Please help me ...

[RedBottom]

I'm not a beginner to sax, but I am to jazz, and quite frankly, I'm in a mess. I've been going to this workshop for a few weeks and did quite well in the beginning. I even managed to do a little solo improv on a 12-bar blues.

However, it's all getting a bit complicated, especially once we got beyond blues. Now we're on to improving around chords and dorian scales and I'm completely lost. I know what he means when he says to use the tonic, third and fifth of a chord, and I know about chords and what a dorian scale is, but not to the extent where I have instant recall. By the time I've worked them out and written them down, everyone else has finished.

He has these parts of the session where he just gets the rhythm section to play through their bit, and we all get to improv and experiment at the same time. The idea is good, because at least you get to try without making a prat of yourself. But for a start, I can never 'hear' the changes and when I can, I just can't 'hear' what I want to play. It's like, 'here's a backing and I know the main tune, but what do I want this solo to sound like?' I just end up playing random notes that make no sense at all, and when they do, I've lost my place, so they sound bl**dy awful anyway.

The tutor's very patient and explains things well enough. I can understand what he's saying, and I can remember it for the most part. I just can't put it into practice.

It's a mixed ability workshop, and there are some very good - and very 'helpful' - players there (although beginners welcome, which is why I joined), so I feel very much bottom of the class. I've decided not to sign up for next term, because I don't think I'm getting anything out of it. In fact, I felt so awful after Monday, I was in tears and on the verge of giving up sax completely.

Instead, I'm going to work on the stuff independently, although I work, so practice and learning time is limited. I accept that progress will be slow. The stuff on the extra pages here looks really useful, so I shall make a start with that. However, I'm still not sure where to start.

In terms of preference, I like the blues and can often 'hear' it better than I can other genres, and I like listening to some bebop as well. So where do you suggest I start and what do think I should concentrate on to start with?

 

[Greywolf]

It's hard. I was where you are three years ago, but I probably had less experience than you. I couldn't read music well. Still can't read well. You just have to keep plugging away at it. It's good to get the modes down. Dorian and Myxolidian especially.

Then as now, I felt like I was standing on the shore of a huge ocean called music and I was running my fingers in the water, Now I feel like I'm up to my ankles.

Learn all your major and minor scales and the blues scales. Play them over and over and over until you can't get them wrong. But don't just play them. Play the scalkes like their tunes. Noodle around, make it fun. No one says it has tobe boring.


I bought a cheap laminator a while ago and some credit card sized pouches and I spent a while making litle crib cards for modes, transpositions relative major to minor keys. I kept them in my breast pocket and when somone called A dorian I'd take a peek at my card. soon it became second nature, same with major to minor etc.

Just making the cards taught me a lot.

You just have to want to do it and keep doing it, keep making a prat of yourself ,and you get better and better.

Always always always remember,

If you're not making mistakes, then you're not learning.

DON'T try and learn everything at once.

Fix on something, and nail it as welll as you can, then you will have achieved something and try something else with confidenc.

And always keep playing.

Never let the music stop.


Oops that has gone on much longer than I meant but I feel quite passionate about it, especially when I look back and realix=ze how far I have come in three years. Much further than I imagined three years ago.

 

[Linky Lee]

brilliantly summed up.

The thing with improvising is that sometimes it's not going to work, other times it will, sometimes it will be brilliant.

There are various techniques to make the success of Improvised soloing consistently better.

The first is learning the scales and using those over the chord changes. This sounds very fixed and bars often seem to be a bit disjointed but you won't end up playing completely independently of the band.

The second is learning licks and riffs. Once you know some set routines start of with those transposed into the right keys, then develop in a theme and variation style, which I assume you understand as you implied you have a classical background.

I would suggest that you stick to blues for now. You seem to like it more and you said yourself you have the 'feel for it' more than the Bebop.

So... Blues scales and Dorian mode are very common.
You can apply the riff theme and variation method to blues very easily as well. But you know as long as you play in a relative key you're doing nothing wrong, it's all about learning to play melodies and have better choice of notes.

A thing I've noticed is that when you have a solo in your head you can normally recreate it fairly accurately. I used to record myself singing my solos then transcribe them onto the saxophone and embellish them articulation and other things.

When playing a solo you have in your head, I found I was never more than a tone from 'the note' that I wanted.
After a while I'd have the solo worked out so that I liked the flow of it and the pitches seemed right to me.

Practice is the key. As making a solo sound great is all in the performance, the expression and the passion you put in.

I would recommend you stick at this workshop, though if it does really get you down then don't worry about it.
I say that as it's a fantastic opportunity to see various different ways people going about improvising and building solos.

It also gives you a great chance to practice basic riff development over chord changes that you could of worked on in your free time.

Do the risky stuff at home, get all the dodgy notes out first, work out where you want to be going. Then go practice it in a live situation and don't worry about not being the best or finding it the easiest.

If you really work hard at something it feels better once you nail it. Take heart in the fact that you will get more out of succeeding than most of the others there will.

 

[mr__myles]

Apart from the others have said, be easy on yourself. You won't sound great right off the bat. Eventually you will be able to take the music thats in your mind and transfer it to your fingers. When soloing, try just picking three notes, make a little tune using only 3 notes, try making those three notes the chord tones and then try adding in little chromatic run ups etc. You'll get it man, everyone starts somewhere!