[olds1959special]

C&C welcome

 

[Govinda]

Nice take! One thing that I see and hear that you should watch out for is your breathing!

Your breathing sounds a little slow and a little shallow! If you take deeper breaths, deep into your diaphragm, it will do wonders for all of your playing! You have a nice strong color to your tone, more well supported air will bring all of that color to the forefront

I don't have any videos on hand but go on YouTube and find some breathing exercises for vocalist that focus on diaphragm breathing and support! Vocalist pay the most attention to this and they have developed some great exercises that can help anyone learn to breath deeply and efficiently

Keep it up!

 

[Nefertiti]

C&C welcome

Do you have a tuner? I think you will see that you are quite a bit sharp and need to pull out a bit to be near the 0 on the tuner. That first A of the melody is really sharp........

 

[swperry1]

Nice take! One thing that I see and hear that you should watch out for is your breathing!

Your breathing sounds a little slow and a little shallow! If you take deeper breaths, deep into your diaphragm, it will do wonders for all of your playing! You have a nice strong color to your tone, more well supported air will bring all of that color to the forefront

I don't have any videos on hand but go on YouTube and find some breathing exercises for vocalist that focus on diaphragm breathing and support! Vocalist pay the most attention to this and they have developed some great exercises that can help anyone learn to breath deeply and efficiently

Keep it up!

Do you have a tuner? I think you will see that you are quite a bit sharp and need to pull out a bit to be near the 0 on the tuner. That first A of the melody is really sharp........

Getting your breath support/ airstream together will also help with the intonation issues. Playing long tones and scales/ patterns/ melodies with a drone and glancing at a tuner to check yourself every-so-often (don't tune with your eyes!!!) will hit lots of areas that are lacking all at once.

 

[olds1959special]

Do you have a tuner? I think you will see that you are quite a bit sharp and need to pull out a bit to be near the 0 on the tuner. That first A of the melody is really sharp........

Thanks, personally I cannot always hear it at first. I played this a few times before settling on this take so maybe I wasn't being attentive enough in the beginning with my tuning. Also I have a (bad) habit of leaving my mouthpiece on the cork so I don't have to think about adjusting it.

 

[Nefertiti]

Thanks, personally I cannot always hear it at first. I played this a few times before settling on this take so maybe I wasn't being attentive enough in the beginning with my tuning. Also I have a (bad) habit of leaving my mouthpiece on the cork so I don't have to think about adjusting it.

Some times it helps to play with a tuner and see that you are at the 0 while the track is going on. Now loosen your embouchure so that you play flat and try to hear what that sounds like without looking at the tuner. Now try to tighten your embouchure until the note sounds perfectly in tune to your ear and then look at the tuner to confirm.

Next do the same thing but tighten the embouchure so it is really sharp. Now, without looking at the tuner, loosen your embouchure until you think the note is perfectly in tune. Then look at the tuner to confirm while you are still playing. The point of this is to get your ears used to hearing what it sounds like when you are sharp, flat or perfectly in tune.

 

[Dr G]

Consider playing the tune straight - no scooping up to pitch. The lack of a center to the pitch may occur because you don't have a solid concept of where it is. Steve (aka Nefertiti) has some great ideas above for learning to hear and respond to pitch deviations. And for what it's worth, not every note on your horn is exactly correct either. Even when you nail one note on the tuner, the next one will be off. You'll need to actively listen to your pitch as you play.

Same thing for time. You have to know where the time is before you can intentionally play either in front or behind it.

Enjoy the path!

 

[lydian]

A beginner starting on a very soft reed can blow and get a sound without much air or embouchure support. The upside of this is you can easily make a sound and start making progress right away. The downside is you have no control, and intonation suffers. I would go up a notch on the reed strength so you can both blow harder and start to build your embouchure strength. There is such a thing as having an embouchure that's too relaxed. And that's where you are right now out of necessity due to the extremely soft reed. I can tell you're biting to maintain control rather than using your embouchure and this results in going sharp. Plus you need to start using your ears as others have said.

Aside from that, you've got a great tone from top to bottom, good rhythm, nice technique on fingerings and scoops. Keep up the good work.