support Tutorials CDs PPT mouthpieces

New year music resolutions

thehunt

Well-Known Member
Messages
620
Locality
Studham Bedfordshire
Might be a bit premature but thought it might be useful to see what everyone is planning musicwise for next year.
My aims and goals are
-Grade 5 ABRSM Jazz tenor
-Finally get all my scales in my nugget and transferred to my fingers!
-Work on my tone, work on my tone, work on my tone.
-Maybe join another band
-Learn to play the changes properly
-Work towards playing professionally.
Oh did i mention... work on my tone.:w00t:
Phil
 
Goodness Phil, takes me back to work, appraisal and setting next year's objectives!
Sax - to get better
Life - to survive.
YC
 
My only resolution would be to continue enjoying my sax journey as much as I have this year and hope I am improving as I go (NEVER SET UNOBTAINABLE GOALS) always makes life easier...john
 
Hmmmmm

I resolve to:

stop scaring the squirrels with my bari when practicing outside :)

keep up the with jazz ensemble I've just joined and get brave and raise my hand when asked "who wants to improvise a solo here" (and that is SCARIER for me than anything, I'm in a sweat just pondering it)

continue to play at least 3x a week

keep up with you all in the Cafe :)
 
Definetly to practise more and get out and play in public.

Mark.
 
Do a solo in each of the orchestra's concerts (to improve my confidence to play in public).
Get better at improvisation.
Go along to a jam session.
 
I'm going to record a series of 12 bar looped recordings in the popular major keys (A, C, G, etc) so that I can practice blues improvisation and then get out and play the bloody thing.
 
Ah... Interesting, this has prompted me to realise it's coming up on a year I've been playing now. I remember the day, 4th January, a 45 min journey to Chiltern Street taking three because of the weather wrecking London's transport network...

In my 11 months far I've rented an alto, spent many a weekend making saxophone pilgrimages to various places picking out saxophones and mouthpieces in blind testing and if general Internet opinion is anything to go by, seem to have gotten myself in a rather special position of having both a saxophone and mouthpiece that I'm entirely in love with and have no desire to explore other avenues!

Just as well, I'm now back at university and the on the wrong side of a student overdraft...

Things are going well. I've kind of dropped off the radar here a little, though that's primarily because I'm spending my free time playing!

I'm in a concert band at Uni, am helping put together some organisation to get a big band or general jazz ensemble going. Like minded saxophonists have joined me in a trip to a sax workshop day in Kent recently, and we're lining ourselves up to play as a sax quartet at various opportunities coming up.

Thing is, I don't really -practise- properly. I've no teacher, and just kind of mush through playing things I like playing and letting my general musicality get me through in the ensembles. I'm a good enough musician to get along just fine, but I'm not necessarily getting anywhere as a saxophonist. I suppose therefore I ought to make my resolution to properly study my time playing it and actually try to master the instrument, rather than just playing and enjoying myself in my comfort zone.

I should like to have a lesson a month perhaps, just to keep me focussed in the longer term. Anyone know any good teachers in the Bath/Bristol area? :)
 
learn a tune a week (in at least 3 or 4 keys... can't see me having the time or mental fortitude to do 12, but 4 seems a start... particularly if i vary which ones)....
 
I'm going to record a series of 12 bar looped recordings in the popular major keys (A, C, G, etc) so that I can practice blues improvisation and then get out and play the bloody thing.

That's a great goal!

I'm doing that on the guitar right now. But I really should start sticking the sax into that practice routine too since I'm finally to a point where I can actually play well enough to start practicing that sort of thing on the sax too.
 
I'm in a concert band at Uni, am helping put together some organisation to get a big band or general jazz ensemble going. Like minded saxophonists have joined me in a trip to a sax workshop day in Kent recently, and we're lining ourselves up to play as a sax quartet at various opportunities coming up.

That's GREAT! I'd say you are extremely fortunate to have other musicians to play with and exchange ideas with. Finding some other people to play music with in general is definitely on my list of things to do for this coming year.

Thing is, I don't really -practise- properly. I've no teacher, and just kind of mush through playing things I like playing and letting my general musicality get me through in the ensembles. I'm a good enough musician to get along just fine, but I'm not necessarily getting anywhere as a saxophonist. I suppose therefore I ought to make my resolution to properly study my time playing it and actually try to master the instrument, rather than just playing and enjoying myself in my comfort zone.

I know what you mean there. It's really easy to slip into a comfort zone and just stay there. But you're right to recognize that you're not likely to master the instrument by doing that alone. Forcing yourself to study and try things that are "outside" your comfort zone is truly essential to expanding your horizons. And the thing of it is that it won't be very long before these things that were at one time "outside" your comfort zone will soon "belong" to you as become part of your "New Comfort Zone".

I'm doing this with many things myself. In fact, I'll post my own "Musical Goals" here in a moment in another post.
 
My Musical Goals:

I have a lot of "musical goals" and I'm horrible at setting them up in time-frames. But I have recently decided to become far more diligent in spending more time practicing (music in general, not necessarily the sax).

One of my greatest problems with music has always been timing, and an inability to play with a metronome. It seems that no matter how hard I try I always end up getting off track with the metronome. I am getting better though. And the strange thing is that I don't seem to have this problem playing with drum backing grooves. For some reason I can stay in time playing against a drum groove far easier than with a metronome.

A couple years ago I bought a set of bongos. The idea was that if I learned to play bongos that might help me with timing issues. And it did too. In fact, when I first got the bongos I couldn't carry a 'beat' to save my soul. I sounded absolutely horrible. But perseverance paid off and I finally got to where I can actually play bongos well enough to accompany other musicians. A DREAM come true! Still not exactly "fancy" on the Bongos, but definitely far more musical than I was before I got into them.

I did so well on the bongos that I decided to take a major leap and buy a full set of drums. I got a cheap set to be sure, but they are really nice and sturdy and they sounds great! When I first got them it was the same story. Coordination seemed like it was going to be absolutely impossible. I almost started to feel sick to my stomach that I bought a set of drums that I would clearly never be able to play.

However, as it turned out I improved dramatically in very short order thanks to instructional videos by Tommy Igoe and others. I'm now well on my way to learning several different kinds of grooves in various genres. I'm far from being a "drummer", but at least I got my foot in the door. And all so I can get a better handle on TIMING and playing with a metronome, etc.

Funny thing is that I can play with a metronome when practicing the drums. It just seems like a natural. But when playing another instrument, like guitar or sax, I still have problems playing with a metronome. But, like I say, playing with a drum groove seems to work wonders. I'm not sure why that is.

So now I'm learning drums, guitar, bass guitar, keyboard, and sax. The sax is actually last on the list. (ha ha) Not because I don't care for it, it's just that I've been playing guitar and keyboard for far longer so they are much easier for me to advance on.

My goal right now is to learn to play triplets really well. This is something that came up when I started to learn Jazz drumming and now I'm paying more attention to triplets on the guitar, keyboard and sax too. In fact, I'm paying far more attention to all the timing stuff. The "a's" and "ands" and "e's" and whatnot. I find myself counting measures out a lot more since I got into drumming.

So my main musical goal is to improve my timing overall.

Another goal I have is to write about a dozen instrumentals for guitar, keyboard, bass and drums and cut a CD by next spring. No sax on this one, but I'll be practicing it just the same. I have one instrumental written thus far and it still needs a few loose ends sewn up. I have the second piece just barely started.

So we'll see how far I get. Only 11 more to go!
 
Start taking regular lessons and hopefully improve. :)

Hope i dont get hooked on buying mp`s and reeds. :)

Perhaps buy a tenor to go with my alto. :)
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom