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Ed's First Lesson

Ed

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Staff member
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I took up the saxophone in 5th grade and played through my junior year of high school. I stopped playing my senior year because I was tired of marching band and I didn't care for the person I was going to have to sit next to most of the year. I felt that this player was not as good as me and I knew she would be sitting first chair as she was tight with the band director. I walked away and took French (which could come in handy someday).

One of the downsides of the school I attended was that students were never encouraged to get outside instruction. In fifth and sixth grade we had a band director who played the sax and for those two years we had practice time for the full band and by section. After that we only had one hour of band per day.

Through the years I have read a lot of great material such as "The Art of Saxophone" by Larry Teal and "Practice With The Pros" by Sue Terry for hints on how to become a better player. I've also been fortunate to have done a number of interviews (some of which still need to be fully transcribed) with some great educators and players. Finally, I've taken the opportunity to pick the brains of guys like sideC when they've come through town. And of course, I play with a couple of groups regularly and listen to as much good music as I can.

A couple of months ago I decided that it was finally time to study with someone to kick my playing to a different level. After a lot of research and talking to various people I know I decided to study with the top baritone player in my area. He's a reasonable drive and was willing to hook up a couple of times a month on a Sunday morning. Since I have been playing more and more bari I wanted to study with someone who made that their primary horn so that I could leverage their knowledge.

I had my first lesson on Sunday morning.

I'm very impressed with the guy I choose to study with. Top notch player and has a very positive attitude.

The good - Told me that I had a good core to my sound and that I had a great command of the horn. Was surprised that I really hadn't been playing Bari that long. Really liked my tone.

Things to work on - Loosening up my embouchure. Playing louder since I have a tendency to play softly since I do a lot of classical playing. Scales and intervals. I've become a slacker in recent years and haven't kept up with playing scales like I really should.

Specific Tip - To work on loosening up my embouchure he told me to try and match the overtone of the bell keys to the note fingered on the horn in terms of pitch. Example - blow the overtone of low B and then play that note on the horn while looking at the tuner.

I picked up a host of other cool tips and I came away really enthused about my playing. I'm playing bari in a big band this summer so I appreciated the added confidence. Playing bari in a big band takes a very different attitude than just blowing in a section.
 
I'm surprised more late bloomers don't take lessons. For me it is always a humbling and clarifying experience rolled into one. I don't know about you but my lessons cost $50 an hour and I take them once a week. I don't make as much progress as I'd like because I am not practicing enough. Don't get me wrong, I play six to seven hours a week but that isn't practicing, that's performing.

Practicing smart is the hard thang for me. I like to play what I like to play. If I play a difficult lick four times (starting from the front or starting from the back and working forward) I'm pretty much frustrated and stop. I do slow it down and eventually I get better, but I am not driven to practice and improve through 100 iterations in a very short time.

This summer my instructor is away for four weeks. Suzy and I are going to try to put at least an hour a day working on rhythm, embellishments, and memorizing the blues scales beyond the easy ones we know. We plan to follow Pete Thomas' guidelines on understanding what notes NOT to play in a solo. And we plan to work toward a Getz sound for me on tenor and a Desmond sound for Suzy on alto because that's what we are the closest too right now and we want to finesse/grow that sound.

I want my instructor to come back from his summer masters in music program and say, WOW, you've been working hard without me tell him so. Congrats on the lessons Ed. It sounds like you have some solid goals to work towards too. Maybe this Fall you'll be posting clips to YouTube. :cool:
 
I've never considered myself a late bloomer just a guy who took five or seven years off of playing. The rust came off quickly but like most players I have hit a certain level to my playing and I want to move it forward. Lessons with a good teacher is really the best way to proceed. If I can find the time I would love to play out more.
 
Glad to hear that you've got a good result from your first lesson, Ed. My friend Tom Olin studied baritone with Danny Bank, the great NYC session bari player. Olin says that Danny told him that a great player has ten levels of volume to choose from. The bari player has to be able to speak in a big band, and you also have to get a full tone at very low volume.

So the baritone chair has lots of responsibilities in a big band.
 
Great advice SideC!

I was playing tonight with our summer big band and was really working on that tonight. We normally have four tenors and four altos. Tonight we had two tenors and two altos and we were missing a lot of people in other sections so it was a great opportunity to just lay back at times and play under. Of course, since I'm playing bari I took advantage of the times when I could really have some fun with playing loud.
 
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