Members Videos part 1 to 4

[Anonymous]

Just had one of those spare moments and decided to trawl through all the members videos part 1 to 4.
Just to see if i could identify any problem areas in my own playing.
The most basic ones i could identify with were:
not giving the horn enough supporting air,
not blowing loud enough to develop tone,
control over starting and stopping notes,
being too sharp or flat from not having the mouthpiece too far in or too far out,
the mouth being too far in or too far out on the mouthpiece,
not adjusting the embouchure when playing in different registers,
fingers coming up too high off the keys,

I can’t comment on set ups as each one of us has our favourite mouthpiece/reed combo which gives us
the sound we want, and is down to experimenting ourselves, as what works for one person may not for another.

the next category of problem areas gets more deep, and these are basically practice,practice, practice:
being fluid on the keys – practice chromatic scales, or any scales & arpeggios
note quality – practice short,long notes, practice in different dynamics
theory – practice sight reading, if you want to go down the route of sheet playing
timing – practice with a metro, or any of Johnny’s backing tracks
i’m sure theres more to add to this list.

i now need to skim through this list everyday .
Thanks Johnny, this site has been very beneficial!

[john]

Yup, you have summarized the most important point of getting to be a good saxophone player. When you “Trawl” through all the tips I give in the comments you’ll find they all get repeated over and over (as in the list you gave). You can buy every sax instructional book in the world and you won’t find anything new as far as that goes!

1. not giving the horn enough supporting air,
2. not blowing loud enough to develop tone,
3. control over starting and stopping notes,
4. being too sharp or flat from not having the mouthpiece too far in or too far out,
the mouth being too far in or too far out on the mouthpiece,
5. not adjusting the embouchure when playing in different registers,
6. fingers coming up too high off the keys,

I would add to #4 that when most people sound out of tune it’s not only because the mp is too far in or out (this is where fine tuning comes in) but rather because they are not doing #1, #2, #3, and #5. Yes, when all those important things come together it will eventually make your playing sound in tune.

[Michael Bishop]

In approaching this fall what will be 18 months of learning to play the Saxophone from Johnny, I’ve learned that the better we master the specific points he mentions here; the better the player we will be. For me, No. 4 and No.6 was the things I had to really work on so as to prevent it from becoming a bad habit. If it becomes a bad habit, it’s going to be twice as hard to break.

I still have my videos from Members Videos 1-4 that I had temporarily removed because someone tried messing with my youtube account and plan on doing a couple of those songs like a before/after thing. Even looking back at those videos now, I can see some of things that Johnny mentions which, at the time, I didn’t even realize I was doing (like the fingers coming off too high from the keys) or things that I’m aware of now that I wasn’t aware of at that time. I was really happy that Johnny did add the blog as we can go back and see where we’ve improved, problem areas we may have, etc.. I think sometimes we don’t always see that we’re improving–I’ve felt that way for sure–but we have the proof on video so the blog here is a real plus!

[Anonymous]

Thanks Johnny – going to print off what you wrote, put your name on the bottom & keep it in the front of my Sax Book!

[john]

haha… that’s a good idea!

[Author]

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