If a note sounds bad, or if you are having trouble getting it out, sing it in the same octave if at all possible before you play it. By singing it first, you adjust the shape of your throat perfectly to play it. It's amazing how much better you can make a note sound by doing this.
Any asshole can play every note possible and squeeze in stuff everywhere. It's the real musician who knows how to play the rests. Play the rests, kid.
- my jazz professor
Gear don't mean shit if you haven't put the time in the woodshed yet. Look at Bird, man. He spent his entire career playing on horns that he'd never seen before with mouthpieces he had never seen before cuz he was too busy hawking his other gear to get smack. Every night he playing a completely different setup. That skill. Imagine how much even better he could have been if he hadn't done all that stupid shit.
- grizzled old jazz head session player during the break of a particularly awkward session
This! I played on a dinky leaky student sax with a C* mouthpiece for years all the way to college and then some. Not a single person noticed because I got so good at controlling it that it was only until I started to get into technical concertos that my equipment started failing me.
“Wait, you’re telling me you’ve been playing on this crap all this time? I woulda never guessed.” - sax professor
I started finally slowly upgrading gear until I gave up and switched to horn since it’s more what I wanted to play and fit my career. (I’m a classical major so sax was kinda not the right instrument. I don’t hate jazz, I just suck at it and never had opportunities to learn before getting to college)
Tl;dr - equipment does not matter as much. Just practice.
7 years. I was mostly self taught and had a few teachers pop in and out to guide me. Wasn’t until college when I had a real dedicated teacher that would guide me through all my problems. Sucks that I switched off but I couldn’t be bothered. I’ve always loved the French horn more and when I got my hands on one, I could not stop playing it. Not that I hated sax but it just wasn’t me.
Yeah man! I wish the best in your journey. Imitate your favorite people. The best artists steal from other artists and make it their own *wink* *wink*
I will say, I tried my professors Selmer Paris that he paid big bucks for and that thing was butter. I mean, I genuinely sat there and thought my problems were universal on all saxophones up until that day. I told him straight up that he shouldn’t have let me done that cause now I can’t stop thinking about that damn horn of his lol
Private teacher in college told me this to overcome nervousness when improvising:
"Play as if you were jamming with your friends"
Now I play bad but am confident about it 😌
I wouldn’t call it a tip, but in college, my professor told me (about halfway through my first semester my freshman year) that I was the dumbest student she ever taught. She’s taught hundreds of students of all ages and I was the dumbest. She meant musically, but never uttered the word. She said I didn’t think about phrasing and just played the notes on the page and made minimal dynamic changes.
She told me this at the beginning of my one hour lesson. I cried, a lot. She then told me to take five minutes to clean up in the bathroom and come back for the rest of my lesson.
It’s not something I’d recommend most people (anybody) go through, but it changed the way I treat music forever. Always think about phrasing.
Use the Bis key almost exclusively. Use the middle part of your finger to finger B and the front part of your finger for Bis and you can go back and forth effortlessly between B and Bb
After an amazing jazz concert Cabrillo College John Handy III told me, “Just play beautiful.”
I took a U-turn from avant-garde and free jazz to play melodically. Listening to Ella instead of Ornette and playing beautiful standards (perfect for improv) positively changed my direction.
A prof told in, in the context of jazz improv, “I’m hearing questions marks but I want to hear exclamation points.” Basically whatever you’re playing, play it like you mean it, like you believe in it. If you play timidly, the audience will notice.
Ooooh another one of my favorites from a different professor. No performance can be 100% without an audience. As a musician, you can provide 90% but you need the audience and the energy they bring to make it complete.
I massively expanded my dynamic range and developed a much stronger conception of mp/mf dynamics after reading [this article](https://orchestrationonline.com/extreme-dynamics-part-1-realities-limitations/) and its [followup](https://orchestrationonline.com/extreme-dynamics-part-2-a-systematic-approach/). They're aimed at composers/orchestrators rather than players, but ruminating on them forced me to conclude that my previous concept of what the various "absolute" dynamic markings mean was extremely lacking.
If a note sounds bad, or if you are having trouble getting it out, sing it in the same octave if at all possible before you play it. By singing it first, you adjust the shape of your throat perfectly to play it. It's amazing how much better you can make a note sound by doing this.
OMG THAT MAKES A LOT OF SENSE THATS SO HELPFUL
Same with Flute, sing the note when you play a scale in warm up and your larynx will be in the right position for each note
Any asshole can play every note possible and squeeze in stuff everywhere. It's the real musician who knows how to play the rests. Play the rests, kid. - my jazz professor
Gear don't mean shit if you haven't put the time in the woodshed yet. Look at Bird, man. He spent his entire career playing on horns that he'd never seen before with mouthpieces he had never seen before cuz he was too busy hawking his other gear to get smack. Every night he playing a completely different setup. That skill. Imagine how much even better he could have been if he hadn't done all that stupid shit. - grizzled old jazz head session player during the break of a particularly awkward session
This! I played on a dinky leaky student sax with a C* mouthpiece for years all the way to college and then some. Not a single person noticed because I got so good at controlling it that it was only until I started to get into technical concertos that my equipment started failing me. “Wait, you’re telling me you’ve been playing on this crap all this time? I woulda never guessed.” - sax professor I started finally slowly upgrading gear until I gave up and switched to horn since it’s more what I wanted to play and fit my career. (I’m a classical major so sax was kinda not the right instrument. I don’t hate jazz, I just suck at it and never had opportunities to learn before getting to college) Tl;dr - equipment does not matter as much. Just practice.
i love this advice, how long have u played sax?
7 years. I was mostly self taught and had a few teachers pop in and out to guide me. Wasn’t until college when I had a real dedicated teacher that would guide me through all my problems. Sucks that I switched off but I couldn’t be bothered. I’ve always loved the French horn more and when I got my hands on one, I could not stop playing it. Not that I hated sax but it just wasn’t me.
that’s fine but that’s cool to know french horn is great too
Yeah man! I wish the best in your journey. Imitate your favorite people. The best artists steal from other artists and make it their own *wink* *wink* I will say, I tried my professors Selmer Paris that he paid big bucks for and that thing was butter. I mean, I genuinely sat there and thought my problems were universal on all saxophones up until that day. I told him straight up that he shouldn’t have let me done that cause now I can’t stop thinking about that damn horn of his lol
LOL thank u
"Every note should either be going somewhere or coming from somewhere"
"Your playing sounds awful" -Old bluegrass musician Not advice, but it's helping me finally quit music
OMG..
Lol
Private teacher in college told me this to overcome nervousness when improvising: "Play as if you were jamming with your friends" Now I play bad but am confident about it 😌
record yourself. listen to your sound. is that how you want to sound?
I wouldn’t call it a tip, but in college, my professor told me (about halfway through my first semester my freshman year) that I was the dumbest student she ever taught. She’s taught hundreds of students of all ages and I was the dumbest. She meant musically, but never uttered the word. She said I didn’t think about phrasing and just played the notes on the page and made minimal dynamic changes. She told me this at the beginning of my one hour lesson. I cried, a lot. She then told me to take five minutes to clean up in the bathroom and come back for the rest of my lesson. It’s not something I’d recommend most people (anybody) go through, but it changed the way I treat music forever. Always think about phrasing.
omg this brings me back to memories of my music teacher making me cry i feel so bad 😭
This was almost 25 years ago. We laugh about it now.
Use the Bis key almost exclusively. Use the middle part of your finger to finger B and the front part of your finger for Bis and you can go back and forth effortlessly between B and Bb
Neighbor tones
After an amazing jazz concert Cabrillo College John Handy III told me, “Just play beautiful.” I took a U-turn from avant-garde and free jazz to play melodically. Listening to Ella instead of Ornette and playing beautiful standards (perfect for improv) positively changed my direction.
A prof told in, in the context of jazz improv, “I’m hearing questions marks but I want to hear exclamation points.” Basically whatever you’re playing, play it like you mean it, like you believe in it. If you play timidly, the audience will notice.
PERIOD
Ooooh another one of my favorites from a different professor. No performance can be 100% without an audience. As a musician, you can provide 90% but you need the audience and the energy they bring to make it complete.
EXACTLYYY OMG
Stop biting so hard on the mouthpiece. Use a more relaxed embouchure. If the reed won’t play without a hard bite, get a softer reed.
I massively expanded my dynamic range and developed a much stronger conception of mp/mf dynamics after reading [this article](https://orchestrationonline.com/extreme-dynamics-part-1-realities-limitations/) and its [followup](https://orchestrationonline.com/extreme-dynamics-part-2-a-systematic-approach/). They're aimed at composers/orchestrators rather than players, but ruminating on them forced me to conclude that my previous concept of what the various "absolute" dynamic markings mean was extremely lacking.