The crossroads

[JesseH]

I don't know if I am posting this because I want a response or if I just am trying to releave stress, but here goes...

I started playing tenor saxophone when I was a freshman in highschool. I never really took it seriously until I was around 18 (5 years later), but still never felt like I made any progress.

Paul Coats really helped me out a lot and still does. I even got to take a few lessons from Santy Runyon. I started college when I was 19 as a music education major. I dropped out after 1 semester, due to frustration.

My main and BIGGEST problem is that of reading music. I know the notes, know the theory behind it, know the time. BUT I can't play it, I can't hear it or something. I think it is the hearing it thing, because if I have the music to a song and know how it goes I can play it all day long. Soup it up and jam, but I can't do that with new music (even highschool level music). I get frustrated every time I try to sit down and work at it, so I don't make any progess in my practice sessions. I end up smoking a pack of smokes and go home.

I have tried to work out the Rubank series. I made it to the advanced methods, and sorta hit a stand still. So I moved to the Univ Sax Meth book, but I found myself lost in it. I don't know where to even start.

So I bought a bunch of smaller books and tried them. Exercise books I can play fairly decent after a few practice sessions, but when it comes to etudes and melodic studies (I guess you would call it) I simply die. The rhythmes kill me. Then when I focus on the rhythme, my tone suffers. So I focus on my tone and I don't play the dynamics right or the articulations corretly. This too frustrates me. How do I fix this?

I want more than anything to be a jazz musician. I can't stress it enough how much I want to make music my career. But I have been in this state for 4 years and I can't seem to get around it. I don't know what to do. Its really depressing.

I tried taking lessons from one of the professors at the college and he really pushed me to get better faster than I feel like I could. I got frustrated and he got frustrated as well. Which is part of the reason I dropped out of college.

I guess I typed all that to say this...

What can I do to get around this wall I hit?

When do I move to another piece of music?

What am I trying to learn or accomplish out of each piece of music?

What can I do to make practice more interesting?

I have a million questions and have heard a million answers for them all, but none seem to work. Can someone out there help me?

JesseH

[dpwadw]

Reading music to me is a process of recognizing patterns on the page. "Dotted-eight - sixteenth" for example sounds remarkably similar to a pair of eight notes swung.

When I sight read I tend to look at the music as an assembly of these recognizable patterns. Anything that doesn't fit a structure I'm familiar with I have to work out slow and carefully.

I can't remember the book names, but can tell you that where I learned to recognize these patterns was very early in school. The books were very simple and included fingercharts etc. So, what I'm concerned about is that since you have played well by ear for years that somewhere along the line of rudimentary sax mechanics you weren't given the basic tenants of music reading. Maybe poor materials, maybe poor instruction I'm not sure.

There is no big shortcut for this, except to say that you can overcome it with diligence. I play new stuff almost every week (church gigs) and have to adapt very quickly. As a result I have become a much better sight reader from the trials by fire.

You mentioned that your tone suffers while intently reading. If you have a piano or keyboard, practice playing the rythyms there. With a piano you don't have to be concerned with the tone. Once the pattern is memorized, move back to the sax.

On the subject of key signatures, scales scales scales. I know that its boring but it is also absolutely essential in anticipating how a musical passage should sound. You may recognize a rythym, but still will play wrong notes because you could not anticipate the correct key for the passage.

Scales also are the key to improvisation and soloing. If you know the hard key scales, you can re-create the same riffs you know in familiar keys.

Tempo? Metronome. Again, boring work but essential to sight reading.

It grieves me when people with a passion for music get so frustrated. Certainly all I can offer is a few tidbits. I must say however that I too reached a point where I hung it up for years. Didn't think I'd ever play again. Remarkably, I can now do some things at 36 better than I did as a student or young professional. One of them is indeed sight reading.

Best of luck to you!

[jazzbluescat]

JesseH,
Here's what I'd suggest[BTW there's most likely better qualified posters here, and most may frown on my take, you too; But, what the heck, here goes.]:
If you've given it a fair shot(reading)and it gets you down, as well as not making any headway, concentrate on another aspect of music. Use what "little" reading ability you have to learn tunes, scales* and focus on your improvisational music, per se. You sound like you have good ears; train them by listening to recordings, picking up some chord patterns, articulation and styles, maybe some hot licks, etc.
*If you can read enough to learn a cross section of different scales, get the sound into your head and learn them(licks, tunes, everything)in all keys.
Keep the dream, eventhough you may have to do something else to survive.

[max]

I don't know if this is what's going with you, but make sure you're keeping a pulse and subdividing it.

I've seen some people with problems similar to what you describe suddenly "get it" when they realize they need to count as they play. They know what values all the notes get, but they don't really keep a subdivided pulse going to make sure each note gets the correct value.

Just a thought...

[jazzbluescat]

I don't know if this is what's going with you, but make sure you're keeping a pulse and subdividing it.

I've seen some people with problems similar to what you describe suddenly "get it" when they realize they need to count as they play. They know what values all the notes get, but they don't really keep a subdivided pulse going to make sure each note gets the correct value.

Just a thought...

Rings a bell.
With me it's like practicing and practicing, but if it doesn't "register," it's like spinning my wheels/marking time..just excising short term memory, useless when it counts; until that click happens. But, it's up to the individual to decide, you know, when is the "I don't have anymore time and/or resources for this;" and maybe move on to the "bird in hand is worth two in the bush" solution.

[MS]

JesseH
Seems like a lot of develop our own style in ways of learning. Seome only visual (music reading) some aural (only by ear). Most of us fall somewhere in beetween.


Bootman has suggested getting a good percussion book and beat out rhythms until you develop a rhythmic vocabulary (old forum). Soundsl like that might be a ticket for you, especially if there is a computer program or CD with it so you can check your accuracy AFTER you have worked it out on your own.

I have heard that the brain can process only one thaought at a time, but can alternate between several thoughts in rapid-fire speed. I've seen many people who are amazing at multi-tasking.

In your practice if you can separate tasks, concentrate on one at a time until near perfect- then learn to multi-task. This means go slow dicipline on your part, because you could learn much faster by ear, but if your goal is to learn to read, you're going to have to develop a go slow dicipline.

I have read articles that suggest this order:
1) rhythm
2) Tone/ tuning
3) Correct notes
4) Articulation
5) Dynamics/expression

Try doing one task at a time in the above order (yes slow going). At some point as you become confident that you are developing a rhythmic vocabulary, combine with another task. You may have to dis-regard the musical effect for a while until you can develop a system of how YOU can get this acomplished.

For YOU, this may present a frustrating dilema. You feel/think that you want to learn to read better, however your ears are so facil, that learning to read may be a slow tedious process that you intelectually think you SHOULD do, but is difficult to comit to because of the frustrating slowness.

If you feel that you MUST learn to read better, find a teacher that you are comfortable with (chemistry wise) and commit yourself to the ABC's of learning to read mathematical graphs.

I have heard many players who play so well, that I don't feelI could even carry their case to their gig for them, hang there head about not being albe to read well. Duh! if I could play like them, I wouldn't worry about reading, unless it became a roadblock to my choice of career.

Have you considered deciding your most favorite player, and moving to his/her city and study privately with them? Not everyone has to do the college tract. Go hang out where you want to eventually be in five to ten years and learn on the job. Best nf luck to you! :D

[adrianw]

Although I have only been learning sax for six months I have the same problem and I am beginning to believe that it is tied up with a reading difficulty. I can read books and all that sort of thing with no problems but as soon as I have to read something under pressure such as playing a duet from sheet music or using a metronome I am lost.
I have found the same problem with reading subtitles on movies. I have noticed that my eyes tend to move further along the line before I have taken in the information that went before.
I don't have dyslexia but I believe I have suffered from this reading difficulty all my life.
I'm not suggesting you have a reading difficulty I'm just relating my experience.

[bari_sax_diva]

Hi Jesse!

I have a few suggestions, all of which have had helped me with the very same thing:

1. If you don't already, learn the "clap and count" method of couting rhythms that they teach you in grade school. I'd never heard of such a thing until I decided to learn drums in high school (I had the world's laziest band teacher in 5th grade, and after that everyone assumed I knew it). This works, and I still use it with complicated rhythms and odd meters.

2. Try to get in the habit of looking ahead, especially when things get tricky. It seems to help me keep from being caught by surprise. Also, the notes at the end of a measure might tip you off to what happens rhythmically *before* them.

3. Find a "safe" place to practice reading new stuff. A duet partner who's patient, like a teacher, is a good start. Make up your mind that you'll make mistakes. Then, plunge in, make the mistakes, and learn that they're no big deal. Try to read something new every day or week. And remember that music reading, like anything else, takes practice--the more you do, the easier it gets.

Finally.... have you ever been diagnosed with a learning disability that affected schoolwork? Guess what? Some of those can make music reading a little harder, too. This might sound farfetched, but being treated for A.D.D. (that I'd struggled with until it threatened to sabotage my career in my thirties) helped my reading skills tremendously since my mind doesn't wander in the middle of tunes anymore. If there's any chance this is your problem, talk to your doctor. Also call your local community college and ask for the office that helps students with disabilities. Nearly every school has one, and they should be able to give you some good strategies for beating this.

DON'T GIVE UP! Having music in your life is too important!

Hang in there,
Leanne

[pfox]

A good book for learning basic rythm is "You've Got Rythm-read music better by feeling the beat" by Anna Dembeska and Joan Harkness. Don't be put off by the fact that it's written for kids. It gets you to recognize and feel the rythms in a piece. I can read the notes, and play them in the correct order, but it sure doesn't sound like anything until the rythm is right.
I also have an electronic keyboard with a built-in metronome feature. It accents the first down beat in a specific time signature. I've found this to help me get the feel for 3/4, 6/8, etc., much better than a standard metronome with its constant ticks. My teacher has me work through a piece by one measure and the first note of the next measure. Play each segment until you get it right, then add it to the last one you mastered. It helps the flow, and you don't get as hung up on the bar lines.