Still saxing!

Well it’s been a long, long time since my last post but guess what?? I’m still saxing regularly and I think it is actually getting easier – oh perhaps I’m getting better…

Reeds

I’ve just started using Vandoren #3 reeds although I’m still running-in the first two out of the box. One of them is still a bit too stiff to play for any length of time beyond 5 minutes without serious gob ache while the second reed was pretty much perfect the first time I tried it out – strange but true…

Sax

My horn is still lovely although 9 months in and small areas on the lacquer are starting to show marks that I can’t clean – occasionally I get sticky pads but my tried and trusted method of damp paper strip sprinkled judiciously with talc always gets things going again.

I reckon it will be due for a service very soon although I’m considering taking it to England when I go visiting the family in September – might be better off getting it sorted out there me thinks (although it will be more expensive I guess!)

Relax and Breathe

I am still trying to find my rhythm for breathing and I am slowly finding a way to play relaxed – this is key. If you can be relaxed and loose when you’re playing you will sound bright, funky and great – well – that’s my opinion anyways…

Future?

Right now I’m working on getting crisp low-notes, strengthening my embouchure and hitting the keys nice and cleanly with as little finger movement as possible – oh and breathing and timing and relaxing and and and – I think you get the picture!

Basically I want to get all these things right but in such a way as I don’t need to think about it – thankfully the only way to do THAT is to practise – a lot!

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Standing Room Only

So I finally got around to buying a saxophone stand and I managed a double-coup finding one in Siam Paragon and priced at a mere 600THB. It is sturdy and well padded so my bad boy won’t get scratched…

So now all I need is a chunky music stand, a stool and a sax microphone and my sax studio will be complete… Actually I will be needing a MIDI card for my computer and a cable so I can link it up to my girlfriend’s keyboard – then I’ll be able to get expressive with Acid – I’ve not used it for ages now!

So what have I been practising? These days I am doing hard-core scale work – I am playing all 12 major scales and the major arpeggios everyday by memory instead of trying to read sheet music – now that is tricky. I am also trying to get my tonguing right for single beat, double beat etc. – even trickier.

I am still doing didactic scales (and trying to get through these in all 12 keys too) and chromatic scales (which frankly are pretty easy but now it’s a speed thing).

I’m trying to play three types of music – something Thai, something Bach and something else!

Finally I’m doing all of the above work with a metronome so I can get my timing consistent – oh and did I mention learning dynamics (that’s volume to you)…

The only problem is fitting all that into a daily session – I need at least two hours and preferably three… Sadly that thing called work keeps getting in the way – thankfully I can practise at work too so that helps

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Sounds terrible = good practice…

The floods are causing all kinds of havoc – thankfully I’m still high and dry but for many life has become somewhat difficult. At my school there are no saxophone teachers available – they are all up-country or dealing with flooded homes – unlucky.

So I went to school after work and simply practiced by myself in one of their classrooms – great plan as I normally get home too late to get an evening session in. Alas this session did not go so well – I sounded terrible! To be fair that is the point of practicing – trying something you can’t do so despite sounding rubbish – I am making progress!

I was trying to play some of the low notes – the scale of B Major is a tricky beggar – so tricky that I spend ages just trying to play B, C, C# and D in the low register consistently – then I started having trouble with the middle register – I guess my mouth was getting tired…

Anyway I’ll try again tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that – perseverance is the only option.

Technorati Tags: flooding,practice,B Major,terrible,school

2012 Sax

Intro

It’s been a while since I last posted so I guess a Happy Christmas and Happy New Year are called for!

I’m still sax practising although over the New Year break I didn’t get much done – time to go places instead…

Diadic Scales

Thankfully the New Year brought my old sax tutor back (hurrah) and since I was already working on the Rubank principle my tutor has now got me on diadic scales exclusively.

So what are diadic scales? Take a scale in a given key (for example C Major) the diadic scale starts with the root, goes to the third then back to the second then up to the forth then back down to the third (up two, down one). To come back down the scale you go down two and up one.

They are pretty fiddly but more fun than simply playing straight scales.

Last week I was given the scales C, D, A, G to learn – I added E and F to those because it is always good to have a challenge.

Rather than try to think which notes to play I wrote out the diadic scale in each key so it was easier to see what to do (my latest sax book helped a lot here as it has each of them listed – that book is called Technique of the Saxophone, Volume 1 by Berklee Press)

I’ll be adding the remaining 6 keys to the repertoire this week and after all that – well I guess I’ll just have to move onto triads (root, 3rd, 5th, 3rd, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 4th, 3rd etc.) which look like fun – although your opinion may differ…

Tonguing

On top of that I also have tonguing exercises to do too – playing each note in one, two, three, four, eight or sixteen tongued beats. Now that is hard work – especially with the metronome!

Metronome

Speaking of the metronome I have found a technique that seems to work for me – now I use headphones plugged into the metronome when I play the sax – this puts the timing straight into my head and as a bonus the metronome only plays through one ear piece so you can listen to both the metronome and your saxing – I know I should be able to handle them both without headphones but this makes it easier for now

Keeping time and staying in tune…

Just got back from a relaxing few days in Phuket, it was hot and sunny (most of the time) with a bit of torrential downpour thrown in for good measure just to keep the tourists on their toes! All in all it was most enjoyable although I did have to leave my sax at home…

Just before heading off, I did manage to grab a new metronome tuner thingy – an Intelli IMT301 combined metronome/tuner (made in Korea, battery included).

The device is full of features yet is very easy to use and is saxophone friendly!

So now I am playing in tune – well some of the time! Seems that while I can tune into say "G” nice and easy some of the other notes are out of tune. Apparently means I have to change my embouchure slightly and is something all wind instrument musicians have to deal with – great!

The metronome is really easy to setup and is nice and loud. My current problem is actually playing in time with the metronome – my brain seems to be having some trouble listening to the knock, knock of the metronome and coordinating my fingers to where I want them and breathing correctly…

Fair enough – more practice is clearly necessary – yippee!

Work on scales however is coming along nicely C, D, E, F, F#, G are all being practiced every day now – obviously A, B, Bb, C#, G# and D# are all next in line (not necessarily in that order of course).

Finally – seems I need to get myself a new tutor as my current one is still flooded out (poor fella) and nobody knows when the situation is likely to improve. It’ll be a shame – he seemed like a nice guy.

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Bridge Over Troubled Water

So my saxophone lesson for tomorrow has been cancelled – seems my tutor is caught up in all this flooding malarkey sweeping through central Thailand at the moment – not good.

So far my part of the country is dry although it seems highly likely that we’ll be seeing some excess water in due course – there’s looks to be too much runoff to avoid it… Still at least the rain seems to be holding off at long last (apparently the monsoon season this year has had 58% more rainfall than normal…)

In other news I’m still practicing daily and having fun – I still need to work on my embouchure after one hour of practice my mouth feels so tired I can barely hold my notes!

The other day I discovered John Coltrane’s legendary tune Giant Steps and despite having no desire to play jazz, I must admit to being both captivated and blown-away by this seminal piece of music – it is simply incredible. It got me thinking “how the heck do you breathe?” then I discovered the technique known as “Circular Breathing” which explained that little conundrum… I had to have a go at that breathing style but clearly I’ll need a much stronger embouchure before I can seriously get close to that! Stick with walking before thinking too much about running eh!

Also discovered in this music revelation is that I have a surprising number of tunes with saxophone sections in them – some jazz, some funk, some escaping classification! So they have all been stuffed onto my MP3 player so I can listen not only to sax music but try to analyse technique, articulation and even have a go at identification of note and fingering used (I’m totally woeful at that right now but one has to start somewhere right?!!)

So with tomorrows lesson cancelled I might attempt to head over to the music store area in Bangkok (its not far by taxi from my office) and get hold of a tuner, cleaning swab and possibly a stuff-it cleaner thingy…

Technorati Tags: Flooding,John Coltrane,Giant Steps,Circular Breathing

Lesson #1

First lesson yesterday and it was hard going and good fun! All-in-all I was at it for 1.5 hours (it was supposed to be a 2 hour lesson but my tutor was late?!) and by the end of the lesson I had face ache!

So what did I learn?

Mouthpiece

My mouthpiece needs to be pushed onto the sax an awfully long way before it’s in tune – I was amazed! So now I need to get myself a metronome/tuner device (or perhaps write one in software eh – that’ll be a fun little project…)

Seems my ligature (which came with my sax) is okay – so I won’t bother changing it for another one (I was thinking about a Rovner Dark) until I have a better idea of what style of music I want to play (I’m leaning towards Jazz Funk right now)

The reeds I bought (Vandoren 2.5) got the thumbs up – ideal for a beginner (that’s nice to know – I’m glad I’m not using those Gonzalez 3 – impossible!)

Mouth placement on the mouthpiece is a personal thing – I do have some training tasks to improve my embouchure and on top of that I have breathing training to do – seems the way I’ve been breathing for cycling training is different to that needed for sax playing – then again – I might have been doing it all wrong on the cycling front too – seems I need to do diaphragm breathing (same as cycling) but I need to breath with my shoulders relaxed – this is the key – so I’ll be making adjustments from now on…

Scales

G Major (I already knew half of this so I didn’t have much more to remember)

D Major (never played formally – just messing around so that wasn’t too bad)

Managed to practice both of these this morning (both ascending and descending) – some of the notes I needed to lookup in my book – couldn’t remember them – but eventually it all came together.

Songs

I worked through book exercises really quickly – I think my tutor was impressed. I did mention I’d been practicing (albeit without any kind of sax feedback) with reading score and making sounds) – as it turns out I learnt to read score eons ago while I was at school – I then forgot all about it until I got a guitar then left it all and now I’m back! This time I’ll be sticking with it.

I think I’ll be needing to get a music stand so I don’t need to look down to my desk while reading music and perhaps a high stool so I can sit comfortably while playing – oh more things to buy!

Maintenance

So at the end of the lesson my saxophone was almost as flooded as parts of Thailand – my tutor had the same problem which was nice… I need to get a “stuff-it” to put inside my sax and a cleaning swab that can be pulled through the thing – so I can dry it out nicely before putting it away – you don’t want sticky pads I can tell you!

Next Time

So next time I have a 2.5 hour lesson (that’ll be a nightmare) and by then I aim to have purchased the following;

1. Music stand

2. Stool

3. Cleaning swab & Stuff-it

4. Metronome/Tuner

I should be fingering G and D major scales like a sax god by then too – well at least in time with less errors…

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