(bottom of page)
If you've played a different instrument for any length of time, if you have a moderate knowledge of music theory, if you've listened to saxophone players for years, you're cursed! When you approach playing, you have 'voices' in your head. A thousand thousand melodies, riffs, licks and phrases (although, that's three ways of saying the same thing) are shouting for your attention. Although I could never play it, I can sing the first few choruses of Giant Steps and hear them in my head. I have listened extensively to many great players and have analyzed their playing.
Then, I rented an alto sax, determined to reach back 60 years to when I briefly took clarinet lessons and must have been able to produce a note or two between squeaks. Squeaking was so bad, I broke my clarinet in two smashing it against the wall. My parents were nice about it, they got it repaired. But the clarinet wasn't in my musical future. It was the guitar, the accordion of the sixties, one in every closet, that won me over. In the 1970's, I was fortunate to meet a drummer who was very knowledgeable in jazz and other music, and his influence "ruined" my life, because it kindled a lifelong interest in jazz. So I listened to the walls of albums he had in his basement. Sometimes, he narrated them for me, saying things like "Ok, now listen to McCoy's church bells" in Spiritual. Those chords do sound like church bells in the first part of his solo!
Having a lifetime of great music in your head and trying to learn to play a new instrument creates a terrible dichotomy. My teacher would put it this way: "Don't try to go in 50 directions at once!" and he's right. But I can't help myself.
How can you possibly NOT include symmetrical scales and altered scales in your practice? And after a few long notes, how can you NOT launch into Naima, or You Don't Know What Love Is, or a thousand other tunes in your head? I'm starting to feel that it's easier to start playing knowing nothing at all about music. At least, discipline-wise, you can focus on one or two things at a time.
I think the number one lesson I learned from my drummer friend, was something he said the bebop players said:
It's all rhythm, man.
I think that the tendency is to play too many notes too fast, because you can. My current teacher also said something else that I found interesting. We were talking about Coltrane and he said, "There's no throwaway junk, there. Nothing extra." It's true, when I listen to a ballad like All or Nothing at All, there'"s the occasional waterfall of fast notes, but's it's there because it's part of the story.
I'm saying all this to encourage new players like me to stay the course. I'm trying way too much stuff I shouldn't do for a year or more, probably, but it's impossible not to.
Then, I rented an alto sax, determined to reach back 60 years to when I briefly took clarinet lessons and must have been able to produce a note or two between squeaks. Squeaking was so bad, I broke my clarinet in two smashing it against the wall. My parents were nice about it, they got it repaired. But the clarinet wasn't in my musical future. It was the guitar, the accordion of the sixties, one in every closet, that won me over. In the 1970's, I was fortunate to meet a drummer who was very knowledgeable in jazz and other music, and his influence "ruined" my life, because it kindled a lifelong interest in jazz. So I listened to the walls of albums he had in his basement. Sometimes, he narrated them for me, saying things like "Ok, now listen to McCoy's church bells" in Spiritual. Those chords do sound like church bells in the first part of his solo!
Having a lifetime of great music in your head and trying to learn to play a new instrument creates a terrible dichotomy. My teacher would put it this way: "Don't try to go in 50 directions at once!" and he's right. But I can't help myself.
How can you possibly NOT include symmetrical scales and altered scales in your practice? And after a few long notes, how can you NOT launch into Naima, or You Don't Know What Love Is, or a thousand other tunes in your head? I'm starting to feel that it's easier to start playing knowing nothing at all about music. At least, discipline-wise, you can focus on one or two things at a time.
I think the number one lesson I learned from my drummer friend, was something he said the bebop players said:
It's all rhythm, man.
I think that the tendency is to play too many notes too fast, because you can. My current teacher also said something else that I found interesting. We were talking about Coltrane and he said, "There's no throwaway junk, there. Nothing extra." It's true, when I listen to a ballad like All or Nothing at All, there'"s the occasional waterfall of fast notes, but's it's there because it's part of the story.
I'm saying all this to encourage new players like me to stay the course. I'm trying way too much stuff I shouldn't do for a year or more, probably, but it's impossible not to.
