Hey guys. I used to play sax for several hours a day, started out as a music major in college. Ended up switching majors and haven't played in a couple years. I would like to get back into playing jazz. I was wondering if anyone could offer some suggestions on where to start. Ex., good instructional books, pieces to play, etc. I still have my copy of the Charlie Parker omnibook, but that feels like a bit of a crazy thing to jump right back into. Last thing I was working on was "Donna Lee" but that was a good 3 or 4 years ago. Any suggestions would be really appreciated. Thanks!
Need help getting back into playing
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I'm already doing that much. I still remember all the basic theory and how to play. I'm just having a hard time finding the right path back into jazz/improv without having teachers anymore, and I'm way too broke to afford lessons again.
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Where do you live? There may be community college or other (low budget) community music programs around. I found it really helpful to play with other people.
If not, there are also the Aebersold playalong books/CDs that are not bad - gives you a backing track to improvise over.
If not, there are also the Aebersold playalong books/CDs that are not bad - gives you a backing track to improvise over.
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Since you've had a break why not start fresh? Kind of depends on what you want out of playing. If just to jam with others on standards, then the play alongs are OK. If you want to go somewhere else, best to start somewhere else. I'd avoid standards, especially if you have any professional ambitions. There is no market for anyone who is just another standard player (that seems to be mostly what schools are turning out and only becoming more teachers to teach yet more...). Listen to and play with any and all other kinds of music, especially ethnic. If nothing else it will give you a much wider vocabulary.
Try to play what's in your head and make the instrument an extension of you and your voice. If you already have musical knowledge then avoid the "play by the numbers" trap and "playing the changes" that keeps one translating patterns into finger exercises instead of thinking musically.
Find the core and essence of any music you embrace and say something within that adds to it. Avoid making the common jazzer’s mistake about "look how good I am (showing off, fast fingers, etc.)", this stops being music and is then instead about the player. Audiences don't care, they go to see/hear music, not some jerk who is up themselves.
Try to always enjoy what you are doing.
Try to play what's in your head and make the instrument an extension of you and your voice. If you already have musical knowledge then avoid the "play by the numbers" trap and "playing the changes" that keeps one translating patterns into finger exercises instead of thinking musically.
Find the core and essence of any music you embrace and say something within that adds to it. Avoid making the common jazzer’s mistake about "look how good I am (showing off, fast fingers, etc.)", this stops being music and is then instead about the player. Audiences don't care, they go to see/hear music, not some jerk who is up themselves.
Try to always enjoy what you are doing.
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Go play outside for some trees. Listen to everything. Play and transcribe legit, jazz, world musics, and any other sounds you encounter. Make your path about love.
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I'm coming up on 17 years of playing tenor this week. I grew up playing clarinet and sax in school, started playing flute and alto in college, got drafted and played in the Army band, worked as a musician every night until I was 30 years old. 20 years of lessons, bands, orchestras... I just burned out playing in bars and weddings for no real money, and quit for 15 years. I don't know why I started to play again when I was 45, but I did... and it was a ton of hard work.
The first summer, I could only play fifteen or twenty minutes a day. At the end of a year about an hour... two years, two hours and at the end of three years, I was playing from nine to midnight every night seven night a week... and running a construction company ten to twelve hours a day.
At that point I thought maybe in a year or two, I would be back gigging and playing great.
Two years later... I thought maybe in a year or two, I would be back gigging and playing great.
Seven years in & 20 plus hours a week... I thought maybe in a year or two, I would be back gigging and playing great.
Ten years in... I thought maybe in a year or two, I would be back gigging and playing great.
So about fifteen years in, it all started to click. The work paid off. I started to learn new tunes faster, started to be able to sound like something anyone would describe as music. Maybe now in a year or two, I will be back gigging and playing great... or not... I already have a low paying job.
I don't have to make a living playing music. I am not playing for an audience. I don't care if anybody ever hears me play. I play for me. I know when I suck and when I blow. I remember the night I quit playing. I had just made five grand in 60 hours... forming and placing 110 yards of concrete foundation in a week. It was Friday night and I played Tue, Wed and Thurs nights... got home at two thirty, up at six, standing on the job site with a hot Skillsaw in my hand at eight. My hands were cut and sore so I had to wrap them in duct tape to keep the sweat from mixing with the brass and stinging the cuts. Oh yeah, and I had the flu for three days too.
So after the second set, I'm headed to the coffee maker to see if I could stay awake for the last set and thinking one more gig on Saturday night and I can sleep all day Sunday! I felt horrible and was getting looks from the guys because I was missing cues and screwing up.
Three different people came up to me and said that the band was sounding great and I was playing smoking solos. What idiots... were they not born with ears? That was it. I lost the desire to be in bars every night for a lousy $50.
Why do I play every day now? It keeps me from going completely crazy. I look forward to playing every day. The whole day could have gone in the toilet, but I learned one new thing on the horn... I own it, it's mine and nobody can take it from me. I play what I want to play and have no time line or goal... except to keep playing and learning.
I guess my question is why do you want to start playing again?
How much time do you want to spend each day or average through the week?
Age you going to do what I did and teach yourself all over again how to play... or are you going to get a teacher or coach?
Get the new version of the Real Book. Go through it and find a dozen of your favorite jazz standards... make a list. I usually photocopy single pages and add it my personal fake book... so I don't have to lug it around. I use concert fake books now. When I started again, I decided to start reading everything transposed and transpose the chord symbols too. I worked on memorizing these tunes for a couple years, so I could play the head, solo for a couple choruses and play the head out all by myself. Make a work tape of your tunes by the artists and listen to it over and over. Play along?
I also began to keep a note book with licks, patterns, ll/Vs, hip turnarounds. I worked for at least an hour every day getting all 12 diatonic scale patterns fluid from the bottom to the top of my range... in sequences and patterns... as well as all the licks added to my notebook.
At about the three year mark, I started to record myself on a cheap cassette machine. It was very hard to listen to the tapes because I sounded so bad... but the tape don't lie... that is really how bad you suck! It's also a great tool to sort your stuff out. I was looking for blank tape last week and put in one from five or six years ago. I was blown away how much I have improved. Maybe I didn't see it week to week, but after a few years, it's happening.
I managed to play every day this year until last month when I couldn't play for about two solid weeks. I just grabbed the only Bb book I have, the Omni-Book and started on page one with a metronome playing a phrase at at time until each one swings hard. In a couple weeks, I got my strength and endurance back... and got Donna Lee working again, so I could add it back into my book of tunes I have memorized.
In '04 a 16 year old ran a red light and totaled my car. I was in bed and couldn't play for months. It was very hard to come back from that and it took me many months to get back to where I was. I used to sit in a black room and play games with myself to get my head working. The hand is quicker that the eye. You are able, I am able, to play super fast and cleanly... the big problem is that the music is in your head. If you can't think it, then you can't play it. If you can think it, your hands can already do it. It's all in your head.
My two cents here, is that the faster you get all the diatonic patterns, working in every key, the faster your ears will start to open up. One game I play is to take let's say a four note lick (in this case a simple tetra-chord). Could be CDEF or FEDC or CEDF or FDEC or CDEbF, or CDEF#... or a six notes, or eight notes, or a two bar bop or blues lick... anything... the more variations the better.
Then I play that interval package down chromatically then up chromatically... Down in whole steps and up in whole steps... Around the circle, up in 4ths... down in 5ths. You must make up your own exercises, the point is not to memorize all these interval packages, but to be able to think them up on the fly and mix and match... hear the sounds you want to play and know what the intervals are.
You will never be able to memorize all the patterns, scales and licks there are. It might not even be a useful thing either. Being able to know how to mix and match different variations on the fly is what makes you go from wondering what to say... to saying something, and not have to wonder how you are going to say it.
Maybe my first exercise is a whole step, and I'm going to descend in half steps... so, CD BC# BbC AB AbBb GA and so on. Then ABC BC#D# BbCD ABC#D#. Then CDEF# BC#D#E# BbCDE ABC#D#... you know, make up your own variations.
What that does for me is that I don't have to think twice about transposing any interval package into any key. I force myself to work one variation faster and faster through the keys. After a while you begin to be able to think ahead and listen to what is coming out, but be able to think about what is coming up too, and know where you are going. Around and around in circles until you have seen the same things over and over and you can rip through the complete cycle with no hesitation. 17 years of this and I'm learning longer and longer interval packages with little effort.
It just doesn't matter what you play. Start doing it. Keep doing it. Keep listening and go out to hear world class artists when every you can.
There are going to be as may ways to go about learning how to play the horn and the music as there are players. The thing is to start playing and keep playing. I had to make decisions along the way about what to sacrifice in terms of time, energy, relationships and maybe money too. It's a process... do you really want to start the process?
One of the most mind bending things that ever happened to me, was meeting Sonny Rollins a couple years ago and talking with him one on one. I said, when I was younger, I used to beat my self up if I didn't practice hours a day until I blew my chops out. Now I just look forward to playing as much as I can and enjoy myself. Sonny looked at me and in a matter of fact voice said, "I have to practice every day man."
Good luck.
The first summer, I could only play fifteen or twenty minutes a day. At the end of a year about an hour... two years, two hours and at the end of three years, I was playing from nine to midnight every night seven night a week... and running a construction company ten to twelve hours a day.
At that point I thought maybe in a year or two, I would be back gigging and playing great.
Two years later... I thought maybe in a year or two, I would be back gigging and playing great.
Seven years in & 20 plus hours a week... I thought maybe in a year or two, I would be back gigging and playing great.
Ten years in... I thought maybe in a year or two, I would be back gigging and playing great.
So about fifteen years in, it all started to click. The work paid off. I started to learn new tunes faster, started to be able to sound like something anyone would describe as music. Maybe now in a year or two, I will be back gigging and playing great... or not... I already have a low paying job.
I don't have to make a living playing music. I am not playing for an audience. I don't care if anybody ever hears me play. I play for me. I know when I suck and when I blow. I remember the night I quit playing. I had just made five grand in 60 hours... forming and placing 110 yards of concrete foundation in a week. It was Friday night and I played Tue, Wed and Thurs nights... got home at two thirty, up at six, standing on the job site with a hot Skillsaw in my hand at eight. My hands were cut and sore so I had to wrap them in duct tape to keep the sweat from mixing with the brass and stinging the cuts. Oh yeah, and I had the flu for three days too.
So after the second set, I'm headed to the coffee maker to see if I could stay awake for the last set and thinking one more gig on Saturday night and I can sleep all day Sunday! I felt horrible and was getting looks from the guys because I was missing cues and screwing up.
Three different people came up to me and said that the band was sounding great and I was playing smoking solos. What idiots... were they not born with ears? That was it. I lost the desire to be in bars every night for a lousy $50.
Why do I play every day now? It keeps me from going completely crazy. I look forward to playing every day. The whole day could have gone in the toilet, but I learned one new thing on the horn... I own it, it's mine and nobody can take it from me. I play what I want to play and have no time line or goal... except to keep playing and learning.
I guess my question is why do you want to start playing again?
How much time do you want to spend each day or average through the week?
Age you going to do what I did and teach yourself all over again how to play... or are you going to get a teacher or coach?
Get the new version of the Real Book. Go through it and find a dozen of your favorite jazz standards... make a list. I usually photocopy single pages and add it my personal fake book... so I don't have to lug it around. I use concert fake books now. When I started again, I decided to start reading everything transposed and transpose the chord symbols too. I worked on memorizing these tunes for a couple years, so I could play the head, solo for a couple choruses and play the head out all by myself. Make a work tape of your tunes by the artists and listen to it over and over. Play along?
I also began to keep a note book with licks, patterns, ll/Vs, hip turnarounds. I worked for at least an hour every day getting all 12 diatonic scale patterns fluid from the bottom to the top of my range... in sequences and patterns... as well as all the licks added to my notebook.
At about the three year mark, I started to record myself on a cheap cassette machine. It was very hard to listen to the tapes because I sounded so bad... but the tape don't lie... that is really how bad you suck! It's also a great tool to sort your stuff out. I was looking for blank tape last week and put in one from five or six years ago. I was blown away how much I have improved. Maybe I didn't see it week to week, but after a few years, it's happening.
I managed to play every day this year until last month when I couldn't play for about two solid weeks. I just grabbed the only Bb book I have, the Omni-Book and started on page one with a metronome playing a phrase at at time until each one swings hard. In a couple weeks, I got my strength and endurance back... and got Donna Lee working again, so I could add it back into my book of tunes I have memorized.
In '04 a 16 year old ran a red light and totaled my car. I was in bed and couldn't play for months. It was very hard to come back from that and it took me many months to get back to where I was. I used to sit in a black room and play games with myself to get my head working. The hand is quicker that the eye. You are able, I am able, to play super fast and cleanly... the big problem is that the music is in your head. If you can't think it, then you can't play it. If you can think it, your hands can already do it. It's all in your head.
My two cents here, is that the faster you get all the diatonic patterns, working in every key, the faster your ears will start to open up. One game I play is to take let's say a four note lick (in this case a simple tetra-chord). Could be CDEF or FEDC or CEDF or FDEC or CDEbF, or CDEF#... or a six notes, or eight notes, or a two bar bop or blues lick... anything... the more variations the better.
Then I play that interval package down chromatically then up chromatically... Down in whole steps and up in whole steps... Around the circle, up in 4ths... down in 5ths. You must make up your own exercises, the point is not to memorize all these interval packages, but to be able to think them up on the fly and mix and match... hear the sounds you want to play and know what the intervals are.
You will never be able to memorize all the patterns, scales and licks there are. It might not even be a useful thing either. Being able to know how to mix and match different variations on the fly is what makes you go from wondering what to say... to saying something, and not have to wonder how you are going to say it.
Maybe my first exercise is a whole step, and I'm going to descend in half steps... so, CD BC# BbC AB AbBb GA and so on. Then ABC BC#D# BbCD ABC#D#. Then CDEF# BC#D#E# BbCDE ABC#D#... you know, make up your own variations.
What that does for me is that I don't have to think twice about transposing any interval package into any key. I force myself to work one variation faster and faster through the keys. After a while you begin to be able to think ahead and listen to what is coming out, but be able to think about what is coming up too, and know where you are going. Around and around in circles until you have seen the same things over and over and you can rip through the complete cycle with no hesitation. 17 years of this and I'm learning longer and longer interval packages with little effort.
It just doesn't matter what you play. Start doing it. Keep doing it. Keep listening and go out to hear world class artists when every you can.
There are going to be as may ways to go about learning how to play the horn and the music as there are players. The thing is to start playing and keep playing. I had to make decisions along the way about what to sacrifice in terms of time, energy, relationships and maybe money too. It's a process... do you really want to start the process?
One of the most mind bending things that ever happened to me, was meeting Sonny Rollins a couple years ago and talking with him one on one. I said, when I was younger, I used to beat my self up if I didn't practice hours a day until I blew my chops out. Now I just look forward to playing as much as I can and enjoy myself. Sonny looked at me and in a matter of fact voice said, "I have to practice every day man."
Good luck.
Thank you guys a ton for all the advice. Tenorcat, to answer your questions, I'm getting back into playing simply because I miss it. I started going to jazz clubs again recently and it really brought me back. It would be nice to be able to go to an open jam session and just be able to improv and such again. I'm hoping to be able to spend an hour or two a day, four to five days a week practicing. I've been practicing the basics for a bit now, starting to get my chops back up. I can play for maybe half an hour or so before my lower lip totally calls it quits, hahaha. As for instruction, I might check out the local county college. I took a jazz history course there once that was real cool, and the instructors all seems really willing to work with anyone who wants to play, so I'm hoping to maybe find some reasonably priced private lessons just to help me get back into the swing of things.
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+1 to those statements.
One thing I wouldn't do, is start right up again on "Donna Lee." Maybe work on the blues. If you can't play the blues, you can't play jazz, IMHO. Or I should say: unless you can play the blues, you can't play any jazz that anyone will want to listen to.
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1. As stated, review the basics like scales, Minor 7ths, etc. but make them musical. Don't waste time going up and down in 8th notes like you learned is grade school. Start by playing them in 3rds and be musical and play with good swing style and some varied rhythms. Sort of like if you were playing a lick.
2. Pick a tune you enjoy to learn/re-learn as a framework. Plain old exercises are BORING. Keep your tune choice on the easy side for now and remember "easy" tunes usually aren't as "easy" as you think once you really delve in to them.
3. Look at this blog: http://jazzadvice.com/
Its a gold mine of useful advice. If using Aebersolds, pay attention to the post about how not to use them.
4. Transcribe a song and solo. Probably your "Framework" tune is a good idea. I like the Amazing Slowdowner software. Both for the slowing down, and the ability to zero in on a phrase and loop it. A great way to concentrate on a particular harmonic progression and take a lick/phrase and develop it. Simply playing through an Aebersold choruses ad nauseam, as if performing, will do you no good at developing your skill, it'll simply further ingrain bad habits.
5. Of course, have fun. After a bit, link up with friends to jam with, trade ideas, etc.
2. Pick a tune you enjoy to learn/re-learn as a framework. Plain old exercises are BORING. Keep your tune choice on the easy side for now and remember "easy" tunes usually aren't as "easy" as you think once you really delve in to them.
3. Look at this blog: http://jazzadvice.com/
Its a gold mine of useful advice. If using Aebersolds, pay attention to the post about how not to use them.
4. Transcribe a song and solo. Probably your "Framework" tune is a good idea. I like the Amazing Slowdowner software. Both for the slowing down, and the ability to zero in on a phrase and loop it. A great way to concentrate on a particular harmonic progression and take a lick/phrase and develop it. Simply playing through an Aebersold choruses ad nauseam, as if performing, will do you no good at developing your skill, it'll simply further ingrain bad habits.
5. Of course, have fun. After a bit, link up with friends to jam with, trade ideas, etc.
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As far as the basics, besides scales and long tones, find some things to read. Those old Ferling studies, 24 exercises (Mule), or just about anything. Reading through some things (even melodies from whatever source) helps concentration and anything should really be a tone study anyhow.
For the creative site, that's up to you.
For the creative site, that's up to you.
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