[karaoka]

Hi Everyone,

I’ve been playing and teaching for more than 2 decades and I’ve learnt a lot over the past few years in the world of saxophone playing. A lot of thing I wish someone would have taught me when I first started. So I wanted to now share everything I’ve learnt with everyone from all levels from Beginners to pro. I am currently in the process of creating a wide variety of tutorials and teaching covering all the fundamentals of saxophone techniques, Ear playing, Reading, Improvisation and much more, and I need you help determining what knowledge is wanted. Please write all of your questions below and I’ll be sure to answer them all through future video content.

K

 

[lesacks]

Obviously it all depends on where a person is in their progress.

Right now, I'm getting a lot of value from "transcription" practice material.
I'm not a good transcriber (pretty rubbish ears) and having a few clear examples with well defined progressions behind and backings in a few keys ; is great training, good for development and fulfilling as it's actually playing music.
There are some great examples, YouTube and paid-for; but, I reckon, plenty of space in the market...

 

[karaoka]

Thanks lesacks! Transcribing is definitely something that I should think more about with my teaching.
What level will you be satisfied with transcribing? Also, would you be able to to link me some YouTube that has that teaching?

 

[lesacks]

Cool.

Stuff I've used:
Randy Hunter has a fabulous series of licks to practice transcriptions. eg
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLwqoGPcCBRZPsgtxmZ7-RQSWpTBQyLzx

Jay Metcalf's paid for lessons emphasis transcription as well.
https://bettersax.com/easy-pentatonic-lick/

There stuff that great, but way above my level - like Greg Fishman. One day.
I'm sure there's other first class material out there. But not a huge amount.

As for level? I'm not a music teacher! But obviously speed and complexity are the things, and a good series should build progressively, I guess... It can be hard for B&I to precisely get things like closures, scoops etc. by ear.

Hope that helps

 

[wanderso]

Jazzimprovisation.com (AKA Jazz Conception) offers two master class video courses by Jim Snidero on alto and Walt Weiskopf on tenor which cover a lot of ground including theory elements employed by Masters. I still watch parts of them for exercises and sound samples. Jim Snidero also offers a 21-lesson improvisation video course that is excellent. The Jamey Aebersold Improvisation DVD can be streamed. And for Chris Potter fans there is a course with interviews, Q&A and performances.

Mymusicmasterclass.com has four outstanding advanced video lessons by Walt Weiskopf, as well as many other offerings by George Garzone and others. Extremely high quality.

Bettersax.com by Jay Metcalf contains many outstanding video products as already mentioned; I find the Essentials lesson in both Bb and Eb very useful for warm-up which is just more fun to do along with someone else on the screen.

If you can author and produce content comparable to the above, you will be very successful!

 

[karaoka]

Thanks for the reply! Checked all of them out and there teaching looks great. I’ll need to research more courses to see what’s out there. Thanks heaps for your help!

 

[lutemann]

How to use long tones and overtones to improve the over all tone.

 

[blaine hoopes]

I signed up for an online course that, now, I wish I'd signed up for a different one. The one I'm taking is really good if you want to just get the same standard 1-2-3 approach as you'd get from the Larry Teal book or any method book. But I'm getting much more valuable information about the things I'm interested in from Jay Metcalf's YouTube videos (that's without having signed up, just watching the free stuff) and from sirvalorsax YouTube videos. Both of those guys are interested in and discuss the esoteric things that I'm interested in and curious about and I think I would have gotten a lot more valuable info from either of those guys (I don't think sirvalorsax has courses - but I really like the way he thinks about and approaches sax)

A couple of topics I'd be interested in:
How does throat/tongue shape change in going from low Bb up to high F? Should it remain constant and let the octave key do all the work? Or is it constantly changing and smoothly transitioning across the entire range of the horn so when you get to altissimo you are already there?

Bottom lip over or lip rolled out? And part of that is working with a smaller tip opening softer setup

 

[Bloo Dog]

This is a pretty fundamental, but necessary drudgery: Actual transcribed chords in every inversion and every extension. This extended exercise will burn chord memory into a musician's mind for a long time. A lot of folks (teachers/academics) swear that learning by rote doesn't work, but it does. slaving over a staff with a pencil burns in sight memory and reinforces recognition and interpretation of chord symbols.

One of the shortcomings that I see of various online tutorials is that the observer is SHOWN things, but little is expected of the learner. Okay. So you've shown a learner how a dom7 chord is constructed. But can he construct one in every key and in every inversion? Forty-plus years ago Berklee had a fabulous correspondence course that posed several problems to the musician in every lesson. One of the first lessons was to write every known chord in every key and in every inversion. That was one emeffer of an assignment, but it was necessary.

Just showing someone how it's done doesn't accomplish much for the learner unless he invests some of his own time and effort into the lesson. You should expect feedback from the student. SERIOUS feedback.