[A Greene]

Like many in the United States (and world) I find myself with a lot of time. I've upped my daily practice to 2 1/2 to 3 hours. I have kids and a wife and honestly they don't need to hear a saxophone constantly. I thought I'd be making more progress on some of my playing 'demons' but that might be for another post. Here's my questions.

The days are starting to run into each other and even though there's a ton to work on, I find myself mentally bored or stale. In New York State, we are basically house bound except for the weekly outing to a state park or curbside pick-up at the Grocery Store.

Are other players taking 'mental health days' off from the saxophone? I'm thinkin about adding a clarinet or piano practice days on the weekends. Just something different.

 

[SimonJazzSax]

I'm trying to make projects and goals for myself to help with the routine. I have the normal practice of vocab, transcribe, overtones, altissimo etc, but I am making recording projects and trying to come up with things that have a final result. Even if I'm not posting those. Flute, clarinet and all the other stuff can be a great goal, but I'd just recommend adding it to your everyday routine and taking some sax time out. As you know, hitting it everyday consistently is the key to growth.

I'm thinking about trying to come up with projects that involve other sax players recording together instead of just me playing along with play alongs and recording solo.

To each their own of course, but project oriented goals have helped me.

As to the breaks, I play if I can that day. Tend to only break if I don't have practice time. I always have something to work on.

Sent from my HD1925 using Tapatalk

 

[Grumps]

With all gigs having dried up, I'm even less inclined to practice.

 

[motteatoj]

I find the occasional day or two break to be very helpful, not not three, too long.

 

[Bubba06]

The days are starting to run into each other and even though there's a ton to work on, I find myself mentally bored or stale. In New York State, we are basically house bound except for the weekly outing to a state park or curbside pick-up at the Grocery Store...

I'm trying to make projects and goals for myself to help with the routine. I have the normal practice of vocab, transcribe, overtones, altissimo etc, but I am making recording projects and trying to come up with things that have a final result. Even if I'm not posting those.

I feel like I'm in exactly the same boat as you-- without a gig or consistent outlet, I feel like I'm just running around in circles. I, too, have been using projects to keep myself motivated and moving towards something, and have barely shared any of it. I keep a practice journal that's broken into monthly goals, and then weekly pages that lead to the monthly goals. In it, I keep a bottom section of just "professional things," like cleaning some Finale files, video editing something small, etc. Right now, I'm writing a basic arrangement for trumpet/tenor of "Triste" for recording, recording/editing the Greg Fishman duet's on Flute, and trying to force myself to transcribe more.

I'm still getting paid from my ship gig, so I try not to truly take days off, but about every 10 days I take a day where I ONLY warm up on my instruments and take the rest of the day off.

-Bubba-