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Adult Saxophone Group

5K views 21 replies 15 participants last post by  tenorcat 
#1 ·
Hi All,

I am new in the Saxophone world. I have just learned how to play Sax for about 8 months, and I have a lot of fun.
I just wonder if it is common in the Sax community to have a Sax Group. Other than Sax, I play piano and I belong to several Piano Groups.
I am looking for a Sax group.

How about adult Sax competition, do we have that kind of competition?

Ron
 
#2 ·
I am new in the Saxophone world. I have just learned how to play Sax for about 8 months, and I have a lot of fun.
I just wonder if it is common in the Sax community to have a Sax Group. Other than Sax, I play piano and I belong to several Piano Groups.
I am looking for a Sax group.
First, everything depends on exactly where you live. What counts is what you can find -- or start up, if you're bold -- in your own community.

Second, what do you mean by "sax group"? Do you mean an ensemble of musicians, such as a saxophone quartet, saxophone quintet, or larger saxophone choir or saxophone chamber orchestra? These groups are pretty common, although the larger ones tend to be associated mainly with universities. I play in a saxophone ensemble that varies between four and six musicians, so we can play a lot of different repertory.

Or, by "sax group," do you mean a kind of club for saxophone players, in which people get together to swap music or equipment, discuss issues of common interest, etc.?

How about adult Sax competition, do we have that kind of competition?
Organized, formally judged musical competitions tend to be limited to professionals or very advanced students. I've never heard of a formal saxophone competition for amateurs. (I believe there is one for pianists, but they are highly skilled, close-to-pro-level amateurs.) But nothing's stopping you from convening a "sax battle" in which you and some colleagues jam together and see who impresses the most. You might be able to find something like that at a night club with an open-mike night.
 
#5 ·
Thanks Dr G, I have said this myself many times. Music is an art and an entertainment business, not a competitive sport. I think competition is healthy on a personal level though, trying to be the best player you can, have the best band you can, with the ultimate goal of getting more calls. If your goal is to be super hot sh-t at the jams, then I don't want to know you.
 
#8 ·
I've never been in a place with enough sax players to form a 'club' to meet, play and talk. When this forum started it was the answer to my dreams because now I had a place to talk with other sax players. There might be such a group somewhere but I wouldn't know where. I can see that it might work with hobbyists, but there is no way working sax players would ever be involved in anything like that. This forum is the only opportunity I have ever had to discuss things working sax players want to know about. I'm not out on some desert isle, either, and I have lived/worked in some larger cities; its just that working sax players have always been kind of rare and today are very rare. I go years between actually seeing somebody else play sax live, and in my experience when you do meet they don't seem to want to 'talk shop' which is what I love to do.
So, if you can put together two or three amateur players to get together and talk/play, it probably would be a beneficial thing.
 
#9 ·
The Music Center of the Northwest in Seattle had (has?) an adult saxophone group, usually 3 to 5 members. Taught by a local sax player/teacher/repair tech. It was actually a good way for a beginning sax player to get to understand group playing. Timing, dynamics, even some instrument maintenance. In other group settings, the instructor takes time to explain fingerings to guitar players, rhythm to the drummer, volume to the drummer, personal hygiene to the drummer, etc. In an all saxophone group, more of the instruction, even explanations to another group member apply to the sax in general and can be helpful. The instructor always had her horn and could quickly demonstrate, so it was a lesson and a hoot.

Mark
 
#12 ·
I started my own sax quartet a few years ago. We meet almost every week and even have gigs now and then. We have over a hundred charts in our book now, quite a few we arranged ourselves. It's a blast. I highly recommend it.

We're all adults and practice safe sax.
 
#13 ·
Competing is not a bad idea. I compete in several amateur piano competitions. It is a way for me to force myself to practice diligently and smartly. In addition, it also makes me keep taking a lesson. Without taking lesson people at my level will not improve consistently. When I just joined this adult piano group, I was more at the bottom level of the group. Most the members do not take lesson and afraid of entering competition (for any reason), I am the few one who keeps competing and taking lesson. Now, after 7 years, I am the best pianist among those original people who joined the group. Therefore, I am a big proponent of performing infront of people, taking lesson, and competing. Once I can play Saxophone well enough, I will form an amateur Saxophone group like what I did with piano. I am guessing it will be more difficult to form. Because it will be less people playing Saxophone seriously. There are so many serious adult pianists.

This coming Dec, I will perform at my teacher's 1st student recital. I forced him to do student recital. Of course, I helped to organize the event. It appears most of Saxophone teachers are also not into having student recitals. It is not like piano teachers who are usually very into having student recitals. Most Saxophone teachers are males, and to be honest, males are usually lazy to organize thing. I am not surprised about this.
 
#14 ·
Competing is not a bad idea. I compete in several amateur piano competitions. It is a way for me to force myself to practice diligently and smartly. In addition, it also makes me keep taking a lesson. Without taking lesson people at my level will not improve consistently. When I just joined this adult piano group, I was more at the bottom level of the group. Most the members do not take lesson and afraid of entering competition (for any reason), I am the few one who keeps competing and taking lesson. Now, after 7 years, I am the best pianist among those original people who joined the group. Therefore, I am a big proponent of performing infront of people, taking lesson, and competing. Once, I can play Saxophone well enough, I will form an amateur Saxophone group like what I did with piano. I am guessing it will be more difficult to form. Because it will be less people playing Saxophone seriously. There are so many serious adult pianists.

This coming Dec, I will perform at my teacher's 1st student recital. I forced him to do student recital. Of course, I helped to organize the event. It appears most of Saxophone teachers are also not into having student recitals. It is not like piano teachers who are usually very into having student recitals. Most Saxophone teachers are males, and to be honest, males are usually lazy to organize thing. I am not surprised about this.
Gee, the more you post how about how wonderful you are, and how wonderful others are not, I feel less inclined to be interested in what you have to say.

OK, so you are a big fish in a small pond of piano players that choose to compete. Next?

Whatever is wrong with playing for the sake of the music? For being the best YOU can be, regardless of the "competition"?

Judge yourself by YOUR progress, rather than than that of the person next to you. Sure, you can be better than them, but can you be better than YOU?
 
#22 ·
Is it common to have a sax group? Not that I have been aware of. I had a client through the '90s when I was contracting Design-Build remodeling, high-end estate renovations, cabinet/furniture & millwork installs and other expensive sawdust in Silly-Con Valley. He ran a Intellectual Property law firm who worked with venture capitalist. Nice work if you can get it.

His home and property bordered on David Packard's famous 63 acre Apricot orchard in Los Altos Hills. What a pad! And I'm pretty jaded when it comes to houses... I have built some crazy stuff. My plumber recommended me because I did ultra-clean renovation work in nice homes. So I met the owner and his Wife at 8:30m on a Saturday morning. They had done their homework for me, all the things I wanted to go through to create a Scope of the Work and some kind of Money/Time estimates.

They were very warm and made me feel like they were looking forward to turning plans into reality. With business done he asks me if I like music, or did I like Piano music. I said, I like Jazz for sake of a better word, Chick, McCoy, Bill Evans, Red Garland... Joe Zawinul, uh you know? He looked at me like I fell from space. He turned around and opened a door off the hall into a big room with floor to ceiling glass exterior wall, making the exotic manicured garden feel like it was inside.

Briefly he tells me that he had taken up piano when he turned 40. All that is in the room is a giant Steinway with tho top propped open. He sits down and starts to play diatonic scales with both hands... slow and even like a familiar warm-up. He tells me that he is in a group of pianists in Mt. View who were all different levels and met once a month to perform and critique one another. He mentioned getting ready for competition. He said that it really motivated him meeting other pianists who were years ahead, or still behind where he musicianship-wise.

He started to play some Czerny or Liszt Caprices. That was it for me. His wife graciously grabbed my arm and escorted me out to the hall, closing the door. She began to apologize for her husband's curt manor. She said he had goals of so many hours of practice for each of his two teachers/coaches. He has hard and fast rules about his office contacting him for any reason during the day. If I had and questions or problems going forward where I needed to talk to him... please DON'T... run it by her and she would sort it out for me.

Our work was in another wing of the house for about a month. We used a back gate and never went up to the main house or in front. But we could hear him practicing during the day. An hour on and and hour off. I can't even remember their names anymore, but I think about how focused that guy was all the time.

A sax group sounds like a cool thing. From time to time, I see people posting on craiglsist in search of saxophonists who want to play in quartets. The only thing I can think of that comes close around here, is an all female sax group called the Quadraphones. I'm sure they are on YouTube. Good strong players, legit material, funk, rock, soul and straight ahead jazz.

Hey Referance 54, I think it's cool that you want to play the horn. I appreciate your desire. I studied clarinet as a kid and learned out of the Rubank's Method, Klose and so on. A few years later when I got a tenor, I missed working through method books and etudes. My sax teacher had me memorize all the diatonic patterns, pentatonic, diminished and whole tone patterns for a year instead. Then begin to sequence them. I learned the tenor mechanism away from notation.

It seems like many older people who take up sax, have to learn basic musicianship, theory and how to work the mechanism... all at the same time... then with the goals of improvising too? Good luck on that. You have a huge advantage knowing what you know and have experienced.
 
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