Please help me play the blues

[razorfish]

My sax arrived at 4 aclock today, I was expecting the other half to take it away untill xmas. I was so exicted i could have peed myself, when she said i could have it now. Well i did pay for it myself!!!

Anyway the horn is good, not really sure what i am doing yet!!! But i think i might have played sort of a scale, Middle C to bottom C (If that makes sense). I have done this for the last hour, much to the kids dicussed. I have to put it down now, as i can know longer feel my lips -🙂

Just one query, I find it a lot easier to play (and get a fuller tone) when i DONT fold my bottom lip over my teeth. I do have a very thick lips. Is this natural? Or is it a written rule that should fold your lower lip over your teeth?

Thanks in advance for all your help-🙂 Hope i am not boring everyone with my posts!!!

 

[Pete Thomas]

I don't think it's a rule about the bottom lip, but some people do. I got some stick on another forum for suggesting you can do this, but I think if your lip muscles are firm enough it's not necessary to rest the lip on the teeth, however you must be sure that there is a firm enough embouchure (that's the technical term for what your mouth does), so a teacher is very important at this stage or there could be bad habits. And the teacher may well disagree with my slightly non-conformist approach.

However my article still gets a link from the excellent Wikipedia (I didn't used to like it, strange that)

 

[Pete Thomas]

And good luck with the horn!

 

[razorfish]

Thanks Pete, i will keep going, with what i am doing. Awesome resource mate. Just made a donation. Keep up the good work

Chris

 

[Pete Thomas]

I wondered who that was, thanks very much.

 

[razorfish]

no worries mate, i am often raising dosh for Bristol Childrens Hopspital. A charity very close to my heart.

Have a good xmas-🙂

 

[phil_edwards]

Sounds like you're having fun, good for you. Keep us posted on progress, and any questions fire away,

regards, Phil

 

[razorfish]

Guys

So things going really well, have learnt few scales. I am assuming that sax sounds better once warmed up? Or is it just my playing?

Anyway looking for a fast track learning curve! Now playing with bands before, i kinda know they stick to 3-4 keys.

So with the blues what are best transposed keys to learn?

Cheers

Chris

 

[Linky Lee]

C, C#/Db, D, D#/Eb, E, F, F#/Gb, G G#/Ab, A, A#/Bb, and B

You should be able to play in all keys, for any type of music, especially blues which often substitutes chords by borrowing from other keys in essence.

A lot of blues is 'lick' or 'riff' based. Once you've learnt a lick or riff you should be able to play it in all keys, they way to do this is to transpose it by ear and not get caught up on the scale side of things.

One thing you ought to be practising is bending notes smoothly at different speeds and different amounts. Especially starting notes off bent down and moving it up to pitch, mostly in the middle to high registers, though it is good to be able to do it around the bottom octave.

Also listen to lots and lots of blues, imitate whether it be guitar, harmonica, sax or anything understand how they're manipulating the notes and try to copy it as accurately as you can.

 

[Simon]

... check out the vid of Ben Castle and singer Beth Rowley doin' 'Beautiful Tomorrow'... (last of the Tenor sax vids): there's a good lesson in the blues!
Simon