Transcripts
1. Tenor Sax Lessons For Beginners: I welcome to the Music Coach Online Tenor saxophone program, where you'll learn how to play the tenor saxophone from scratch. My name is Todd Porter, and I'm a professional musician and educator in Canada, where I've been teaching and performing the last 15 years. The Music Coach program has been designed to get you playing with other people as quickly as possible, because the real joy and music is being able to express yourself with other people and listen and interact. And so the whole course curriculum has been designed around this idea of teaching you how to play the instrument, but at the same time teaching how to have the skills you're gonna need to play with. By the end of the course, you're gonna have the confidence to own up friends and family and other people who play and get a jam session going, because the goal is to get you playing with other people as quickly as possible. Program starts by learning how to pick your first instrument. You rent it or buy it and helps you move through how to put it together, make your first sound and learn how to play some scales and rhythms and harmony so that you can interact with other musicians as quickly as possible. This course is designed for complete beginners who are looking for a way to get into the musical game in a fun, fast and friendly way. If you've always dreamed of playing the tenor sax phone and not knowing where to start and you come to the right place, thank you for your interest in the music coach online tenor saxophone program, and I hope you're as excited as I am to get started.
2. 4 Essential Elements of Music: What is music? Music is the language of the planet, spoken by every society since the beginning of time. Music is a vibrational language that allows us to convey complex ideas that spoken or written language alone cannot adequately express music gives us an almost unlimited vocabulary for communicating emotional information through sound way. Are all born musicians Theo Idea. That some of us are musicians and some of us are not is so far from the truth. It's laughable. You are made of music. Your heart is beating steadily in your body, keeping the rhythm of your life flowing. Your ears and voice are constantly working together to shape your experience through the sound you make and sounds. You hear it is all music, therefore, essential elements to be able to play music on any instrument. They are rhythm, harmony, melody and your passion for music. To explain these concepts, we're going to use the analogy of a train train itself is you. And the passion that you have for music is the boiler. Inside the train, you were born with the deep passion for music, like every other person whose ever been born and come before you and everyone who will come after you now you might be saying yourself, I have no passion for music or I can't even remember a time when I did thistles just simply because it got extinguished in you. And the good news is it could be reignited and made to burn hot and passionate again. The key to starting any good fire is to start with the right amount of fuel and a little bit of air. This is the same in music. One of the biggest problems people run into is they get overwhelmed. This is like putting too much wood down and trying to light it with one match. A roaring fire always starts out small, and it's helped, along with just the right amount of fuel at the right time and a continuous flow of air fire and the boiler of your train is the single most important part of your musical journey . Now, for a train to go anywhere it needs to go along a track. You can't just have a train in the middle of nowhere, with no track and get a fire burning hot and expected to go somewhere. A railroad track has three main elements. Railroad ties, which are the wooden beams that go along the ground. And two tracks, one on either side with trains. Wheels sit on rhythm is like the railroad ties, which are evenly spaced and allow for the stability for the train to move. Once the tracks are in place, railroad ties air spaced in a way that is even and breaks up the distance between two points so that time can be felt in a consistent way. If you put your train on top of just railroad ties, you're not gonna be going anywhere, so let's have the next piece of track. Harmony is the piece of track that runs alongside the railroad ties. It's fastened securely to them, which allows the rhythm to pass freely underneath harmonies most often expressed as cords. Cords air simply a grouping of three or more notes stacked vertically. The most common use of them, his major and minor. Most people experience major chords, is sounding happy, and minor chords is sounding sad. Almost all music that you've heard on the radio or on television and in movies is made up of major and minor courts. Melody is the piece of track on the other side. Opposite the Harmony, the melody is the most recognizable and distinctive part of any song to songs can have the same rhythmic and harmonic structure, but melodies are completely unique to the song from which they come from. When you think of a famous song in your head, most likely you're thinking about the melody. A melody is just simply a pattern of notes moving up or down involving the rhythm and interacting with the harmony that is connected to once you have these three elements of track of railroad ties, which of rhythm Harmony, which is one of the tracks in the melody, which is the other track your train can now roll along. Then all you have to do is keep adding more pieces of track your train control further and further faster and onward in your musical jury.
3. Notes, and the musical alphabet: throughout the world. There are many different notation systems in music in Western Europe and North America. We use a 12 tone system with the musical alphabet toe. Understand the 12 tone system. We first need to understand how we measure the distance between two notes, their two main distances used in our system. They're tones and semi tones. The easiest way to see and understand tones and semi tones is on a piano. A piano is made up of white keys and Blackie's, and a tone is the distance between two white keys with a black in the middle or between two black keys with a white key in the middle. A semi tone is our smallest unit of distance, which is between a white key in a blackie or between two white keys where there is no black he in the middle. All scales and music are simply a pattern of tones and semi tones that repeats. The most common one is the major scale, which goes tone, tone, semi tone, tone, tone, tone, semi tone on a piano. If you start this pattern on, see, there's no need to use any black keys because the pattern is built right into the keyboard of tone, tone, semi tone, tone, tone, tone, semi tone. If you start the pattern on any other key, however, you need to use the Black Keys to maintain the pattern. This is why we have sharps and flats to make up the 12 different keys inside of the system .
4. Melody: melody is the part of songs that most people identify with, since there are so many harmonic and rhythmic combinations melodious the most distinct part of any song. Close your eyes and think for a moment of your favorite piece of music. Chances are you're hearing the melody in your head. A melody is both rhythmic and harmonic, and if it is well constructed, it could be sung or played on its own and be clearly understood. Simply put, a melody is a string of notes and rests that move up and down in relation to the harmony underneath it.
5. Harmony and Chords: harmony like the universe itself, is all about relationships. We're alive right now on Earth because of its relationship to everything else in our solar system. Any two notes played at the same time are considered harmony. Sound travels in waves that are measured in Hertz hurts measures how maney waves per second a note is generating a string on a guitar, for example, vibrates 440 times per second. Lower notes vibrates slower and higher. Notes vibrate faster human ears can hear in a range of approximately 31 hurts. Up to 18,000 hertz dogs, for example, can hear a much larger range. They can hear from 40 hertz all the way up to 60,000 hertz when two or more notes air played. At the same time, the sound waves interact with each other, creating two states of dissonance and continents, more commonly known as tension and release. Imagine the sound waves are like dolphins jumping in and out of the water notes that Aaron dissidents or tension never line up evenly so that the pattern of the dolphins being in and out of the water is never in complete alignment. This is a physical event and why some people experience tension in music as very uncomfortable. This technique is often used in movie soundtracks to enhance the sense of unease. Continents or release is having the dolphins come into a pattern where sometimes or all of the time they're at the top or bottom of their pattern together at the same time, much like our preference for spicy or sweet tastes, we each have a sense of how much tension and release we like in our music. And like a sense of taste, it can evolve over time, depending on what were exposed to the fact that there are no wrong notes is not just a spiritual state of mind. It's a fact. All that exists is tension and release or dissonance and continents and how much you enjoy . He is entirely up to your own sense of personal taste. Cords are organized harmony. Harmony is used most commonly to make up chords that air called triads. They're just simply cords that have three notes in them, cords are built like houses. There is a foundation which we call the route the third, which is like the main floor and the fifth, which is like the second floor of the house. The route is the note that gives Accord its name. For example, in a C chord, the route is see. The third of the note is the third note in the scale, so see is one is to and is three. The fifth is the fifth note in the scale. See is one D is to his three, Fs four and G is five. There are several different types of chords. The two most common are major chords and miners. What makes a cord major or minor is the relationship of the third to the root of the court . When it is closer to the fifth than the route, it is major, which is like moving the main floor of your house up slightly when it is closer to the basement, where the root it's minor. The way you move a note, closer or further away, is with sharps and flats to change a C poured from major to minor, you change the third, which is E. T. Flat. Most people experience major and minor chords by hearing them as happy sounds for major on and sad sounds for minor. It's always good to remember that music is a language that you were built to speak. And even when you're working on something that's a challenging concept, just know that with enough time and practice you'll be able to master it.
6. Rhythm: rhythm is a word that has many meanings in music. This could be the source of unnecessary confusion for students. When they first begin. You may have heard the words time and tempo used in the same way. Let's break this down into the essential elements. Tempo is like a river. Think of a river for a moment. It usually flows at a constant pace, but it's not rigid or mechanical. When humans make music, it is a goal to be as consistent as possible with the tempo. But in reality it's alive, and it has subtle shifts, like the flow of a river Rhythm is how we interact with flow of this river. Imagine sticking your hand in the flow of the river for one second and then pulling it back out. Then imagine doing the same thing for two seconds and half a second. This is the equivalent to playing notes of different lengths. The river is constant, but how long we play the notes for is what makes it in the music. Rhythm is the most mathematical part of music education, but fear not. There is nothing more advanced than simple addition and subtraction involved. Imagine your favorite type of pie for a moment. Now, the size of the pie is constant. No matter how we slice it, the pie represents a bar of music. If you eat the whole pie yourself, it's like playing a whole note, which takes up the entire bar. If you invite a friend over and cut the pie in two, you have to half notes. If you cut it again, you have 4/4 tones. Cut it again and you have 8/8 in music. All time has to be accounted for again. Think of the pie if you have a pie and you cut it into 4/4 and you only want to eat one of the quarters. The other 3/4 still exists because the whole pie was baked. This is the same in music. So wherever there's not a note played, there has to be arrest to take his place. So each of the note values in music of whole half quarter eighths and so on all have rests that last for the same amount of time
7. Saxophone setup and buyers guide: and welcome to this saxophone set up in buyer's guide. A common question I get asked by my students is, Should I be renting something before I buy it? And this is a great question. What I always like to tell them is if you live in an area where there is a large music store where it has a rental program, definitely go ahead and try and rent it before you buy. The rental of a saxophone will usually cost in the 7 to $10 for one day and about $30 for an entire month. And if you're gonna be investing, you know, hundreds or thousands of dollars into an instrument. It's always great to get at home and try it out many, many different ways and try to get as many different sounds out of it as you can. A music store is a difficult place to really evaluate an instrument simply because there's other people around there trying different instruments. The room is usually very large, and you might feel a little bit self conscious about really trying to play it loudly and see what it sounds like when there's all sorts of other people around you. Question. I also get asked a lot by my students. Is Should I buy an all toe? Or should I play in all toe? Or a tenor or baritone or soprano, for that matter? Because there are four sizes of saxophone, there's a few things to consider. The smallest saxophone, which is soprano in the largest witches baritone, tend to be very expensive to buy and rent because they're not as commonly used. And in the case of the baritone, because it's so large, it's a lot more metal. The cases are more expensive. Um, I do play baritone, and I love it, but it's a bit more of an intermediate instrument to get into. Where is the all toe in? The tenor are way more commonly used in band situations, and so they're more of them being made. They tend to be lower priced. The cases tend to be cheaper, and in the case of an auto saxophone, it's I find it's often a good size if you're If you're you know, young adults, you know it's a good and also, if you're just a smaller adult, I'm over six feet tall. So for me, the tenor is not really that heavier, difficult. But if I was a lot shorter and smaller, unaltered might be a nicer choice than a tenner because it's lighter and easier to carry. Also, saxophones are more common in smooth jazz and in classical music and things like that. And the tenor is a little more common in traditional jazz and R and B and rock and roll. So it's another factor to think about if you're on the fence about should I do all tore? Tenor is what kind of sound you like the best And maybe spend some time and go on YouTube and look at other people playing altos and tenors and kind of see which personality kind of fits your feeling for me. I really connected with the tenor saxophone more than the alto. It's not that there's anything wrong with the alternate just for me. In my own personal years, I felt more of a connection to the people playing that instrument. So give that some thought. Before you decide when you're buying a saxophone, there's some things to consider. There are three main price points. There are student level saxophones, intermediate and professional, the student level saxophones will start in the 600 to $800 range. Intermediate horns tend to be in the 900 to $1200 range, and professional level horns start above 1500 go into the many thousands. When you ever you're buying something in a student level price point I often recommend. Try not to buy the very cheapest thing you find simply because companies will do whatever cost cutting is happening in trying to get ah, model out. At that price point, you're really going to see it a lot at the very lowest price, and often you're gonna get a really nice jump in quality by going up one level higher. So sometimes for even 50 to $100 mawr, you can get a much nicer saxophone. Now you may have had someone in your family say I used to play saxophone when I was your age, and I've got something I've got one in my closet that I haven't touched in years, and you can just have it. And although this might be a really good thing, it's important to get the instrument looked at by Ah, really good saxophone repair person before you commit to it often. If in instruments been sitting in a closet and not being played for a long time, the pads may have dried out. Or it may have gotten banged into, and there may be some dents in the rods or in the body. It doesn't mean that it's not playable. You just may want to invest a little bit of money to get in really good playing shape before you start. Another factor is if you take it to a technician and they say this needs a lot of work. They might say this needs 500 or $1000 worth of repairs, which can happen. You may want to think about whether or not you want to invest that money into that particular saxophone or you want to rent or buy something new. A saxophone is a very delicate instrument, so it requires some regular routine maintenance. Another reason why, if you're a beginner on the saxophone, I recommend buying or renting from a music store is that they'll often have a repair department that's right in the building. Will they'll take care of any minor repairs on your instrument, and even if they don't have someone who repair saxophone. Specifically, they often can recommend someone who is a really good repair technician. Ah, saxophone usually needs a tune up every year. If you're playing semi regularly, and if you're playing regularly all the time it's going to need. It may be every six months. This is just simply because a saxophone has many rods and springs and pads in it, and over time they get worn out or they get knocked out of alignment in the case of the keys. And if the keys aren't closing right over the tone holes properly. What happens is the air leaks out in different places. It becomes a lot harder to make it actually make a sound. The pads themselves also will wear out and rot over time just because there's so much moisture from it being played. And this is just normal and to be expected, I would say a good ballpark is to budget probably about 2 to $300 a year for basic upkeep and maintenance on a saxophone. A common thing that happens on the saxophone after you've been playing for a while is that sometimes the keys will get stuck or be sticky, and this is just simply because, as you're blowing through and there's condensation happening inside the tube, some of the keys that are being held shut like the G sharp key, for example, will just be stuck. Sometimes when you go back to your horn after it's been sitting for a while, all you need to do is just gently reach into where the key is and open it manually. Try not to push really hard. You'll kind of feel it. Come unstuck slowly. Another common one is the low e flat key on the back and sometimes the palm keys up here and again rather than trying to push really hard here, if it's stuck, just reached where the actual key isn't. Just open it gently, and if you're finding that the keys air really sticky, the ones that sit open Ah, good thing I recommend is actually taking a dollar bill. It doesn't have to be $1 if they don't have those where you are anymore. But any kind of money is going to be a little bit. Course. It's not quite as course of sandpaper, which you wouldn't want to use, but it has a little bit of texture, and you can just hold it under the key and then hold the key close and pull it out gently. And it'll kind of wear off a little, any little bit of gunk or anything that's keeping it from being, er, that's making its sticky when you're playing saxophone. Another expense to consider is the cost and the type of read that you're gonna be playing reads are made by many different companies, and for the most part, they have the same rating system of how thick they are. I like to use Rico Royals there. I don't specifically endorse them and they don't endorse me. But that's just the brand that I prefer. They also have a nice option. Where they'll you also see orange boxes, which say Rico on them? And that's their student level reeds, which are nice there, a little bit less expensive because a box of reads like this will cost usually 40 to $50 depending on where you live. The thickness of the reed has to do with the level of playing you're doing and style of playing. You're doing so in the case of Rico's. They start at one and they go to five. And in between, each is half. So there's 1 1.5 to 2.5, and so on, even though it starts as low as one, with one being the lightest read. I don't recommend that, even for beginners. You start there. They're just so little resistance. And they don't last very long that I find they're just not a good investment. I would start at a two or 2.5 when you're getting started, and as you get stronger and your breathing gets more, uh, get more, strengthen the able to push more air through the instrument. You're gonna want a harder read because you can overblow the read, which means it will not even make a sound or it'll squeak, Um, and if you need to generate a lot of volume, you're gonna need a read that's tough enough to handle the air speed that you're generating . Another factor is the style of music you're playing. If you're going to be playing in a loud context with drums and drums and guitars and things like that, you're gonna eventually need to be playing on a harder read like maybe a three or four. I personally like to use a four on tenor saxophone. Another factor when you're playing saxophone is what kind of mouthpiece and ligature you're gonna use. There are two main types of mouthpieces. There are hard rubber which are black, and there are metal mouthpieces. And depending on what kind of saxophone you're playing, I recommend different things. Ah, metal mouthpiece is going to give you a brighter sound that's gonna cut through a little more if you're in a loud context. So on tenor sax when I play in a lot of bands where we're playing rock and roll and R and B , where I have to really project loudly. So the metal mouthpiece kind of helps me do that. It lacks some of the subtlety, so I also have hard rubber mouthpieces, defend playing jazz or classical music where I want to be able to play it at a much lower volume and have more control, especially in the bottom end of the instrument. For also saxophone, for example, it's very rare to find ah metal mouthpiece because the alto is higher pitched instrument, so it tends to cut through on its own, and you can sometimes find that a metal mouthpiece on auto is very shrill. Like it, it's a little hard on the ears, so you almost never find people playing metal mouthpieces on Auto on baritone. It's very common to find metal mouthpieces for the same reason as Tanner is that if you're looking to cut through a little more, it's sometimes nice to have a little more high end in your sound. The ligature also has a lot to do with sound. This is a metal ligature on a metal mouthpiece, so just think about how sound is conducted through metal. It's gonna vibrate a lot faster through metal than it would through leather, which some of them are made of. Uh, and you know, if you have a leather strap around rubber mouthpiece, it's gonna soften the sound a little bit. And in terms of prices for mouth pieces, they can range anywhere from around $100 all the way up into the high hundreds and into the thousands. And what I recommend is that you try some different mouthpieces before you really settle on it, and you can also have a look online. There's lots of videos where people explain why they like their mouth piece. Another great thing is if you like the sound of someone else. If you say, like have a favorite saxophone player, you can usually look up online and just find out. Though sometimes being endorsed by a certain company, you could find out what kind of mouthpiece and ligature they're using. Another important piece of equipment with the saxophone is what kind of strap your using and how it's positioned. Strike their two main kinds of straps. There are neck straps, which just simply go around your neck like this one. And then there are shoulder harnesses, which go around both shoulders and clip in the middle shoulder harnesses air most commonly used with the baritone saxophone, which is the largest one, although some people like having it when they play tenor. What I find personally is that when I wear a shoulder harness, I would Onley wear it on Ah, in a situation where I'm always seated, one in playing, because it tends to hold the instrument very tightly, right at a certain angle. So you said it so that it's for example, if you're seated, you will be playing it on your side. And if you then went to stand up and you wanted to play the horn in front of you, shoulder harness won't really let you do that, whereas the neck strap will allow you to play it on the side or in front and move it in a way that feels comfortable now. The downside of a neck strap is it's putting all of the weight onto your neck. So if you're playing a tenor or baritone and it's heavy, you're gonna feel it more in your neck. A really simple thing. I often tell people that they don't think about is when you're standing, make sure to bend your knees slightly so that your absorbing some of the weight into your legs. If your knees are locked, you're gonna feel most of the pressure in your lower back because you're gonna be leaning up against the weight of the instrument. There are two main types of Saxon cases. There are gig bags which are soft and hard shell cases which are hard on the outside and have latches as a very general thing. If possible, I recommend getting a hard shell case simply because of saxophonists so delicate and could be knocked out of alignment so easily that having the extra layer of protection will ultimately save you a lot of money in repairs. Because all it takes is a Saxon getting sort of dinged one time and then all of a sudden, some keys won't work, and you got to spend a few $100 to get it fixed. There are some pros and cons to each. However hard shell case is going to be more expensive, They're going to start in the 3 to $500 range and they can go up from there. And the hard shell cases also gonna be heavier. So if you're gonna be doing a lot of walking, it can be a bit of a detriment to have that. However, if you're gonna be traveling by car a lot, for example, a hard shell cases a really good option because it allows you to put it in the trunk, for example, and you don't have to worry about if something in the trunk falls down on top of your case , it's not gonna dent the horn. Ah, Gig bag will have some some pros as well, which is it's gonna have often some backpack straps or good shoulder strap. It'll sometimes also have compartments or zippered areas where you can put music and metro gnomes and extra mouthpieces and things. And like I said, it'll just generally be lighter. So if you're doing a lot of walking, a gig bag is a good option, and gig bags start in the 150 to $500 range. There are some nice combinations where you'll get. It's not a full hard case, and it's not a full soft case where you get some kind of protection you can kind of feel when you push on the outside of the case without the saxophone in it, you can feel how far in its going that's the way I like to gauge how tough the cases. Another often overlooked piece of equipment that's really important when you're saxophone player is a good saxophone stand. Now the reason for having a saxophone stand is that there really isn't a safe and easy way to put a saxophone down for a minute or two. For example, if you gotta go to the bathroom, where you gonna answer your phone or something. It's not is easy to just put it down somewhere because there's so many delicate parts all over it in the mouthpiece and read and everything. So having a saxophone stand is really important. It allow you to just place it into the stands and make sure that it's secure, and then you've got it so that you don't have to worry about it falling over. Another great reason have stand is that there's a great saying that you know when something's out of sight, it's out of mind, and having your saxophone out and able to pick up whenever you want to will allow you to practice more often and also just enjoy playing it more often. Any barrier between you and playing is going to slow you down. So if you've got a pack it away and put in a closet every time you're done, every time you think about playing, that's gonna be a barrier to actually getting it out. And starting playing and a saxophone stand is gonna cost you. Somewhere between I'd say 50 and $100. They all work basically the same way. Just make sure to get one that's for the size of instrument You have usually stands, or for tenor or alto and their adjustable and then baritone stands and soprano stands air separate if you are gonna put your sacks one in the stand. One thing I recommend is that when you're done playing to take the mouthpiece off the cork , the reason is is that the cork is if it's wet and it stays wet with the mouthpiece on it all the time, it's going to rot faster. So a cork will usually last you about a year, depending on how long you're playing, um, or how much you're playing. But I find it, you can make it last quite a bit longer if you just Every time you're done, you take the mouthpiece off and stick the redcap on, and I just like to keep my mouth piece, like on a table or something nearby. And then just put this stand with sacks one and stand like this
8. You will learn how to put the tenor saxophone together, make your first sound: I am looking weak. One of tenor saxophone lessons. It's part of the music coach program. We're gonna get started on a really, really exciting adventure on the tenor saxophone. The tenor saxophone is part of the saxophone family, which actually includes 16 different sizes of saxophones. Now most of them are considered novelty instruments, and there are four main types that are used in music today. They're the soprano all toe tenor sax and baritone sax, so the tenor saxophone is the second largest now. The saxophone itself was made by Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax, and it was invented in 18 40. And the idea behind the saxophone was to make a bridge inside of a symphony orchestra between the woodwinds, which are the flute, oboe, clarinet and piccolo and some other instruments as well. And the brass section of the the band, which is trombone, trumpet, French horn, tuba euphonium, things like that. The idea was to make an instrument out of brass, but that has a mouthpiece and a read on it like a woodwind. Now the like a lot of new technologies and new ideas. It wasn't really accepted in its time, um, classical music has not fully embraced the saxophone, really, even today. But what happened is in the early part of the 19 hundreds, jazz music began and jazz music was a new form, a new art form. So a relatively new piece of technology, like saxophone, was welcomed in. It was loud. You could play it quickly. It's a lot more easy to play than a clarinet, for example. So it found a home in jazz music and then later on in rock and Roll and R and B and other styles like that. So now we're gonna get into how to put it together and how to make your first sound. The saxophone comes in three main sections. There's the body, the neck and the mouthpiece. Now the mouthpiece is made up of a few different pieces on its own. There is the Redcap, which is just designed to protect the read the ligature, which has a large and a small opening and the most peace itself. Now some mouthpieces air made of rubber, and they look black and some are made of metal, and they may be silver or gold. They all basically do the same thing. Um, the type of material. The mouthpiece is made out of effects. That kind of sound you get in terms of the sound quality that not so much the quality but the tambor of it. The first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna attach the mouthpiece to the neck. And the reason why we do this first is that you can grab the mouthpiece without having to worry about squishing the reader the ligature because sometimes the mouthpiece can be a little tricky to get onto the cork. So we just twisted on again. If you have to grab it like that when you're holding the neck, you don't want to grab around the octave key part. You can grab it sort of wherever the metal doesn't have anything on it. Now, a little note about tuning the way a saxophone is tuned is by how much of the mouthpieces on the cork. So the further on the mouthpiece is, the sharper the instrument is, and the further back it is the flatter it goes. If you don't know yet about sharpness and flatness and things like that, there's some pre course videos you could look at that are gonna help you with that. So once it's on, you want to line up the flat part of the bottom of the peace with the bottom part of the neck like that. Now we're gonna attach. The read now reads often come in a plastic case like this. It's to protect them because the reed is very sensitive at the tip. That's very, very thin. So first thing you wanna do is slide it out by the big part of the back. And here's an up close look at the read very, very thin at the end. So we want avoid touching it or banging it into things because it can crack her chip easily . The first thing I want you to do is you're gonna put the read the thin part in your mouth just to get a little bit wet. Now, after you played for a while, the read may warp after it's dried out. If that happens, what you can do is just wet it a little bit and place it on the flat part of the mouthpiece and just use your thumb and rub in some of the moisture. This will help. The would expand again and become flat for next move is to put the read on the mouthpiece and get it as close toe lined up with the tip is you Can you have to worry about having it be perfect just yet. Now we're gonna take the ligature, which again you're looking for the large side of the opening and this is where you want to be. Very careful. Just slide it over very gently without banging it into the tip of the read. And now, once it's on, you can gently line it up with your fingers. It should be flush with the tip of the mouthpiece, and most ligatures have some sort of a screw that you can tighten that holds the read in place. And when you look straight on, you should be able to see it lining up straight with the tip with the mouthpiece. Now we're gonna attach the neck and mouthpiece to the body, so we're gonna the top of the body has an opening. The only thing you have to watch out for at the beginning is there's a screw at the top and just make sure it's not really tight when you when you go to put the neck on, so loosen it a little bit and then we're gonna just gently slide the neck into the top, and once it's in place, you're gonna tighten it again. Just gently tighten. It doesn't have to be really tight. Everything on a saxophone is very, very delicate. So you don't want to tight knit like you're screwing a screw into the wall or anything. And then what you're looking for on the back is there's a thumb rest for your top hand and a thumb hook on the bottom and the neck and the mouthpiece should be lined up fairly straight with the back. Now, your next drop, you're gonna wanna hook into the hook on the body, and you're gonna rip rest your right hand or your bottom hand under the thumb hook, and your top hand goes on the top Thumb rest. Now, if you're sitting to play, you're gonna want to turn the neck a little bit towards you and possibly adjust the mouthpiece a little bit so that your head can remain straight and you're back in a rain straight while you're playing. Now to check whether or not the next trap is in the right place. You can just simply hold it in position. And right now, my next trap is too loose because the mouthpieces tryingto play my chin. So I'm gonna adjust it up a little higher, always make the instrument come to you. So now I'm in position. Where you put your mouth on the mouthpiece has a little bit to do with the size and where your teeth are and everything, but a good general rule is about an inch in from the top or three centimeters. You want to rest your teeth on the top, don't bite down, but just rest them there and close your mouth around your around your teeth comfortably, and your bottom lip will be on the read. About the same distance underneath is your teeth are from the top and you're going to take a big breath. And when you blow out, keep your cheeks tucked in and just push the air through. Just like that before the first practice video, there's going to be a breathing exercise to help strengthen your lungs and your diaphragm and all the muscles you use to make your sound, So make sure to do that each time before you practice, it's gonna be always in the video, but it's really important to develop the strength you need to actually make the sound. The last thing we're gonna work on before we get in the practice room is the 1st 3 notes you're gonna learn how to play today are a being and C sharp. So to make it a you're gonna play that top two notes in your left hand. Now, one little thing to be want mindful of on saxophone, there's a key at the beginning. Usually sometimes it'll be white like this. Sometimes it will be the same color as the metal. This is an alternate key that we're going to use when we're doing much more advanced things later. Not even anywhere in this program will use it. So we're gonna skip the first key, go down, play the second key with your pointer finger, and then we're gonna skip this key in the middle here. This is another alternate key called the Busy, and we're gonna play this one. So we're going second key and fourth key. Basically, that that makes an A That's your first note. Your second don't for this week it's gonna be be to play be you just take off your middle finger. And our last note for this week is gonna B c sharp, which is everything open One little thing about finger technique. I'm gonna be moving my fingers away from the key city. You can see what I'm doing. But the good technique is just imagine that your fingers air glued or tape right onto the keys. And when you let a key up, you'll only move your finger. Oppa's faras The key moves up rather than doing this or this, it makes it much easier to play. All right, great work. And I'll see you in the practice video.
9. Tenor week 1 practice: We're gonna play whole notes for the 1st 3 notes of our scale, which are a B and C sharp. Take a big breath in and hold and a now take a big breath in and play be Ah, Now take a big breath in and play C sharp. We're now going to do the same thing. Using the click track, you're gonna play a for four beats, take four beats, rest play, be for four beats, take four beats rest and play C sharp for four beats. 12 ready. Begin a 1234 and arrest one, 23 Here comes B and 34 Not rest. One to get ready to play C sharp and C Sure 34 Let's do the same thing again. 12 Ready? Play a 1234 Arrest 1234 Nutley Be 13 Foreign arrest. 123 For now play. See? Shot. One, 34 Now we're going to do the same thing using half notes so they will get to beats. Go rest for two beats. We will get to beats arrest for two beats and see Sharp will get two beats and rest for two beats. One to ready. Begin. Hey, To rest too. Thing to rest, to rest to do the same thing again. 12 Ready. Begin a to rest, too. A rest to see? Sure. Rest to now we're gonna do the same thing and take the rests out. So each note will get two beats. 12 Ready? Begin, Teoh. See sure to try it again. 12 Ready. Begin! King Teoh. Sure to try one more time. 12 Ready? Begin, Thio, thio. Sure. Now we're gonna play quarter notes, so each note is gonna get one. Beat 12 ready? Go thing. Sure. 12 Ready? Go! Sure. One, two Ready? Go thing. Sure. One, two. Ready? Go! Saying things. Good. Now we're in. Try going up and down. 12 Ready? Go! Thing the sure thing saying it. Same thing again. 12 Ready? Go! The city. Sure they try one last time. One two. Ready? Go! Sure.
10. Breathing Exercise: we're now going to do a breathing exercise you're gonna inhale to the count of four. Hold to the count of eight and exhale to the count of eight, and we're gonna do it four times. One to ready. Begin Inhale. 1234 Hold 12 34567 eight Exhale, 1234567 eight Inhale 1234 Hold one to 345678 Exhale, 12345678 Inhale one 234 Hold one to 345678 Exhale, one, 2345678 Inhale one 234 Hold one to 345678 Exhale one to three for 567 eight
11. Learn all of the notes in the A major scale: I and welcome to Week two of tenor saxophone lessons. Today we're gonna learn the rest of the notes in the A major scale, and this is the scale that we're gonna be using throughout the entire program. So learning all these notes is really important. Now, if you're not really sure what what a major scale is, there's some pre course videos to talk about harmony and chords and rhythm. Make sure to check those out if you're completely new music and you're not sure what that means now. The 1st 3 notes we played in the A major scale as a review were a be and see shirt. Our new note for today is a D. Now this is where the saxophone differs a little bit from other instruments. We're moving higher, but we're going to be closing more holes. The way the sound travels in a saxophone is the longer the tube, the lower the tone ghosts. But there's a piece of new technology in a saxophone that changed it, which is the octave key. So the octave key on a saxophone is the key above. The thumb rests on the left hand, and they all look a little different, but they all do the same thing. They open a key on the neck and there's a second octave key. That's kind of in the middle of the body. Our new note D is going to start with four fingers in the left hand. So, like we talked about before, we skipped our first note, you skip the first key and played be a Now we're gonna play your ring finger on your left hand, which is G in your right hand. You're gonna play the three white keys down here and keep your thumb on the back and add the octave key. And this makes a D. Our new note E it's gonna have three fingers in the top and two fingers in the bottom. So the difference between D and E is we lift up the ring finger in the right hand. The next note is gonna be f sharp, which to play that we're gonna lift up the pointer finger in the right hand. So now we've got three fingers in the left and the middle finger in the right. Our next note is going to be G sharp. To play this, we're gonna lift up all the fingers in the right hand. Remember to keep your thumb on the thumb hook and we're gonna add the pinky key in the left hand, which is G sharp. And finally, our last note to complete the scale is gonna be our high A which is the same fingering as the first day we learned last week. But with the octave key on So you're gonna have two fingers in the top in the Arctic key in the back. Oh, just to review D has three in the top three in the bottom with the octopi on. He has three in the top two fingers in the bottom with the octopi still on. F Sharp has three in the top middle finger in the bottom with the octopi and G Sharp has three in the top with the G sharp pinky key and the octave key. And last but not least, is high a just two fingers in the top with the Arctic key still on. All right, great work. I'll see in the practice video
12. Tenor week 2 practice: you're now gonna learn how to play the rest of the notes that make up the a major scale. We're going to start by playing whole tones on D E and F Sure take a big breath in and play a D. Oh, Now take a big breath in and play E. Now take a big breath in and play F shirt. Ah, we're gonna do the same thing using whole notes with the click track. So each note will get four beats and then the B four beats rest. 12 ready? Begin three Foreign arrest 23 for now. E 1234 and arrest. One, 234 Now F sharp. 1234 and rest. Now we're gonna do the same thing again. 12 Ready? Begin. D 1234 Rest. 1234 e 1234 Rest 123 four f sharp. 12 34 Now we're going to do the same thing without the rest between the notes. 12 Ready. Begin D one Teoh three for e 134 After 134 Studio in 12 Ready. 234234 to 34 Now we're gonna play the Final Three notes that make up the A major scale. Sure F sharp G Sharp and A to use the same technique. Start piping along tone on F sharp Now long tone on G shirt on a long tone on high A. Now we're gonna play them as whole notes with four beats. Rest in between them. 12 Ready? Go F sharp. 123 for rest. 1234 g sharp three Rest 123 for a 1234 Now let's try it again. 12 Ready? 34 g sharp. 1234 A. 1234 Now let's play them without the rest in between. 12 Ready F sharp. 134 g sharp, 3/4 Tried again. 12 Ready So f sharp. One, 34 g sharp. 1234 A 1234 Now it's played D E and F sharp as half notes. So two clicks for each note with to click, Break in between 12 Ready go d one to rest to e one. Teoh rest to after one straight again. 12 Ready D one to rest Teoh, Be one Teoh Rest Thio Thio Rest now has tried without the rest in between 12 Ready D one e one after. Let's try it again. One to ready d one to D 12 Effort now let's play D E and F sharp as quarter notes. One click for each note. 12 Ready. 12 Ready. So being for 12 Ready? Go thinking 12 Ready? Go! Now we're gonna play F sharp g sharp and a as half notes with a two click break Then without the break and then his quarter notes. 12 Ready? Go! Sure to rest too. T shirt rest too and rest to Let's try. Same thing again. 12 Ready? Begin half Sure Rest, Teoh t shirt rest, Teoh! Rest to now we try the same thing without the break in the middle. 12 Ready? Go after Teoh T shirt A Teoh. Same thing again. 12 Ready to be sure. One more time. 12 Ready? Go after T shirt Now we're gonna play f sharp G sharp in a as quarter Notes. 12 Ready? Go! Sure. 12 ready. Your 12 ready? So sure, sure. 12 Ready? Go on, two. Ready? Go. Now we're gonna play the entire A major scale as whole notes. 12 Ready? Go Pains You bring for 34 c sharp. 3 41 234 e 1234 After 1234 g sharp. 234 a. 1234 Now we're gonna play it as half notes. 12 Ready? Go, Tonto. Now we're gonna play the notes descending 12 Ready? Go! Chains to be Oh!
13. Learn the first melody for music coach song: I Welcome back this week three Tenor saxophone lesson Part of the music coach program Today we're gonna be learning the melody that makes up the a section of our song. Now the reason why we call things by a section and B section is in this program There's gonna be two melodies and two sets of bass notes Today we're learning the melody for the a section of our song So the notes we're gonna play all come from the a major scale which is what we've been playing And the notes are C sharp C sharp de Okay, you a g sharp f sharp f sharp a g sharp she sharp a g sharp f sharp. Here's what the melody sounds like altogether. Ah, way now because of the melody runs in a circle. Sometimes on the backing track, you're going to hear that it sound like it runs around so we get to the end. But that that so it'll sound like the last note is the same as the first. No, because it is so because it runs in a circle like that. That's why the C sharp is at the end of the sounds like It's at the end of the melody sometimes, so we're gonna add one more thing to our technique. Toolbox today, which is tongue ing, which is tongue is the way we articulate the notes. And simply put, articulation is just the way we separate the sounds. A good way to think about this is if you imagine a tap running articulation is like sometimes turning the water on and off completely and sometimes is like running your hand underneath the water. So when we do soft tongue ing, which is similar to making the sound dot, dot, dot dot like that, that's like running your hand under the water and hard tongue ing where the sound completely stops and there's a little space is like turning the tap on and off and completely stopping the water. And that's more of a ta sound so longer, slower tongue ing who is just flicking the tip of the read very gently with your tongue. But allowing the air to really pass through and harder tongue ing is harder against the read and stops the sound completely for a little bit of space. For this melody, you're going to be working on long tongue ing, so the dos sound it's gonna be hard gonna play, so we'll see in the practice video
14. Tenor Week 3 practice: you're now learned how to play the first melody that makes up the a section of our song. First, let's just play the notes in order without the click track. Si, sure see shirting. A T shirt? F sure after a Chiche R T shirt? A. Sure? Sure. Let's try that again. See? Sure. Si, sure. Deigning a T shirt. F Scher F sharp. A T shirt G sharp. A T shirt. Now let's try it with the click track. 12 Ready? Go see? Sure. A G sharp F sharp after a CI shirt. Sure, sure, sure, you try the same thing again. 12 Ready? Go see? Sure. A g sharp f sharp after a CI shirt. Sure, sure, sure. Now let's try playing the melody along with the track. One two. Ready? Go Now let's try the same thing again. 12 ready? Go
15. Learn how to play the A major scale ascending and descending (up and down): I Welcome to the Week Four tenor saxophone lesson for the music coach program. Today we're gonna be working on three things. Playing are a major scale ass ending and descending, which means going up the skill and down the scale We're gonna learn the bass notes that make up the harmony underneath the melody We learned from last week for the a section of her song and you're gonna take your first steps into improvising, which is making your own note choices instead of playing them always in the same order. So to begin with, I'm gonna talk a little bit about ascending and descending. So when we play the a major scale so far we've been starting low an ending high, which is ass ending So a B C sharp de with the Arctic key G with the Arctic key f sharp with the Arctic Key G sharp of the Arctic key and a with the octopi. The play descending will start on a high A with the octave key than she sharp with the Arctic key f sharp with the octave key e with the octave key de with the octave key C sharp , be an A when we play these scales in the practice video, when you get to the top, you're going to repeat the note. So the high A is part of the ascending, and then it begins on A when it starts to decent. And in the practice video, you're gonna be working on playing the scale as half notes and his quarter notes and just a quick review if you're having trouble remembering what the difference is. Whole notes have four beats. Half notes have two beats and quarter notes. Get one beat, and the click track is always clicking one beat at a time. Now the next part of the practice video for this week is going to involve playing the bass notes, which make up the harmony. Underneath are a section. The notes for our instrument are F sharp, which you can play with the octave key. If you feel like you can play the low one on the tenor saxophone, the F sharp in the lower octave is just You can play the same thing without theocracy, and it sounds like this bowl. You may have to blow a little harder and open up your throat a little bit to get it to speak. But you can try that if you want. Then we're gonna play a which I recommend playing with Low A because we're tryingto imitate the base part of the instrument. Then we're gonna play D, which is three fingers in the top three fingers in the bottom like the F sharp. You can use the Octa key if you wish, or leave it out and try and hit the low one. It's a little bit deeper. Oh, that's the lower one. Our last note is going to be E, which again you can play with the octave key or without. Try it out on your own and see if you can start working on hitting those lower notes. The last thing we're gonna work on is one of my favorite things about music, which is improvising. So so far we're building in your little toolbox, the ability to play the A major scale in order one way, going up one way, going down. Improvising is the first steps into making different notes elections like maybe starting on a G sharp and then playing ah see sharp and then maybe playing a B. This can at first seem a little hard to understand, and your mind is probably going to try and want to get it right. The thing about improvising is there isn't a right and wrong and improvising. There's your ability to express, and at the beginning it may go slowly, and you may feel a little awkward. You probably don't remember learning to speak English, for example, because it was so long ago. But when Children are learning to speak, they they're looking for the words. They're trying to find the way to express themselves. And music is a language and years taking the first steps into being able to express yourself. So just as an example, this is improvising with the a major scale way, and there's again no right or wrong way to do it. I encourage you to try it out. When you're in the practice video, I'm gonna be playing a little bit, too, so we won't always be on the same notes, but that's okay. Just keep going for it. All right, great work. I'll see in the practice video
16. Tenor week 4 practice: you're now gonna play the entire major scale using half notes and then quarter notes with the click track. We're going to start by going ass ending, which is up starting on the low A to the high. A playing half Notes 12 Ready. Begin. Thio thio. Sure to thing to Teoh. Sure to sure. Let's try that again. 12 Ready? Begin. Okay, too, to be sure to Thio Thio. Sure to be sure to Great. Now let's try it. Using quarter notes. One, two. Ready. Go Saying things. Sure, sure. Try it again. 12 Ready. Saying things? Sure, sure, sure. Now we're gonna play the a major scale descending Starting on the high A going too low. A using half notes. 12 Ready? Go. Teoh G shirt? Sure. I mean to Teoh said Sure thing was Try to get 12 ready? Go. Due to now. Let's try it. Using quarter notes. 12 Ready? Go! Sure, Sure. The sure thing. A. Try it again. 12 Ready? Go! Sure, Sure. Now we're gonna try playing this scale ass ending and descending. First with half notes and then with quarter notes. First half notes 12 Ready? Go Paying Teoh! Sure, Thio Thio. Sure. Now descending. And now we're gonna dio ascending and descending with quarter notes. 12 Ready? Go Saying easy. Sure, Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure Being fails. Try that one more time. 12 Ready? Go! Sure, Sure, Sure, Sure, Sure, sure You're now gonna play the notes that make up the bass part of the a section of our song. The notes You're gonna play R F sharp, A, D and E They're gonna be played as whole notes, so each will get four beats. 12 Ready? Go! I'm sure. Three for a 1234 d 1234 e 1234 Let's try that again. 12 Ready? Go! Three for a 1234 d 1234 e 1234 straight. One more time. 12 Ready? Go! Have sharp. 123 for a 1234 d 1234 e 1234 Now you're going to take your first steps towards improvising by playing the notes in the a major scale out of order, along with the track. Simply put just move in a non sequential order, meaning, for example, you could start on a but instead of playing be, see if you can move to a different note, like E or F sharp or seizure. 12 Ready? Go now let's play the melody along with the track. 12 Ready? Go Now let's play the bass notes along with the track. 12 Ready? Go! Sure.
17. Learn how to play the bass notes for the B section of the song: I welcome back to Week five of tenor saxophone lessons. This week you're gonna be working on playing the bass notes that make up the B section of our song the notes You're gonna be playing our a e and like, last time If you want to play the low E without the octave key, you can try It sounds like this. Ah, the f sharp. Which again you can play with you octave cure without You can try both out Um and D is our last note, which again you can use the with the Arctic you without. Here's what they sound like together without the Arctic e Um uh ah, uh, here's what they sound like with the Arctic key except Ronnie. Ah ah ah ah uh, really Try and play the low ones, if you can. The tenor saxophone has such a low register that it's great toe. Add that, especially if you're playing with another instrument that's higher pitched like a clarinet or flute. It's nice to build. Provide the low bass tones underneath. The other thing, we're gonna be worked on The practice video this week is playing the bass notes using different rhythms, so just is a review. Always. Whole notes get four beats, which is four clicks on the click track. Half notes get two clicks each, and quarter notes get one click each now because time is always going by consistently. If we're gonna play half notes on one of the bass notes, we're going to play two of them to fill up the four total beats. So, for example, if we play a as a whole note, we're gonna play four beats. 1234 And if we play half notes on the next note, which is E, we have to do it twice. We have to play E for two beats, and then we play E again for two more beats so that we have a total of four. And the same is true if we play the next note as quarter notes, which is F sharp. We played F sharp four times and D is four times. If we play, it is Cornell's as well, so it's a good thing to always keep in mind that rhythm is always taking up the same amount of space, no matter what type of note we're playing in terms of rhythm. All right, great work, and I'll see you in the practice video
18. Tenor Week 5 practice: you're now gonna learn the notes that make up the bass notes for the B section of our tune . The notes are a a F sharp and G. Let's try them without the click track. A big F shirt on D. Let's now try them as whole notes. 12 Ready. Go King Teoh 343434 to 3. Let's try it again. 12 Ready? Go! Paying 234 e 1234 F shirt 234234 Let's try them all as half notes. 12 Ready? Go A to K two. Teoh, too. Being too sure to after 2 32 Dean to Let's try it again. 12 Ready? Go! Paying to a two Teoh, too Teoh f sure to capture, too Thio Thio. Now let's try them Is 4/4 notes. One, Two Ready? Go hanging Thing thing thing Thing thing. Sure, sure, sure was tried again. 12 Ready? Go! A King King King Thing thing. Thing thing. Sure, sure, sure. Now we're gonna mix up the rhythm by playing a is a whole note. E is to half notes. F sharp is 4/4 notes and D is 4/4 notes. 12 ready. Go Paying Teoh 34 to Teoh. Sure, sure, sure. Teen Teen thing. Let's try it again. 12 Ready? Go! Paying Teoh 34 to T two f Shirt, shirt, shirt, shirt. Being D. Now you're gonna try the bass notes section with the backing track. Go way now Let's try it one more time. Go way.
19. Learn how to play the melody for the B section of the song: I Welcome back. This is Week six of tenor saxophone lessons for the music coach. Today we're gonna be learning the melody that makes up the B section of our song. Last week we worked on the cords. First this time we're gonna work on the melody. Here is what the melody sounds like Way now The notes for this melody all come from the a major scale. It starts on half sharp with the octave key then g sharp with the octave key and then a when play a again again she sure with the Arctic E A with the Arctic key G sharp with the Arctic E f sharp with the Arctic E E with the octave e with the Arctic e again you with the Arctic key again and then after Here's what it sounds like one more time. Now, the most challenging part about this part of the melody is getting it started in the right place in the bar. The first melody for the a section began on the first beat of the first bar, so it's easy to count into. We count the 41234 and the melody begins in this melody. We're going to be starting as a pickup to the next bar. So the counting on the practice video is going to be four counts plus three. And then the melody begins. So it'll go. +1234123 Bob. But ah, and then the backing track. We're gonna get rid of the first bar and just have a three beat pickup so you'll hear 123 Bob. But, uh, this is a really good way to get used to how music can start and stop in different places in the bar. If everything in life was completely square and had neat, clean edges, nothing would be interesting. So we're things start in a bar is a really interesting way of changing the feeling. What's about to happen. It's also a little bit like trying new foods or eating new spices or something different for your ears. Starting the rhythm in a different place in the bar. All right, excellent work, and I'll see in the practice video
20. Tenor week 6 practice: way to learn the melody that makes up the B section of our song. The notes are f sharp. G sharp, Eh, eh, eh, She sure a t shirt f sure being king after through it one more time after she sharp a a a g shirt. A T shirt? Sure, e sure. Now the second melody is difficult to enter because it starts on the third beat of the bar . So, for example, we're gonna count four whole beats and then three more and begin the melody like this. 1234123 After p sharp a try that one more time. So one bar 1234123 After p shirt A. Now let's try playing the whole melody with our countin 1234123 After g sharp a a g Sure. A g sharp f sharp. You sure it's troubling Time after g sharp, a k A. T shirt a g sharp f sharp. Sure. Now try playing it with the backing track 13 Now let's try it one more time
21. Learn how to change your role during the B section from lead to accompaniment.: I am welcome back since Week seven of tenor saxophone lessons as part of the Music Coach program. This week, we're going to be changing up your role inside the music by playing the accompaniment part or the bass note part and the melody for the B section of our song Now. Traditionally, if you play the tenor saxophone, your role inside of a band would Onley be to play the melody or take a solo? But I'm a big believer in no matter what instrument you're on, you should feel comfortable to a company, other instruments and soloists, as well as play the melody and understand the harmony it's going on. It allows you to be way more free and expressive and also have a better understanding of what the rules and things are going on around you. And that's why it's gonna help you become really able to play with other people, even another melody instrument in this program. So if you have a friend who's playing the flu to the clarinet or or who is playing a harmony instrument like the guitar, the bass, you're gonna be ableto all play together because you can have any role you want in the band ? The other thing you gotta work on this week in the practice video is playing the B section melody on your own without the voiceover telling you what notes are coming next. At first, this can feel a little unsure, but this is getting you ready for what it's going to really be like to make music with other people because it's gonna be no talking in your ear while you're actually playing in a band. So try that a bunch of times to get comfortable with the feeling of really stepping out and doing it. All right, great work, and I'll see you in the practice video.
22. Tenor Week 7 practice: Week seven play along for B flat instruments. We're now gonna work on playing through the form, doing different things. We're going to start by playing the melody for the B section of the song, followed by the bass part for the B section of song and then the melody again for the B section of the song 12 ready. - Now you're gonna play the bass notes for the B section of the song. - Now you're gonna try playing your melody on your own with the backing track way, Theo way.
23. Learn how to change your role during the entire song from lead to accompaniment.: I walk in the week eight. You've now completed your second month in the music Coach program and I want to congratulate you. You've laid down a lot of great track to roll your musical experience along today we're gonna be putting together all of what we've done so far in the program and expanding a little more on improvising. So this week in the practice video, you're gonna be playing the melodies and the bass parts for the A section and the B section . And the click track is not going to stop in between this time. So you're gonna have toe anticipate and remember what's coming up next. These are all really important skills when it comes to playing with other musicians because music is always flowing and moving. Once you're playing, there's not really time to stop and start. So the experience of being able to think about what's coming next my playing the melody next on my playing the chords next on my soloing next is a skill unto itself. We're gonna also add this week on the improvising side is even mawr development and sophistication. And what I want you to think about is that improvising is really your chance to express your feelings purely through sound. So beyond the notes themselves. You can start to think about the direction of the lines that you're playing when you're improvising in terms of whether you're starting low and going high or going high and coming back down low or jumping in patterns, which we're going to start learning in the next video. And also introducing the idea of dynamics, which is basically a fancy musical term for volume. Now, because you play a saxophone, you have the ability to do something special that not every instrument can do, which is you can start a note quiet and make it louder, or start louder and make it quieter. You have a lot of control over the sound that you make. So when you start working, Maurin you're improvising in the practice videos. Really try that out and make different kinds of sounds and explore and experiment. All right, great work, and I'll see in the practice videos
24. Tenor week 8 practice: Theo Melody and bass notes and taking a solo all the same time during the song. The first form you're gonna play is the a melody once than the a section cords than the B section Melody Once and the B section melody courts 12 Ready? Go way , Theo Way. Now you're gonna play the A melody twice the B milady twice and then improvise over a BB 12 Ready? Go way , Way with section.
25. Learn how to play your first scale pattern: I welcome back to the music coach This tenor saxophone lesson for Week nine. This week, you're going to get into learning your first scale pattern. Now. Scale patterns are a great way to work on your technique and build your vocabulary in the language of music. When you first start learning scales sequentially, which means in order like a B c Sharp d. The way we were learning it before, it's a great way to understand the basic landscape and shape of the lines that you're playing. Learning a scale pattern allows you to play the notes in different orders and have that technique the inside your body and in your fingers so that you can express it when you want to. And it's a great way when you're improvising to move from one place to another without having to just go in order of the scale. Now, the first scale pattern you're gonna learn is the a major scale in thirds. What this means is we're going to start on a but instead of playing be, we're going to skip it and go to see Sharp. Then we're gonna go backwards, one to be, Then we're gonna go up again. Two d skipping over the c sharp. So I'm going to say them as we go and finger them at the same time. So we have a C sharp being de c Sharp and Dean F. Sharp a she shar after sharp a g sharp g sharp a And here's what it sounds like way now when we're descending or coming down, the pattern is the same, but in reverse. So we'll start on a and skip over G sharp and go to F Sharp. And then we go back up to G shirt and down T e and up one to F sharp down to two D up won t e down to two c sharp up, one to D down to to be up, one to see sharp down to two a and up, one to be. Then we'll play be again and then we'll play a And here's what it sounds like descending the way the all right and we'll see in the practice video
26. Tenor Week 9 practice: we're now in play. Theme. A major scale. Ass ending in thirds. Using half notes. 12 ready? Go. Hanging. Seizure pain. See? Sure. Clean. Sure. Yeah, sure. A. She sure? She sure? Okay, Now we're going to try the same thing. Using quarter notes. 12 Ready? Go. Things Sure being dings. Sure. The sure? Sure, Sure, Sure. Sure. Same thing again. 12 Ready? Go. Pains. Sure. Being the sea. Sure, Sure, Sure, Sure, sure. We're now gonna play the A major scale descending in thirds using half notes. 12 Ready? Go A Sure Sure, sure being. See? Sure. Okay. Be see. Okay, Now let's try it. Using quarter notes. 12 Ready? Go. Sure. Sure, Sure. The sure being. See? Sure. They thing being days right again. 12 Ready? Go. Sure. Sure, Sure the sure thing. See? Sure thing thing. Thing thing. Now let's play the scales. Ass ending and descending. Using half notes. 12 ready? Go A c Sure being thing. Yeah, sure. Okay. She share? She sure. Okay. Okay. Yeah, sure. She sure? Yeah, sure. Okay. Being say sure thing. See a sure thing. Be okay now. Let's try it. Ask sending in descending using quarter notes. 12 Ready. Go E se Sure being teams Sure. E d sure. G sharp f sharp. A t shirt. She sharp? A Sure? Sure, sure See? Sure. T the sure thing. I mean the thing.
27. Learn how to play your second scale pattern: I Welcome back. This is week 10 of tenor saxophone lessons in the music Coach program. This week you're gonna be learning your second scale pattern for this program. This scale pattern is similar to the one in thirds, but it's more of a stepwise pattern. So we're going to go up four notes and then back to the second note of the scale. So, for example, we're going to begin on a weirdly a the C sharp d and then we're gonna go back to be, And then the pattern continues on. So we're going up four steps and then back to the next note and then up four steps working , stepping like this in a pattern going up. Well, im gonna say the notes as we go a B C sharp d being c sharp, The e c sharp the and F sharp being, um f sharp G sharp. Okay, F sharp key sharp. A f sharp, G sharp, a g sharp. Okay, and here's what it sounds like. Way now, One little note about the G sharp key is that you can hold it down and play f sharp, and it will close the G sharky, But I want you to get in the habit of Onley pushing the G sharp key on when you're actually playing it. This technique will help you become more comfortable, especially if you end up playing the flute or the clarinet, which are very similar to Saks one. But don't have this added technology, if you will. Now the next thing we're gonna be doing is playing the same scale pattern descending, starting on the high eight. And here are the notes. A she sharp f sharp. Any G sharp f sharp. Mm, The f sharp. Hmm. The C sharp, dean, the C sharp D c sharp, be a c sharp, be a the A And here's what it sounds like. Teoh way. Ah, So with all these scale patterns, just go slowly if you need to always be ready to stop the practice video. If you need to tow work on something and then try it again and remember to just keep sticking with it. And this is gonna be a great tool for you to add into your toolbox. I'll see in the practice video
28. Tenor week 10 practice: We're now gonna play second scale pattern. We're going to begin by playing the notes as half notes. 12 Ready? Go. Okay. Sure. Sure, sure. I mean sure, Sure, sure, Sure. F sure. T shirt A T shirt A Now we're gonna try the same pattern again. Using quarter notes. One to ready. Go a game. See Shirt beings. Sure, Sure, Sure, sure, sure. G sharp. A f sharp, G sharp. A g sharp A. Now we're gonna play the notes Descending as quarter notes. 12 Ready? Go a. Sure. Sure, Sure, Sure, Sure Sure. D c sure D c sure. A C shirt. Now we're gonna play the notes ass ending and descending as half notes. One to ready. Go. Okay. See? Sure. E c sure say sure, Sure, Sure. T shirt? Sure. She sure? A Steph? Sure. G sharp. A G shirt. A a g Sure, Sure, sure, sure. Hampshire. Sure. Tiu c sure is sure. Be a C. Sure be a day now. We're gonna play ass sending and descending as quarter notes. 12 ready? Go a The C shirt being the sea shirt. Sure, Sure, Sure, sure, sure G sharp. A F shirt T shirt, a g sharp, a a G shirt, shirt, shirt, shirt, shirt, T shirt, E C sure B d C shirt being gay. Sure, the gaming thing.
29. Learn how to play embellish the melody as part of your solo: I welcome back to the music coach says Week 11 of tenor sax lessons. We're getting near the end of the program. So we're going to start adding in our final few pieces, uh, to help us get you on your way to really getting going in your musical journey. And hopefully, by now you've found some way to play with some other people. And if not hoping that's gonna happen soon for you, we're gonna add. This week is playing around the melodies that air in our songs. Now improvising its history comes from embellishing melodies and embellishing is just a fancy word for putting your own flair and spin and personality on top of a melody. You may have heard a famous song redone by a different artist and notice that there are subtle changes, or maybe even big changes that the newer artist has put on it. And this history of embellishment and adding new things to existing melodies was really the seed in the beginning of improvising as an art form in jazz and later on an R and B and rock and roll with things like that. So what you're gonna work on in the practice video is playing the melody what we call straight, which is exactly the way it's written, and then the second time through making little changes by approaching one of the notes from below or above, or holding a note a little longer than it normally would be, or playing it shorter. And really, try and think of this as weaving around the melody rather than completely improvising, which is you could be starting in a completely different place, so I know you're gonna do a great job at it and we'll see in the practice video.
30. Tenor Week 11 practice: you're now gonna improvise off the main melodies to start with. Play the A melody regularly once and then the second time through improvise around the main melody. One, two Ready? Go Now you're going to do the same thing with the B section of our melody. Play the melody once normally, and then improvise around the melody the second time way. Now try improvising freely over both sections, choosing to either use some of the melody or make up your own part completely. 12 ready, Go.
31. Learn how to put all the skills together, melody, solo, and accompaniment: Hi and welcome back, is it? This is week 12 of the music Coach program on tenor saxophone. You finally reached the end of the program. Congratulations. I hope you've had an amazing time and that your musical journey is well on its way, and you found a way to keep your fire stoked in the passion going. I know that you've laid down some great track and that your musical abilities air now rooted in something solid where you can really use your language and express yourself. And I really want to congratulate you on on having the ability to follow through on this program and just keep taking the little steps every day. Because, really, it's a skill that goes way beyond music. It's a life skill to be able to follow through and a set a goal and see it all the way through to the end. And in this week's practice video, we're just gonna work on putting together all of the things that you've worked on. So being able to play the melodies and play the bass parts and improvise and play around the melody and build your solos and start thinking about energy and how you want toe shape your solos. A lot of times, you may find that you want to start with a lot of high energy when you're solo begins and bring it down as it goes towards the end or the opposite. And the other great thing about the way your solo is built is when you're playing with other real musicians at El at once. The energy of the moment will tell you a lot about where your solo wants to go, and it's sort of the magic of when you're in the role of the accompany ist. When you're holding down the solid foundation for someone else to Solo, you'll feel when the energy wants to push loud or pull back or gain in intensity or pull back. And then when you're the soloist, you'll feel the other people around you doing the same thing. And it's really exciting in a beautiful part about making music together. I hope that you find some places to make real music with real people because it's truly the juice of this life to be able to really play with other people and again a huge congratulations on getting to the end, and I'll see in the practice video
32. Tenor Week 12 practice: putting together all the pieces we have playing the melodies, playing the bass note patterns and improvising. To begin with, I want you to play the melody in the first a section, followed by the bass notes in the second, a section in the B section. We're going to use the same pattern. We're gonna play the melody on the first B and the court notes on the second Be 12 Ready go Regular ability Way, ability way Sure. Now you're gonna work on building your solo by thinking about starting low and ending high and starting with a quiet sound and ending with a loud sound. Try this out with a practice video and see if you can build your solo across the whole form . 12 ready? Go finally. See if you can make up your own arrangement of how to play along with the track. 12 Ready go
33. Jam Room 60bpm:
34. Jam Room 80bpm:
35. Jam Room 100bpm:
36. Welcome to the Music Coach Duo Series: either. It's taught the music coach, and I'm so excited to invite in my good friend and colleague Kenny Kirkwood to come into the music coach studio to help with the special duo Siri's. Now. You may not know this. Makeni was one of my first music teachers, and he's been a mentor and I've taught at his music school. He played gigs and recordings together, and I'm so excited to have thanks a lot for having me. And that's Boston to be here. And, you know, I'm really proud of everything you've done. I think music coaches a great program, so so many of the lessons that I've worked on a year over the years. You've already got done here. So, you know, thanks for having me for the duo sessions, especially because for me, I remember starting out practicing solo for a long time. But there's nothing like getting to the duo century, actually making other people. So enjoy the program. Call up a friend, and no matter what levels your you'll be able to work it out
37. Alto Tenor 1: way. - So when you're starting out doing do is between saxophones. It's a It's a great combination, you know, even if they're both chanters or both altos or arms, baritone or spinal, because they're very equally matched in terms of the volume. And you can do a lot of the same types of things on them and play both roles, being supportive and bring company men and also playing melodies. Improvising. In this example, we were just playing the most basic form of a duo. Improvisation were playing in the key of G concert, which is a on the tenor saxophone, and it's E on the ultra sacks boom. So we were just moving gently around in the scale, not worrying too much about rhythm or any organization. It's a lot like an abstract painting where you're kind of just painting, making shapes on a page and or on canvas and just sort of seeing where it goes. It's like the breathing for me is really a key part of combining music and communication, because when all of us are taught as horn players, you you're told to do long tones and 11 teacher said to me, Well, you don't always just have to start out with 50 minutes of the same. No long term you can if you want. And some people, really, It helps relax, um, and helps really focus them. But another teacher mind said, Well, it was always You're doing the long tones if you're if you want to start exploring the scale and started wandering, you know, and that's a great thing to do because it's all breath. It's all from the connected, connected breath that we get our our sound, so that's really bored tohave.
38. Alto Tenor 2: - way this example? We're gonna add a little bit of rhythm to the structure. So I'm gonna take the role of the accompany ist, and I'm gonna play two bars on the first chord which on the tenor is gonna be a and then two bars on D, which is gonna be a forecourt way through way, Theo way honestly, didn't rehearse any of that before, but Todd and I have played for a few years and longer. You play with someone, you start to get an instinct for each other, how you move and how you breathe and what your long you get to know. Actually, I realized I must know what your lung capacity is in your mind, because you just you gotta feel for for what the person's gonna play. So sometimes you match up how you're playing and you play in tandem just like a tandem buying woods or tandem train would go, You know, all the cars together and then sometimes in this kind of do a duet improv with two melody instruments, it's really like you have your own no bumper cars, maybe, and you can go your all on the same playing field but you get to wander on your own on your own, on your own path, right or something. Go karts. Maybe around the track. Some you can go faster. I could have played. You know he's playing steady pattern and that I'm playing a pattern rhythm pattern. This is different, so it provides a contrast to what used to Yeah, in terms of being like the same type of instrument. It's a It's a good opportunity to think about having different rules. And, you know, normally when you play the saxophone, you're only gonna be playing. The melody were improvising, and it's a great skill to be able to become confident in the name of the company. Other people, and it allows you play duels with not so this actual players. But maybe you know what flute or clarinet and guitar player, And just to be able to be comfortable in those contexts
39. Alto Tenor 3: way. Theo, Theo, I think way, - way sacks. One could be really rhythmic. You can weaken, basically imitated bass player and almost drums. Do you get a really solid group going and the ability to trade back and forth who's doing what? Role makes you a really solid tax on player, and it's often done just very subtle cues and looks and and knowing just what to anticipate , what's coming next. When I'm playing a supportive part, I know that, you know, coming up at some point, Candy might be finishing a solo, and I should be getting ready to play and then vice versa. When? When I'm doing so I got to thinking about How do I Q. My way out of it? For sure, switching roles is really important. So searching from the bass player role accompanying to do ah, melodic solo role is tricky and especially difficult to practice when you're by yourself. So when you start playing with someone else, it can be difficult as well. So try to remember you're having fun. You know, it's it can be hard when it's when it's frustrating. I spent a fair amount of time, uh, spent a fair amount of time using a Metrodome when I didn't have a friend or it was too late. You know, everyone had gone home and I want to work on my time using a drum track. Oh, our program that they could give you a beat is really important. And when I would get tired of blowing and playing and it needed to break, I'd let the groove keep going and I would practice counting the beats to myself, which again makes you a really solid player. Also, when you're listening along two tracks to be able to call out the letters of the cords is really critical on then on, then playing them. Of course, playing the route notes is, is essential to understanding what job the rhythm section players have to do when they're one of the bass player, piano player keyboard there constantly in that role of having the job of laying out the course. So that's something that is actually players. We really need to be responsible for two so that we're not just only whaling on one note, which sounds great. Of course, it's one of the things that we do best way. Just hold one note, and all the cords and grooves keep changing, percolating underneath us. But it's also good to be able to get through some arpeggios and stuff and create some excitement with your solo, and that will take the bandage in another level.
40. Sax Clarinet: way, - Theo Way, way thing, Theo way. Ah, that was a while. This is we played an improv like that. What were you thinking about doing that? Well, we've been kind of doing all these dual videos here today and moving through these different levels of beginner and intermediate in advance. And I was thinking about kind of starting in a very gentle, open place and then allowing the structure to kind of present itself. It's sort of I find it's like a great story. A great story reveals itself like the right moment. The characters walk into the frame or onto the stage for sir and, uh, W Well, yeah, I think about that story analogy a lot. It's like sometimes I'll say to a student, Ah, young student, You know, they might be able to reach Allah story that they know well, Goldilocks and the three Bears or something. But I'll say to them, sometimes make tell me the story about a giraffe and a mouse and an elephant, and I'll just make there is no real story. I'm referring Teoh and older people tend to say Well, which story is that? But a young child often will just start making it up. So in my experience of playing sax, woman learning how to improvise, letting things unfold, it's a little bit like just having the faith that that something's gonna happen. Whatever happens, it happened, you know, and sort of taking away my fear of whether it's good or bad or not taking away that voice of judgment, you know, and remembering in the process of learning to do this, I can remember what it feels like to be a pretty young child and just have an imagination that can just turn on and improvise. So that's what that's what I was thinking about it in that piece. There was so many things I would say we were playing in, probably in an advanced level for the most of that. And I think that a lot of the skill, the technique that we had in our fingers comes just from hours of practicing. But but still, the breath was the thing that really impressed me the most. You know how how are breasts? If you could actually have a have a draw, a picture of how our breathing patterns, not instead of the notes and the rhythm would just show a phrase market you took. But I think we both took a big, long breath of first and then meeting another long breath. We often have done that because it's a great way toe build a feeling trust with with your partner and then on then sometimes he would start the breath. And then I remember doing a few shorter breaths pattern to build up, some to build up Teoh Ah, Peake So he would go on and play along note and I would come in with the, uh uh the, uh uh and that's a trick. I use a lot when I want to build to a climax on. And I feel like I have something to say in this story and I want to take it to, ah, more dramatic level. So building up with a few short breaths like that, get your lungs really full so that you can then whale on a high note or get louder or get lower whatever you want to do. So breathing is always to even up to the advanced levels. You always want to have a sense of varying your breath so that the story will be very to
41. Sax Flute: - Theo . Way, way, Theo. Way, way. So with this combination of instruments, the flu, it is obviously a lot quieter than saxophones. What creates, ah, riel challenge and opportunity for this actual player to play quietly to match it and also a flute player? It's a great opportunity to really playing with a full, full, full sound all the way through. And most of the air on a flute travels right past the top of the horn. So it's a really good strength practice to play duets with other other instruments that Larry, what were some of things you were thinking? Wow, as as I was playing the, uh, it sure you say about the flu, you know, they I don't play much flu. But my my saxophone flute playing friends like you have told me that it will make me a better Saxon party because you do lose so much of the air going off the instrument, you have become really efficient about how much air you're putting in. So as a saxophone player playing with a quieter instrument, one of the one of the beginner, one of the not beginner, one of the first tricks that I used Teoh play quieter is just take a smaller bite on the mouthpiece so and share my Keith being sort of halfway up right where the read splits away from the mouthpieces about where I would angle my tips. I'm going back to about 1/2 inch off, and that is an easy way to quickly play quietly e put back in place. Ah, uh, already the sound is that, uh, I'm allowing the reed has more room to vibrate. So of course, the sound will be louder and harder to control as well. Ideally, you want to be able to practice in the same set position and be able to play at all dynamic ranges and especially for a lot of us living in cities or anywhere you live saxophone could be ah, allowed instrument to practice, and you're involved with neighbors. So one of the things is one of my teachers and always said you should be able to play everything that you can play now at. At a normal volume, you should be able to play it acquired. A blonde, of course, sometimes are reads give us trouble or so depending on the community. Just sometimes, you know you have those days where the Sachin doesn't seem to speak and you don't have control over the over the over the volume at all. Everything just seems to come out loud. So that's when that little take a smaller bite trick and couldn't can really play. It could be a great thing.
42. Sax Piano 1: way, way. All right, right. So when we're having a duet between saxophone and piano, it's a really beautiful place to play with these two instruments When you're the saxophone player, one thing to be aware of a Saxon can be quite loud. And when you're just getting started, playing it quietly can be one of the bigger challenges. So actually really like playing duets with piano players because it lets me practice keeping a really full sound but not blowing as loud as I possibly can. The other thing to think about when you're starting out is that the saxophone and piano are not in the same key, so I'm playing a tenor saxophone. So when we're playing in the key of G on the piano, which is what we're playing, it's the key of a on the saxophone. So our notes are not gonna be the same. And one of the easiest ways to make this work and keep it simple is if I think of my first note is being a is the number one and Kenny's first notice G is the number one. And then when I say play the first note of the scale where both, we could be talking about the same thing. It's like our ones are starting in different places. But they sound the same. Um, one? Yeah. What are some things that you like? Think about when you're playing to It was thankful. Well, I love this actual in a lot of people do so it's a great instrument. Thio, Thio, Thio Thio express yourself with And, uh, it's, um, a louder instrument than the other. The softer woodwinds family, the saluting the clarinet. So as a piano player, I'm thinking a bit stronger. I'm gonna make sure that I'm sounding chord to the persons that they feel like they've got a nice base sound to Teoh back, background, t improvise around. So in that one, I was really just laying those boards on, enjoying listening to the sound of Todd like moving through the notes and exploring the notes of the scale that go with that court. G scale goes with G chord, so it's not too hard. And then in the middle, I threw in a little running feature because I know a lot of my beginner students. They don't always play with all their hands or play a chord with just one hand, you should figure music out how it makes sense to you. So if if you know if I show a student sometimes with one hand, well, I've had a lot of beginner students that come up and say I could do that and they do it with one finger because that's where their brains that So that's that's something you should allow yourself to do. However you explore it, though, make sure that you're also listening and looking as much as possible as you can that the people you're playing with because when you start to play with Duo, you know I contact is really important so that you know, when we're beginning together and knowing when we're gonna end together. So using our heads to nod the ending or not the beginning This is a great way toe to stay on the same track. Yeah, and in terms of playing together, we're keeping this as simple as possible. We're just saying on one chord, and we're not really having any rhythm yet. We're allowing it to be a very free flowing conversation. Something called the soundscape is what we're basically doing, which is like painting a picture, but with sound. We're just keeping it. It's almost like imagining the color outside the lines, and and it's a little more of an abstract kind of picture that we're painting. And when you're just starting out, I really want encourage you to just go for it and try it and have the confidence to make sounds. You can think about how little little kids learn to talk. They sort of start by just making the here adults talking and then the O with them cause they're the instinct to communicate. Is there even though the language is it really that developed? So our brains have what I call a copycat brain as an inner teacher? When we're small, everyone learns to mimic, re or copycat so on. Still, even as you grow up to be on adult, that's still a very strong thing. That people will do is just copy what the other see what they see other people doing. So. One of the things that I think about with saxophone and any of the wind instruments as a piano player is that most of them have a smaller range of notes to choose from, so sometimes I trying to expand what I'm doing, even in a simple way as a beginner. You know, if I know that the G court has a team being D well, you'll notice that when we did the track, sometimes I jumped up here at the end. I put that in there, and I could just be that one g down there by itself in a d up here on there's your G Kara's Well, so that's what we call opening up, voicing on that way. I'm playing on the outside ranges of it, and then his notes are all in the middle, so it provides what we call a contrast, which is a really beautiful thing. Thio Thio.
43. Sax Piano 2: So we're gonna do a jam in G C and two bars each on. We'll do it with the rhythms. All accounted him. Okay. Theo Theo. Way he all right. So in this example, we've added in a couple of new elements. So we have a harmonic structure meaning a group of chords that's repeating in the same pattern. And we've added in some rhythm so that our song has a structure and a framework that's predictable. And when you're playing with a duo with someone else, this is the beginning of learning how to understand form and where things are gonna happen and you build a level of trust with some else playing duos with With Kenny, we've played together lots over many years. So we're very comfortable together when you're playing with somebody knew these things can take a little while to feel comfortable, but it's becomes really exciting. What you learned how to trust it. So when you take a little bit About what? What? The cords that were playing And for how long? Sure. Well, as you heard me as being of the track, I checked it with the player by my friend Tom Before we started to confirm that we knew which, which, of course we're gonna use. It was the G chord, the one court and the C chord, which is the four chord in relation to one. So though Fundo and uh counted in and explained to him that I would do two bars of the one chord and two bars of the forecourt, two bars of G two bars asi eso Then I felt the tempo first. And then I asked him, How does that feel for you? And he felt good. So that's something you could do with your friends when you're improvising to. If so, if you felt like someone was going a little too fast, you know, anywhere gonna be able to keep up with thinking about which notes you were going to use for your court. Then, you know, say a bit slower and personal. Slow it down. You can go from there. Uh, sometimes when you're starting just to get to immediate intermediate level and working from court to court again, that panic feeling can him can crop up because you're afraid you you will not hit the next court of the right time. So just take the breath. You know, relax yourself and think about just if you're playing the wind instrument, you just have to just blow a note. A lot of the notes of the scale will sound great over whichever court you're playing, so I found splaying. Saxophone is a very freeing kind of thing. Where's a piano player? You have to really be in charge of making sure that your finger switch on the right time. So when I started learning how to play structures, I would often use the damper pedal quite a lot so I could just play my G chord, Take my hands off right away. So right away they can start finding where the next court is, while the sounds still is there. So I I'm making sure that I count as well so that I'm not gonna get lost on the track. It's a piano player is job in the rhythm section is really to make sure that you're providing laying those tracks steady so that the melody players can can play the play on the melody track. So my hands ready to switch on five and six and the ready place and just with one corn getting ready to lift the pedal. And now battle is taking care of the court Now. Maybe I want to work on my inversions higher intermediate level. Once you've got that, the pedal down, you concert, practice your inversions that go up. And that helps and give the music a sense of space that you're expanding the landscape and that inspires the horn players Teoh to stretch themselves. So it's kind of like doing a workout. It's really like having a workout buddy together. Going to the gym is hard, but what I have someone else to go is Yeah, weaken, give each other feedback and stuff. So learning I find doesn't accelerate a lot more once you start to Jim, even though it's hard at first, you know, go for it. Yeah, and another step you can take kind of before you add in the rhythm if you're having trouble . Keeping it locked together with two bars at a time, for example, is to play freely, but with the two chords in mind. So we're gonna do that really quickly where we know that there's gonna be two chords and again on the sax when we're in a different key. So I'm gonna be playing A and D. And what? Instead of counting, we're just gonna play it and we're gonna kind of Q each other. Yeah, so in this example, due to short ones in this example, you're gonna be killing me when we're going to switch forwards. Sure. And then we'll stop and then all do one more on human. You all right? Here we go. I'm watching Kenny and I'm Alaska's. I'm breathing way through way. No, I didn't do one. And I'm gonna move it a little closer to having the rhythm and that we're going to switch. We're gonna switch faster. So we're gonna follow. You told me that was cool. One thing I realized that I'm doing that, I'd like to mention is that playing with a wind instrument as a piano clear really reminds me that I've gotta breathe rhythmically as well. Not just breast for relaxation. That that's important, too. But that when when todd was gonna switch the court, he has to take a breath. So I was breathing with him, and that's when my damper pedal comes up. So you heard that little silence of breath that I put into my piano. That that makes the music sounds even more like we're professionals. So I'm playing a little tremolo, and that's when it took my damper off. And that creates a real moments of silence in music. When you learn when are golden, you know when when you learn to get together with your friends. And and for piano players and drummers and bass player's guitar, all the rhythm section players that don't have to blow It's really great if you can. If you can learn to do that breathing as well. Keep your eyes on your horn players and your singers as well. This is the same for any long instrument.
44. Sax Piano 3: - way , - Theo . Right on s. Now we've added in a few more elements, which are ah, longer court progression. So we've now got a four chord progression. The cords are going by faster, and the temple were playing at us faster. The notes in the form for me are going to be a and then d and then a and then e. So again, always remember that tenor saxophone piano, not in the same key. So when you're talking with each other and make sure to sort that out before you start, the other element we've added is that we're trading back and forth. Who is playing the melody were improvising and who is doing the accompaniment part and you may have caught it. There's just little subtle cues that musicians use all the time. Just a little look or eyebrow. They don't have to be a big, huge gesture, but you just have to know that it's coming. So we agreed beforehand on what the form of our little jam was gonna be. So we're going to start out, Can he was gonna count it in. We knew what course we were gonna have, and then we knew that I was gonna solo can begin solo and I was sold when we're gonna end. So can you want to tell them about what chords? What? The progression wasn't sure. There's a very common core professional, lots of someone's uses. It was really worth using learning. And if if that temple was too fast and always feel like you can slow the tempo down so you can practice a new court progression And if you're if you like the tempo, you know, maybe your board of practicing slow. I remember sometimes I would get so bored practice. So I just want to play some faster. And so then you don't then play fat practice faster, but simplify the chord progression so you can always simplify one of the elements so that you can practice. Wait, what you feel your body wants to do right now, In the moment when I'm playing the G chord, I'm just starting in a root position. G. And I'm switching up to an inversion with C chord back to G e o R Way e o. I wasn't asked to sing there, but I just started doing it. I didn't used to always just do that naturally. But I learned to do it because as a horn player myself, I learned that if I knew more about the cords on then saying the nose, you know, I could become a better saxophone player. And so I highly recommend as a piano player that you would learn to sing as well. And that gives you, um, really releases your inner musician. That's that's the core of it. It's a really valuable thing to do. So you're backing your accompanying yourself up, backing yourself up or a company in yourself. Eso those Those are the core progressives were using. And, uh, we started out strong with a good rhythm. And then at the end, we kind of did. A robot does that The train was coming into the station. Yeah, that's really critical times beginning and ending where you gotta be, making sure that your eye contact is going, especially when you're improvising. There's a tendency to close our eyes when we play, which is okay. Just remember, though not for too long. Thing happened is at the end of it, Kenny, slow It slowed down, became really spacious. There wasn't as much rhythm happening. We hadn't discussed that beforehand. And one of the things that playing in a duo are improvising with another person is really great. Is things happen that you don't plan for? And sometimes, like maybe Kenny plan that maybe you did. Maybe you just kind of hit a chord and it felt like it needed to slow down is just go with it like BB Willing toe Let the music go where the music wants to go and if it totally becomes derailed, which is the term we use in music when things kind of totally fall apart, it's really it's okay. And in fact, the way you get really solid is as a musician is by having things, trying things, and they fall apart a little bit, and then you try it again, like riding bikes. Just get back on it and keep going. So I want to really encourage you. Don't be afraid to try something new and have it not work. What you don't see when you see us playing is the thousands of things that we tried it didn't work, tried it, didn't work, tried a number, So you're gonna do great and keep up the great work
45. 7 key steps to starting a band: And right now we're going to talk about how to start a band with either your friends or family. Playing music with other people is truly the richest experience you can have in music. So it's a great goal when you're just starting to learn an instrument to try and bring more people in. It's the same. If you play a sport you're gonna wanna do with your friends, you're gonna wanna do with your family and social time, a way to really express yourself. So unfortunately, for a lot of people they have no experience with how to put a band together, how to make it function properly. In a way, a bands no matter who's in it, is like a little mini tribe. And there are dynamics between people and how people communicate to each other that are important. There's also some accountability which is great to learn in terms of if you're deciding on some goals, like we're gonna learn the songs, everybody has to go out on their own and learn their own thing and come back and be accountable to the group that they're in. The first step is to choose what instruments and what kind of banded is you'd like to have. Some big decisions that you're going to want to make right away is, what do you want to have a drum kit, for example, depending on the style you want to play. Now, a drum kit is an amazing instrument, but you may not have the physical space or the ability in terms of volume to play music that loud. And a full drum kit also influences. For example, if you're gonna play an acoustic guitar with a drum kit, it's very limited how loud you can play on the drum kit without having to have the guitar amp through a guitar, through an amplifier. So that's sort of 1 first big decision you have to make. Then beyond that, you might want to think about what kind of style of music you're moved by and what kind of instruments maybe are already in that style of music. So if your favorite band is made up of, you know, electric guitars and bass and drums. And it's big and it's allowed us raucous, and that's what you wanna do. Then you probably want to organize yourself in a way where those instruments are part of the picture. But if on the other hand, you're like, I really like, you know, classical woodwind instruments. You know, I like flute and clarinet and oboe. And so those are things to think about and finding friends and family who can share a common vision of what kind of music you want to do is your first step. Once you're into choosing instruments, it's important to make sure that they're divided up in a way that will allow you to make good music and have everybody's voice be clearly heard. So you may find out that you've got two people who really want to play guitar and you might be able to make that work. What has to happen then is you have to adjust what parts everybody's playing so you can hear each other properly. But you may decide that, you know, somebody else really wants to play the guitar and I kinda wanna play the guitar, but I've always thought about playing the bass or I've always thought about playing the saxophone. And it's a chance to challenge yourself and move into new instruments. The great thing about learning second, third instruments, if you already know one, is that all of the musical knowledge that you've gained on the first instrument comes with you to the second one. So it's never really like starting over. And the more instruments you learn, the easier they get to learn, because you're just taking more and more information with you to the next experience. Just like with your own personal practice habits. Having goals as a band is really important. And every band has different goals, even professional ones. So if you may have a goal where you say, I really want to be able to play at a talent show at my school in a year. Like we, that's our, that's our goal, that's what we wanna do. Or I want to be able to play at this fundraiser or maybe the goal is I just want us to be able to once a month get together and perform just for ourselves and the songs that we really, really like. Or we want to be able to play together on holidays. Or there's certain colony music we really want to be able to play whatever those goals are. It's important to just have them be clear and have everyone understand what they are so that everyone can draw their focus and attention towards getting yourself to those goals. It's also important to make time to reset your goals when you get to where you wanna go, don't just stop. Go. Well, now that we're here, where do we wanna go next? Whether you're in an amateur band or professional band, it doesn't really matter. Scheduling time for your own practice is equally important as scheduling time for the bands practice. One of my teachers has a great saying that I love. He always told me, said, a rehearsal is not where you go to learn your part. It's where you go to learn everyone else's part. So in that sense, when you come into a rehearsal, you should already know the parts that you're going to play, at least to a general level so that you can see how they plug in and go together. And for that to happen, you'll need to schedule time on your own to practice. And generally speaking, the ratio of rehearsal time to practice time is somewhere around two to one. So if you're planning on having a half an hour rehearsal, you're probably going to need a half an hour to an hour of total practice time to make yourself ready for that rehearsal. And change a little bit depending on, you know, you might choose a song that you actually really know. So you don't really need to do too much to get ready. But as a general rule, you want to keep that in mind. Scheduling time for the band to rehearse, and also picking a place for that to happen is the next key step. The location is really important because you're going to want to be in a place where you can make the amount of noise that your band is going to be making comfortably so that you're not disturbing your neighbors or other people who aren't involved in your musical project. So a couple options are, you've heard of the classic ones. You know, garages can be great if you have one because it's usually a separate from the house enough that you can make a little more noise of the bothering people. Basements tend to be pretty good for the same reason because most of it is underground. If you are in an urban area, it can be very challenging because so many apartments and buildings are close together. But there are rehearsal rooms that you can rent by the hour, and they often have everything you need in them to play. They'll have a full drum kit. They'll have guitar amps, base amps, they'll have keyboards, even they'll have a sound system with microphones if you want to sing. And you pay by the hour. So you sometimes pay about $15 an hour and you just walk in and you play as loud as you want. They're usually soundproofed and made in a way that you can play as loud as you want. So it's a good option. And if you have three or four people together, if everybody chips in a little bit of money and you're doing it once a week or once every two weeks. It's not that expensive and it's a nice option. Scheduling the time for rehearsal is similar to scheduling your own practice time. You're going to want to check in with everybody about what their schedules are and when ideal times r. And depending on what stage of life you're in, this is going to have a huge difference if you're planning on starting a band with a bunch of 16 year-olds like year 16 and all your friends are that age. You have different schedules than somebody who's in their forties or fifties. So you want to think about when it's going to make the most sense for everybody and when it can be convenient, where everybody can be present and focused and enjoy the process and not be waking up too early, going to bed too late, trying to rush there in a real hurry. Inevitably, in any kind of tribal situation or band situation, there are gonna be conflicts. People have strong opinions about music and about their own parts, and about how the music should go and should fit together. So it's good to have a plan in place for how to resolve those conflicts. And when he combined this plan with a general sense of an agreement between people about how to communicate in conflict, this can alleviate a lot of unnecessary tension. A really simple example I'll give you is, if you're playing a part that I don't like and I communicate to you in a way that implies that I'm also not liking you at the same time. You're going to feel defensive as soon as I talk, even if my eyes, even if you agree with the idea, you're probably going to defend yourself because you're like, Hey, you're telling me you don't like me. And this is just primal human to human stuff. So learning how to talk about the music without talking about the person is a really important skill. And if you think about the language you're using, you can really become skilled at this and say, I'm feeling like the part that you're playing isn't fitting together with this other part over here. As opposed to, I don't like what you're playing because it's not working with this. So I'm talking about the same thing, but you can probably feel even through the video, there's a different energy to it. And how everyone communicates has to be carefully negotiated so that everyone feels safe and they can really express themselves clearly. Because ultimately you got to remember that making music together as a very vulnerable experience. And people need to feel like they can take chances and that it's safe. And one last thing, also, remember to take the time to really cheer each other on, makes a huge difference if somebody speaks up about something that you're doing in a positive way, this doesn't have to be manufactured or phony. But if you hear someone playing something and you're really digging in and it's like you're feeling it may start to tell them like that's a great, you're like you're playing that amazing and like what you came up with his sounds great. And I'm really digging in. This kind of positive real reinforcement just creates this sense of everybody is rowing the boat together in the same direction, which is part of what makes playing in a band feel so amazing. You feel like you're part of a team and everybody's working together towards the same goal. So learning how to do that is also important. You may come from a cultural background or a family background where there just wasn't a lot of encouragement. So I know you have to use something that sometimes you have to cultivate and learn how to do. But it's really important and it makes a huge difference in the sense of togetherness that you have in a band.
46. General gear guide: Music coach. And this is a bonus feature where I'm going to talk about some general tools that every instrumentalist should have with them. They're not very expensive, but they're gonna make a huge difference to the quality of your practice. And also if you're rehearsing with other musicians, the things I got in front of me are two different music stands and a tuner and a metronome. So first, let's talk about the music stands. There are two basic types. This one is a solid music stand. It does fold up. They're a little bit more expensive, but there are a lot more practical to use, especially if they're just going to live at your house. I'd recommend spending a little more money getting something that's a little more durable. Because the other option are these wire foldable stands, which are great for traveling with. But because they're not solid, things can fall through the screws and everything on them are usually a little bit cheap and it'll sometimes bend easily. So the difference in price, these wire ones are going to be sort of 20 to $30. These are going to be closer to a $100. But in the long run, I recommend getting a good solid music stand. If you're going to be in one location. A chromatic tuner. If you're playing an instrument where pitch is going to be an issue, which is almost every single instrument, with the exception of the drum kit and the piano. You're gonna need to know whether you're playing sharp or flat and how to make adjustments. And the only real way to do that is with a chromatic tuner. These will cost you around $30 and they have basic functionality. They take a AAA battery. One nice thing that's happened in the last few years is most apps stores for smart phones have some kind of a free tuner. And even for like a dollar or two, you can buy a more advanced version. So if you don't feel like having a physical one, I have owned these for a long time, so I've got them. You can download something to your smart phone and make sure to use it to be constantly checking in to see where you're at or you playing sharp or flat and certain registers. And a note for guitar players, you might think that a guitar tuner, which is something that's sold in stores, would be the right thing for a guitar or bass. And in fact, the guitar tuner isn't really useful at all because it's always checking to see what string you're on. It's trying to figure out, are you on the sixth string, on the fourth string. And we actually want us to be able to know is that string I'm playing, playing the right note. The other reason this is important is if your guitar gets really at a tune, a guitar tuner won't really give you a relative sense of where you are. You'll have to get a close before it's even usable. So I don't even recommend ever even buying a guitar tuner. Metronomes track time. And this one looks like the same as the chromatic tuner, but it basically is set, you can set it to how many beats per minute. Which a simple way to think of it as 60 beats per minute is like the second hand on a clock, because it's 60 clicks in a minute. And if you had a 120 beats per minute, you'd have two clicks for every second. A good metronome, we'll have a couple of important features. You want to make sure you get one that has the ability to plug headphones into it. Especially if you're a drummer, because the speaker on this is never going to be loud enough for you to hear it while you're playing drums or even to be honest, playing most instruments. So you want something with a headphone adapter and you also wanna make sure that you have something where you can easily change the tempo. So they all have the ability to change the tempo, but some of them will go up in increments of three or four. Just make sure it's something that you can adjust the tempo evenly. And last but not least, it's important to have one that you can clearly, visually see as well, that it's easy to see the display because sometimes when you're playing, you're going to want to just check and check on visually where you're at in terms of the time. And much like the tuner, you can download these off of most apps stores, there's almost always a free one. Sometimes they're not great. But for a dollar or two, you can upgrade and get a more advanced metronome, which will work great. And this is going to cost you about $30. So a dollar or two on an app store to upgrade the free version is often what I recommend for my students.
47. How to create a furtile musical home: I'm Todd, the music coach, and welcome to this video where we're going to talk about how to create a fertile ground for a musical home to grow. I'm sure that you've had the experience of walking into someone else's house for a party or a holiday. And it seems like everyone is musical, like people picking up guitars and sitting at pianos and singing along. And it just seems like it's all natural and it's happening and it's really beautiful. And you may have wondered like, how does that happen? How do those homes happen? And unfortunately, you might think, well, those people are, that's a musical family. And their, their musical, and I'm not, and that's the reason why we don't have that. And that's a complete and total lie. The truth behind it is that those people found a way to create a fertile ground for people to feel safe and express themselves and challenge themselves and set goals so that they could play music together. And they probably did all of this without even really knowing that that's what they were doing. So I'm going to lay it out free, explain how this actually happens. So in my family home, there were no musicians. My parents loved music, but they didn't play. I didn't grow up watching people play. And both my brother and I ended up being professional musicians. So you might go, How did that happen? And there were a lot of things that my parents did that I think they didn't even realize that they were doing. One really simple thing is we listened to music and we talked about what we liked about it. And hearing them share that with me was really invaluable. And we took long car rides. We would listen to, I know that my parents, there was an oldies stations that they really liked, which was like fifties and sixties rock. And we had dialogues about like who is that artists and when did you first hear that? And they would share stories with me about where they were when they heard that song or what kind of meaning it had to them. So a great way to set this up for yourself is in your own home, you can initiate it. And a great way to do it is to allow everyone a chance, even if you've got little people in your life to share a piece of music that they feel moved by. And feeling moved by music can be all sorts of different feelings. It doesn't have to just make B the song makes me feel happy. It can be this song makes me feel sad or the song makes me feel like agitated, or it's just what you're looking for, something that makes you feel something. And a good forum for that is to go to the living room and decide that we're going to we're going to spend a half an hour doing this and everybody gets to pick one song. You might wanna set some ground rules where, you know there's not gonna be any songs with any swearing editor inappropriate, whatever for your family, you feel as appropriate. And then while you put your song on, everybody agrees to be in silence and really listening. And this just developed so much good ability, not just for music, but just the ability to sit for three to five minutes at a time and really listen to what's going on around you is such an important life skill that will really have a huge impact on everyone. And you might want to set some other very simple ground rules, which is, it's like the everything I learned, I learned in kindergarten, which is if you don't have anything nice to say, you don't have to say anything. It's better not to say something really negative. Because. People are sharing something that means something to them. And learning how to have that dialogue is important to be able to say, it's not to my taste, instead of it's socks or I don't like that song or it's the same way that we teach each other how someone prepares a beautiful meal for you and it's something you don't like to eat. You can talk to them about that in a way that's not going to hurt their feelings in music is the same way. You can then expand on this game by adding in some other artistic elements. One really fun one that I like to do is do the same thing, put on a piece of music. Everyone gets to bring something that they feel moved by. And everybody just takes a piece of paper and during that time, they just draw or sketch something that they feel is connected to their experience of that music. And then everybody can share that with each other and talk about, well, I shaded this thing this way because it made me feel good to think of a cloud, or it made me think of a tree, or it made me think of this or that. And again, it's, it's an exercise in not being critical. It's just expressing yourself through art while listening at the same time. And another variation of it can be to do the same thing of having a listening circle and have everyone write down an idea for a short story. Something that they either through the lyrics, if it has that kind of thing in it or if it's instrumental, just talk about ice. You know, I'm seeing a story about somebody walking their dog in the woods when I hear this. And again, as long as no one is being harsh with each other about it, it's a really neat window into how we all experience music differently. Making time to watch movies that are about famous musicians are famous music is also another great way to help get a really fertile ground for music going in your own home. There are tons of great documentaries about all sorts of things, about the backup musicians in Motown or you know, even about famous composers like Mozart and Johnny Cash and Ray Charles. You can watch and discuss and talk about what their music, the music of that artist, or what the story of that musician, how it, what you thought about it and what it meant to you. The more you share your own experience with other people about how music moves you, the more it grows inside of you and more passion that you have for it with all of us traveling and car so much these days. Another great musical fertilization that you can do is to plan on having music on car trips and really having people listen for a lot of us. Actually, the best stereo that you're going to own is going to be in your car. Car stereos are usually quite high-quality, So it's a great way to experience music. One thing that's happened, unfortunately, as we've gotten into more individual devices of smartphones and mean it started with Walkmans and CD players and things like that is we tend to experience music isolated. Each person will have earphones in and be in their own world experiencing music, which in a way is great. It's nice to have some personal time with music. But one of the things we've really lost is the connection and the sharing of our joy with each other. So trying to set that up on, on travel, times together with your family can be great or with your friends and just talking about and sharing it and letting everybody have a turn with the stereo and okay.
48. How to create a sucessfull practice routine: Hi, I'm Todd, the music coach. And in this video, I'm going to be talking about how to set yourself up for long-term success when you're practicing music and learning an instrument. The biggest challenge I've found, not only for me personally, but for most of my students. It's not the technical requirements of whatever instrument they are playing, or even how much innate ability that they have when they start. The biggest challenge people have with consistently making progress in music has to do with their practice habits. And for most of us, we have a negative reaction to that idea. Even practice habits, discipline these things. We feel like we get tense about it. And adjusting your relationship to those ideas will open you up to being able to fully embrace all of your abilities and really take giant leaps forward in your playing. I know for me personally, I realized early on I had to change my relationship to what I thought practicing meant, how it worked, what I thought discipline meant. And I had to really re-frame in my mind what it meant to play an instrument. This has a lot to do with where the way we're, we're perceive learning a musical instrument and society unfortunately is largely negative. You've probably seen this mostly what you get fed in the outer surroundings is that some people have talent and some people don't have talent. And when you go to a concert and you watch someone play, you think, well, they're just have it. And that's why they sound amazing. And this doesn't in any way reflect reality. It may be that they had some natural ability, but there's thousands of hours that went into what you're seeing when you see someone performing in a professional context. Then the question becomes, well, how did they get from not playing it all to having the discipline and the patients and learning the right things to get all the way through that process. And although musicians will give you a variety of different answers, I think the best way to do it is to find a healthy way that's realistic and is repeatable. So what first key to having real success in your practicing is to set goals. Because like anything else in life, if you have an idea of where you wanna go, It's a lot easier to tell where you are in that journey. Rather than just a loose idea of like, I want to learn how to play this instrument. And if you have that thought and it just sort of dissipates out into the air. When things get difficult, you're more likely to quit because it's like, where am I in the middle of that journey? As opposed to you could say, my goal is I want to, for example, I want to play the piano and I want to learn how to play these three songs in the next year. And he may have no idea how you're gonna do it, but even just having that goal is going to help propel you along. And when you hit rough patches, you can check in with yourself and your goals and you go, Am I doing the things that I need to get to my goal? A good goal to think about when you're playing a musical instrument is how to get to a place where you can make music with other people. Music throughout human history has always been a community event. It's only in the last few 100 years that it's sort of moved into conservatories and into school settings. And we've isolated from each other. And somehow we've lost the idea that the point of it is that you can actually make music with another real life human being. So my suggestion, if you're not quite sure what goal to set, I'd pick a goal that involves eventually playing with other people. Whether that's joining a band or just playing with a friend and going like my friend also plays the guitar and I want to be able to play the same song so we can play together. Another really big key to long-term success with practicing is finding a consistent time of day that you're the best frame of mind and being to practice in. And this is different for everybody and which is why there is no one answer of everyone should practice like at five o'clock or I mean, that's not helpful for anybody. We all have different lives and different schedules and commitments. I suggest you experiment around with it a bit. I found for me personally, I feel the best practicing early in the morning. And for me it's just I find my mind is very clear and relaxed and I haven't been sort of inundated with emails and phone calls and other commitments. And I set aside a small amount of time, not every day of the week, but four or five days a week. Because I'm a professional musician, I have to work on a lot of things, but for you it might be one or two times a week and I block off that time and when I'm there, I'm as present as I can be and I'm working on my goals to get me closer to where I wanna go next. Some things to think about, about when the time of day is going to be, when you're gonna practice, are make sure you have had enough sleep. So waking up too early if you're going to bed too late is not going to be ideal. Make sure that you've had something to eat. If you're really hungry, like if you get home from work or school and you're starving, it's not going to be ideal for your nervous system in your body to be in a calm place. So make sure that you've had something to eat. But you also may find you don't want to play right after you eat something because you might feel a bit full. So these are things to think about about where in your day you're going to plan to have your practice time. When it comes to practicing, quality is so much more important than quantity. Unfortunately, you may have even already heard from other music teachers that you gotta practice for an hour every day or half an hour every day or so many hours per week. And this information isn't really helpful because the quality of the time you're putting in is what's really important. If you were to take the same approach to eating food and say, well, the way you get nourishment and your body is you sit at the dinner table for 45 minutes. It's missing so much of the point. There are so many other factors. Are you eating too much or you are not eating healthy foods? Are united eating at all? Are you just sitting there and practicing music is the same. You can sit down with your instrument for an hour and not only make no progress, you can actually regress because if you're reinforcing bad habits, then you're not actually you actually making your playing worse. So what I like to tell my students is focus on the quality. Five minutes of really focused practice can change your life forever. I know for me it's that way. I had this. I had to start out by getting the routine working first rather than trying to figure out what I was going to even practice. So picking a small thing and being consistent with it. And when you're there, challenging yourself to do a little more of it each time is the best way to go. Now in life, things are gonna come up. You're gonna get sick. You're going to have to travel places. You're going to have holidays, all of these things. And it's important to be flexible with your practice routine and to think a little bit into the future. And so for me, for example, when I'm planning, when I'm going to be practicing, i'm taking into account some of those factors, the ones that I can control anyway. So like if I know that I've got family coming to visit and I'm going to be busy entertaining people and doing things. I will suddenly is put my practice routine on hold to give my full attention to that. Knowing that when the time is right, I'm going to come back and be fully focused rather than trying to ram in practice time when you're distracted with other things. The same can be true of getting sick, having a cold and flu, something like that. I would say it's good to have a break from things. And always when you're practicing, you want to be in a good frame of mind and being. Because you're not just practicing musical information, you're training your body to have a relationship with the gaining of musical language. And if your body is in a frenetic state, every time you do that, when you go to touch your instrument, it literally will reset your brain to feel anxious and upset. Now the other side of that is that if you can train yourself to be calm and presence every time you're with your instrument. Pretty soon after a while, you'll just go over and pick it up and your body will come into a calm place. Before I practice, I like to take a moment and before I even touched the instrument or put it together and just see if I can get myself. I sometimes close my eyes and take a few deep breaths and try and get myself into a very calm place because I want to reinforce that with everything that I'm learning. If you don't have any experience with meditation, I highly recommend that through whatever form you can find, you find a good practice that's small and to the point where you can get yourself into a calm and relaxed place before you start. Another key element to actually getting towards your goals is to make sure to always be challenging yourself. There's this fine line when you're learning new things between going over what you already know and challenging yourself to do something new. And the balance, you might think, well, once I learned how to do a few things, I'm only just going to ever wanna do those things over and over again. But what will happen is you'll start to get bored with what you can already do. And a good thing I like to tell my students is you should always be feeling a little bit uncomfortable when you're practicing. And I don't mean like nervous and agitated, but you should be doing things where you're not getting it right all the time. Because you want to be that's a sign that you are actually working on something that's making you better. It's the whole point of practicing in the first place. I work on things on my own so that when I go play with other people, I can have more things that I can express. Not so that I can just repeat the same things that I already know how to do over and over again.
49. Todd Porter Sax tuning Video (Youtube HD): Oh, I'm Todd Porter, founder the music coach. And in this lesson I'm going to be showing you how to tune your saxophone. The most important thing to know when you're starting out is that your instrument can be tuned by adjusting how much of the mouth pieces on the cork that's attached to the neck. And in a very general sense, the shorter you make this by pushing onto the cork, the sharper or higher pitched you're going to be. And the further back room of the mouthpiece, and the longer the tube is, the flatter it's going to be. Now, each saxophone is slightly different, so there isn't ever going to be one measurement I can tell you that's going to work best for your saxophones. You're gonna have to learn how to actually tune it, and that's what this video is all about. The first thing I want you to do is to make sure that your instrument is warmed up. Because of this axon is made of metal and metal changes its characteristics a lot when it heats up. You wanna make sure that you've actually played it a little bit. If you tune a cold saxophone, it will give you an ill be inaccurate as the instrument warms up. Usually as the instrument warms up, it's gonna go sharper. So you wanna make sure that it's well heated before you get started. You're going to need a chromatic tuner to be able to tune your saxophone. There are two simple ways to get a chromatic tuner. The easiest way is to go into the app store of a mobile phone or a tablet and just download a chromatic tuner. And there are usually many that are free. Sometimes if you pay a dollar or two more, you can get a bunch of advanced features. If you happen to live near a music store or you already own a physical tuner like the one in this video, they work exactly the same way. The basics of it is that the tuners measuring the sound waves that are coming into it and telling you whether they're to sharper to Flat. Once you turn the tuner on, The first thing I want you to notice is the number 440. Somewhere on the display, it's gonna save 440. And that's the calibration of the tuner. And this is a really important thing to make sure that that number says 440 and it doesn't say 439 or 4041. The reasoning behind it is a little more advanced and you don't really need to know what when you're starting out at 20 and make sure that that number says 440. And if it doesn't use the calibration buttons to get there, once it's set, it should always come on the same way every time you turn it on. Now that your instruments warmed up and you're ready to start getting in tune. The next thing is to select a good note for tuning. And because the tube is so long and a saxophone, you wanna make sure you're playing a note that's in the middle of the register. So for example, a g is a good note to tune on, or an F. You want to try and avoid, avoid playing any of the palm keys or any of the really, really low notes because the instrument is never going to be perfectly in tune top to bottom. You want to find a note that's in the middle TV an accurate sense of making sure that you're just in the ballpark and your UB is into as you can possibly be. So in this example, I'm going to play a G. This is a tenor saxophone, so it is a B-flat concert instrument. And the only thing I really need to know about that is just when I play a G on here, it's not going to display as a G on the tuner. And as long as you know that you won't get confused when I'm all I'm trying to do is make sure that the note I'm playing is actually in tune. So here's what's going to sound like. As you can see on the tuner, my note is too flat, which means the needle is a little bit to the left. And I need to shorten how far, how much cork I've gone on to make it play more in tune. So to do that, I'm going to hold the neck here and just, I'm gonna do just a little bit. It doesn't take very much to change the pitch, and I'm going to try it again. So now the notes playing really well in tune. Another thing you can do once you have the lower register in tune is play the exact same note one octave higher. So now I'm gonna play the G with the octave key. It's nice and into one little last tip is that when you play your note, try not to look right away at the tuner because you'll start making adjustments with your face the instant you get feedback from the tuner. And what's more important is actually here, whether the instrument is playing into or not. And you don't want to be making adjustments when on your face, when what you really need to be doing is adjusting where the mouthpieces on the cork. All right, head on over to him. Your music coach.com for a freebie intersects one lesson. Thanks for stopping by and I look forward to seeing you soon.
50. MC breathing Exercise: We're now going to do a reading exercise. You're going to inhale to the count of four, hold to the count of eight, and exhale to the count of eight. And we're gonna do it four times. 12. Ready? Begin, inhale 1234, hold 12345678, exhale 12345678, inhale 1234 hold 12345678, exhale 12345678, inhale 1234 hold 12345678, exhale 12345678, inhale one, 234 hold 12345678, exhale 12345678.