So called auxiliary saxophones and the mindset behind playing them

Usually when a young student is asked to play a saxophone other than alto, they are handed a tenor or bari, some reeds, and just start playing the horn. This tends to continue for many even into a college playing career. You get put into the tenor or bari chair in your concert band and you just go. They are all just saxophones, right?

Well, not so much.....


I was reminded of this thought process this very afternoon. As a mostly classical player (at the moment), most of my literature is on alto and therefore I tend to have my alto in my hands when I do fundamental work (i.e. scales, long tones, etc). I do spend some time doing long tones on my other instruments but that's about it. Today, since the piece I was going to be working on was Cunningham's Trigon (a piece for tenor), I decided to just use my tenor to do my daily routine of scale work. It was a struggle. I was struggling to play harmonic minor scales two notes per beat with the metronome on 60....and WITH THE MUSIC RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME!!! It sounded weird. It felt weird. It made me realize how little mastery of the tenor I actually have. Now, this is a subject I have been preaching for some time but I don't guess I had fully internalized the extent of how much one needs to take this approach.

Every type of saxophone requires a TOTALLY different approach and mindset. Further more, fundamental work...and lots of it...is required on every horn you play; not just your primary one.



I thought this was something I already understood. From a standpoint of sound concept, I take radically different approaches for each instrument. Gear is different, the sound in my head is different, pretty much my entire approach to the horn is different. From what I learned today, that is simply not enough.

Simply put, one must learn each variant of the saxophone as if each is a unique instrument. When guys who primarily play alto start playing tenor (even at a high level) they tend to use the same type mouthpiece and physical approach as they do for alto. Invariably they end up with a weak, stuffy, sound (S80 C*, in my opinion, isn't the answer on tenor, kids). Ditto with baritone...plus, on baritone the low register tends to sound 'honky' and 'reedy' due to the player not understanding the amount of air needed to make a bari really sing. Soprano? Intonation and control nightmare.

The point in all of this is to give each instrument the same love and affection  as you do your primary instrument; even if it's just every other day or a few days per week. You'll 100% guaranteed be a better saxophonist for it and who knows, you may learn to love the other horns even more!


Comments? Thoughts?
Feel free to let me know what you think!

Establishing a Daily Routine. Bring on the Fundamentals!

   When it comes to pretty much any activity in life, one can improve by going back to slow, steady, and CONSISTENT fundamental work.  This is, unfortunately, NOT what students (some of you are reading this now and you know who you are) want to read when they are looking through blogs; trying to find that next magic trick to make their sound better...to make their fingers faster...to play higher...etc.

The TRICK is hard work on basic fundamentals. Say this with me, kids.

FUNDAMENTALS NEVER STOP BEING COOL!!!!


  Ok, now that we have this little nugget out of the way, let's talk turkey. How do we establish a good base for fundamentals?

   For starters, lets talk time. What I'm suggesting should take less than an hour (after you get the groove of routine) and this leaves you time to work etudes, work on literature, jazz changes, whatever. It should be done every day you practice (which should be every day if not almost every day).

    Let's start before you even put the horn together. Let's talk mouthpiece work. This will involve a tuner and metronome (you have those...right? RIGHT?). Put your moistened reed on your mouthpiece and try this- Find a good steady pitch on the mouthpiece.....many professors suggest A5 (A-880Hz). I find it's a good starting point. Personally, I've found that my sound has started really filling out with a pitch a few steps lower; more in the F#-F range. Regardless, just set a solid pitch and learn to keep it steady. Step two makes it a little more complicated. Set the metronome at a moderate tempo; say, 60bpm. While holding the pitch steady on the mouthpiece, and in time with the metronome, tongue four quarters, eight eighths, and sixteen sixteenths. It might take several practice sessions just to get a steady tone and that's fine. Don't begin the articulation work until your mouthpiece pitch is nice and steady. Once you can do the articulation work cleanly at 60 without your tone breaking, bump it up a few clicks (I mean a FEW). If you get to the point where you cannot do the pattern without your tone breaking, rachet the metronome back a bit and over the next several sessions, get a good running start at it.

I would only spend 5-10 minutes on this but it is a very valuable exercise for properly setting your embouchure and getting your tongue going.


     Next, let's move to long tones on the horn. Get the tuner out and set it to drone on a concert A. Begin with your middle F# . Play the note from ppp to FFF and back to ppp while trying to stay in tune with the drone (Since this is your tuning pitch, feel free to adjust the mouthpiece to establish an intonation base). Next, move note by note chromatically down to low Bb. As you do, play through the complete dynamic range and stay in tune with the drone. Some of the intervals will sound funky. However, as former Michigan professor Donald Sinta is fond of saying, 'You don't tune with your eyes'. Following your journey down to low Bb, return to your middle F# and repeat the exercise going up. Go up to F or F# (if your horn has the key). As you do this, you are doing two things. One, you are listening to the drone and trying to stay in tune with the drone. Second, you are imagining your supposed ideal sound concept in your head and trying to shape each note to what you want to sound like. This can take months, years, decades....since your sound concept will likely mature as you do. Give yourself 20-30 minutes on this. Yes, it's worth every second.

     Next, move to scales. Get a good scale book. I like Daily Exercises for Saxophone by Trent Kynaston but honestly any good one will work (also look at the Mule and Londeix books). With the metronome set at 60bpm (or slower if need be) play through scales throughout the full range of the horn. Play major, harmonic minor, melodic minor, whole tone, and diminished. Yeah, that sounds like a lot. If you do sixteenth notes at quarter note equals 60bpm, however, you're talking about 10-15 minutes worth of work.....with the payoff, even at 60bpm, being much better technique throughout the range of the instrument. Isn't that worth fifteen minutes?

    Lastly, spend a few minutes on overtones. Look at either the Rascher book Top Tones or Don Sinta's text Voicing. I think overtone work is valuable in many facets of playing and work on them extensively. That said, if you aren't spending the work doing long tones and developing that base of good air support, overtones won't do much for you.

Well, there you are. Try this routine. Get a journal or practice planner. Log your goals for each lesson and how things go. Note what works and what doesn't. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, don't get in a hurry. Mastering an instrument is a long journey. Take your time. Enjoy the process. Celebrate your victories. Learn from your failures. Keep trying.


GET IT DONE!!!

Some quick thoughts about developing YOUR sound.

Hi there,

It's been a little while. Funny how school makes one busy!


    You know, usually when people talk about sound development or 'developing a sound concept', they refer to the pedagogy behind having a 'good sound'. As well they should, I suppose, as I am of the mindset that when all else fails, strip down to the most basic fundamentals and see what's going on. However, this isn't the concept to which I refer.
    You see, to most folks, 'good sound' and 'good sound concept' are one and the same. It's steady air stream, good embouchure, blah blah blah....I'm talking about the mental end of things; the process by which we develop our ideas on sound in our mind before we train ourselves to try to will that sound our of our instrument.
     One of the purposes of this blog is for me to 1: work things out when I think about them and 2: write about concepts that pop into my head because the thought seems like it might have some importance at the time and if I don't get it out of my A.D.D riddled mind and on to a steadier medium quickly, I might forget. I had such a thought today.
      When we work with students, how many of us actually try to get them to think about or conceptualize what a good sound ? How many of us have even thought about HOW to teach that process or have we even done it ourselves?


We're pretty much all told the same things, right?


      Listen to great players. Do lots of long tones. Learn how to manipulate the overtone series. We hear sounds which appeal to us and try to mimic them. Eventually a bit of our own personality works its way in and there's our developed sound. What if, though, we could take it further by actually thinking about what we want out of our sound. What if we could put a new level of thought into the process of conceptualizing a 'good sound'?


      I had the thought this weekend when I was talking about sound with the principal clarinet at our university. Her sound is fabulous, big, woody, sweet, warm....just great. She stated, though, that lately she'd be dissatisfied with her sound. That's pretty common at multiple stages in our development but it got me thinking since she couldn't really explain to me WHY she was unhappy which gave me this thought-


Wouldn't it be so much easier on student AND teacher if we could figure out verbal cues to allow students to describe what they are hearing in their 'mind's ear' as far as sound concepts?


To be continued when I hash this out a bit more. I think it could have value but how does one verbalize something as personal and unique as a concept of sound?
     

So I talk a lot but what do I sound like?

  I often wonder that when reading music blogs. I'm not even judgmental about it. I'll just read what someone has to say and then think 'That's a neat idea. I'd like to hear them play.'.

So, with that in mind, he's the latest example of my playing.

https://soundcloud.com/andyaustin-1/maurice-whitney-introduction


Is it a perfect performace? Of course not. I was trying to perform the piece from memory and as such, had a few flubs. Overall, though, I'm happy with the performance and believe it was very solid for an undergraduate music major; even one with a few white whiskers in his beard.

Give it a listen. Let me know what you think!

On Losing your Passion....

There's a hand painted sign on my wall which reads 'Do it with passion, or not at all.'. Someone very important to me gave it to me as a reminder.





   It's a cliche but a pretty cool one nonetheless and it does ring true. The question remains, though- What happens when the passion is no longer there?



    You see, this isn't my first time on the music merry go round. I entered school at eighteen as a saxophone performance major. I developed a very professional classical sound on both alto and tenor fairly quickly. I was meeting the right big names. I had everything BUT the maturity to spend a few hours a night not chasing girls and buckle down in the practice room to hone my craft.
    Over time, it became obvious that I was going nowhere and lacked the maturity to be a music major (or pretty much any major, for that matter). I somehow managed to get a degree in a different field which I thought I really liked. Music, I decided, would become a hobby. It was for the best, I thought.
     I bounced from job to job and nothing seemed to work for me. Part of it was a lack of maturity. A large part of it, though, was that nothing seemed to fit. Four or five years after my graduation (I was only playing saxophone once about every six months at this point) a good friend of mine got me into my first rock band and I was playing again. Less than a year later we started our own band and I got to play with it for over a decade. I was playing again! Sort of....
      The situation was better but there was still a hole. I managed to stick with jobs for a while longer but still nothing really fit and I kept running into walls when I tried to move up and become more successful. Something was still 'off'.
      Finally through some strange circumstances I got to do something that I NEVER thought I'd be able to do. Thanks to my parents I got to hit the 'do over' button and return to school to get the degree I should have gotten in the first place. Well, maybe I shouldn't have gotten it in the first place. Maybe I just wasn't ready. I'm not sure I was truly ready when I got here as I had little idea what I was doing and less on how to be a student. I've since worked that out.
So, why am I giving you a  rambling autobiography which has nothing to do with the title?

      Part of the reason I got out of music in the first place was that I thought I'd lost the passion for it. After all of this time I can tell you that I never lost it. It was buried under a pile of confusion, frustration, and lack of direction. Subconsciously, I think I buried it deeper to convince myself that I was happy with my career choice.

So what's the point?

       The POINT is that I'm not sure that if something is our 'passion' we really ever lose it. We might get lost. We might get frustrated. Life might seem to get in our way. However, it WILL surface again if we let it. For your sake, if you've buried your passion, dig it the hell up!

If you have a talent that you have cultivated, whether it be music, art, writing, basketball, I don't care...continue to cultivate it. If there is something you think about every day. If there's an activity  you long for when it isn't there (which reminds me of how badly I miss the beach!) then it is absolutely 100% supposed to be part of your life.

I know this has nothing to do with saxophone but I have moments of self-reflection and milliseconds of wisdom.

Thanks for reading!
     

More Random Saxophone Musings....

Because I had a few thoughts on my mind today:

• If you're practicing something and it's difficult, slow it down until it isn't. Music is best learned slowly so the body can learn the proper movement patterns. Slow and steady doesn't just win the race, it wins the practice room.
• Listen to every genre of saxophone and find something to love in all of it....because you might be called on to play that genre one day and you need to be familiar with it. 
• Virtuosity goes far beyond pushing the right keys at the right time. In fact, I'm certain that isn't even the most important aspect of being a virtuoso.
• A good sound is important. Good technique is important. Far more important is the music you produce and what you are able to tell the audience through your instrument. 
• Be your own worst critic but also your biggest fan and advocate. Stay positive about your progress; even if (and especially if) you aren't currently seeing any.
• FUNDAMENTALS NEVER STOP BEING COOL!!!!!
• Find hobbies besides music. You need an escape and things to keep your mind working.
• Realize that you are doing something cool even if others don't always see it.

Ye Olde Music Major and the Curious Case of the Flibbity Fingers...

If only I were as good at blogs as I am at fun titles...

   So, one might ponder, what in the world are 'flibbity fingers'? That's an easy answer. Simply put, 'flibbity fingers' are my term for any holes in technique which prevent a smooth transition between notes. Instead of playing two notes and hearing DAH-DAH, one would hear DahFLAHDah. In my situation it's due to two things; a painfully slow left ring finger and lack of technique development on the side Bb, C, and E keys. It might be different for you. So, how to deal with it?

    For some, the problems might work themselves out through basic pedagogy; i.e. scales, arpeggios, and the like. For me, a little more specificity is required. As fundamental study has improved my overall technique greatly, the 'flibbitys' have become more glaring. Here's what I've been doing to address the issue:

    The further I've gotten in my degree program, the more basic I've realized my practice routine needs to be. When I refer to practice, I'm not talking about working on literature or etudes. I refer to that as 'preparation' and will be the subject of another post; "Practice vs. Preparation". My current practice routine includes long tones and voicing work, scales (all 12 major, harmonic and melodic minor, whole tones, diminished, and octatonic...every practice session), and articulation work. Following that, I've started working on what I refer to as 'Flibbities'. Were one to stroll past my practice room during 'flibbity' work, one might thing I was doing really poor impressions of Phillip Glass. They are very simple 2-4 note patterns or scale fragments done over and over using a metronome and usually very slowly so I can listen for and completely internalize a very high level of precision. It's slow and boring, but must be done and must involve a high level of concentration. If I'm practicing a pattern of, say Palm D#, E#, F# to E, and D, then I want to hear those notes and ONLY those notes. 

     Why, you ask. Why put yourself through this? It's simple. That hole in my technique is what stands in between me and the literature I want to play. It stands in between me and mastery of the instrument. It stands in between what I am and what I desire to be as a musician. Once you attain a grasp of good basic technique (and we should never stop striving to set new bars as to 'good basic technique) the devil is in the details. 

Get to work.

Oh yeah, coming soon:

"The New Golden Age of Saxophone Production"

"Black Curtain Syndrome- How to get past audition jitters"(That one will be an interview, kids!)

"Practice vs. Preparation"

Please, comment and let me know what you think!