to put my fingers. I'd be controlling the muscles in my fingers with my mind in precisely the same way I can control the muscles in my mouth/throat with my mind at present in order to sing.
Occasionally my brain gets frazzled and loses the plot when I'm following sheet music. My brain hasn't a clue what I should be playing but I still hit the right notes. My tutor put this down to finger memory, but I'm not sure how it happens. I'm certainly not thinking the notes when this happens so it may not be relevant here.
Am I correct in thinking there are many experienced saxophonists who can just "think and play", and does this come automatically with years of playing or is there some short cut to learning how to do it?
Hope you can understand what I'm getting at!