Howdy, SOTW! Who's ready for some quarantine-driven polyphonic contrafact duo madness? I've been writing a lot of two-part contrafacts lately – that is, compositions that take the chord changes of a classic song (in this case, "All Of You" by Cole Porter) and create a new melody over those...

Hello. I'm 17, play tenor sax, junior in high school. Let me inform you my story so far so you guys can understand why I'm writing this post. I started playing sax in middle school as a pretty average band student. Come 8th grade, I joined my friends band playing bass, and was introduced to the...

I've realized recently how my approach of standards was chaotic these recent years. The only parameter I used in my choice of a tune was" waoouh" this tune is amazing ! I have to learn it !!!" And then followed the struggle of trying to keep up with high tempo, memorizing licks because of course...

Be the teacher. When the teacher is ready, the student arrives… :bluewink2: You go to the hairdresser to fix the mess you have on your head, and you ask for something not too short, well cut and fresh. In a word, you want to look good. Back home you find yourself in the mirror with a pair of...

What should I play ? A young apprentice musician comes seeking for an advice to a seasoned musician. The novice wants to know where to start his journey through the path of improvisation. He’s nervous and exited while waiting for the precious words to come, when the veteran puts a firm and...

Hello fellow improvisers :) I recently made this new video lesson series (12 in all) about the 9 essential steps to cultivating strong improvisation skills on the sax. It deals with: - Transcribing and learning any melody thoroughly. - Stretching a melody - Uncovering the structure of a...

I'm a 9th Grader in my High School Jazz Band. My teacher recently gave us our new song, "The Michael Brecker Waltz" and he gave me the Tenor Sax solo part. I don't have any trouble with the written parts, just the improvisation part. I have previous experience improvising with (especially...

provide feeback if you can. don't mind how harsh it is. criticism is more usefull than praise link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUTBDtauEQA

Hello everyone, I really need help with improvisation (reading chords, developing rhythms, basically everything improvising related). Until now, if i had a solo in a piece of music, I would go and look up the chords and everything on the internet and then use those notes and make up a solo and...

this is something ive been trying lately to play withouth thinking of the harmony just of the up and down movements of lines and listening to the other players So I put jamey aebersolds autumn leaves on, and i recorded myself. I realized I didn't know what key it was in, but then i realized...

http://onehandwinds.unk.edu/ I think it would be cool to get two of these, and take the rahsaan kirk thing to a whole new level! I feel like improvising two lines at once would be really fun (albeit challenging). I also feel like the only reason playing two saxophones at once hasn't been...

Hi I didn't know if anyone would be interested in going to these saxophone workshops taking place in Bath next weekend....a saxophone weekend which is taking place in Bath on 9th and 10th October 2010. It promises to be inspiring, fun and full of saxophones! Please pass the following...

I'm putting together a Smart Music play-along that starts on the (I) then the (I) becomes a minor Making it a (ii) then going to the (V7) then (I) . (I) becomes minor etc.. modulating down whole steps. I'd like to be able to point to as many songs as possible for my students to listen/study to...

Before moving on to serious improvisation, I'm practicing all 12 of my major, harmonic minor and blues scales, triads, overtone series, and long tones along with my regular jazz band music. After that, I'm going to learn chord progression. Is this a good way to prepare for learning good...

Hi everyone This is a big moment as it is my first real post (my first was an introduction) so I'd like to start by saying hello to everyone.:wave: I am a classicaly trained saxophonist but am keen to learn Jazz improvisation, however, I am not sure where to start:shock: I have done a...

Are there any good jazz and blues music that I can use to improvise my saxophone with? The kind of jazz and blues music with the piano, drums, guitar, and such? I love improvising now, because my instructor and I started to improvise and he played music that had a jazz band playing inside his...

Has anybody got any tips on how to begin learning improvisation? I've been playing alto sax for about eight years, and an opportunity to join a band in desperate need for a sax has just come up, but I'm worried about improvising solos for cover songs. - where do I start?