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Rock plus . .

2491 Views 8 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  Grumps, 
widetrack
I don't know if this is the right forum for this question, but since there's no "Anti-rock Sax" sub-forum, I'm gonna start here, anyway.

Most of my long-ago pro playing was in rock and the blues. So I got away with what I will charitably call a "primitive" approach. I'm not proud of it, but it served our ultimate ends.

I'm currently working up an act that will certainly be "rock" of various sorts, but will, I hope, appeal to somewhat more sophisticated ears. So I need to make my playing sound more contemporary, and a degree more musically advanced.

I got my scales and chords down pretty well (though never well enough, lord knows). I am working on mixing in major and minor pentatonics and chromatic with regular maj and min scales. But when I record what I do, it still sounds rather crude.

So 2 questions:

1. Who can I listen to that plays what could be called contemporary pop / rock / blues / jazz sax?

2. Can anyone suggest any technical things I can begin working on to make my playing more modern and (musically) sophisticated?

Thanks for any suggestions.
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Grumps
Rock and roll saxophone, and expecially pop, is more about sound than technical ability. No one wants to hear jazz licks/scales by a sax player in rock and roll... except maybe the player himself. But with that said, you can still walk the line keeping the spirit of rock/blues/pop while showcasing a bit of your technical ability. Have a listen to Bob Reynolds (a member of SOTW) on Jonah Smith's Beneath the Underdog CD. Here's a taste of it:

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Grumps
widetrack said:
Grumps: Thank you for posting that cut. It's a perfect example of what I've been looking for. I downloaded it and am going to dig in and figure out what he's doing.
Click to expand...
Check out his site as well. It's most informative:

http://bobreynoldsmusic.com
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