Sax on the Web Forum banner

Where to Start

1776 Views 3 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  MusicDude
Hello!

Not sure if I consider myself a late bloomer, but I feel it matches somewhat. I played from middle school through part of college, and only have been slowly hopping back on the band wagon a year after getting my degree. So say I have had 4-5 years off. I never had any saxophone lessons, just whatever my band instructor could teach me. I wasn't bad, but now I have obviously fallen off quite a bit from the time off.

Now at home, I wanted to be able to structure my practice, and really develop myself from kind-of-scratch.
Without a teacher, I have been looking up resources online to use. I'll just say I am a bit overwhelmed at all of it. Spent 3 or so hours just today looking up all kinds of things. Lots of YouTube channels with good vids, but seems to lack structure I am looking for. Also lots of sites with lessons and plans, some paid or free, which might include:

-Saxophone Academy
-Better Sax
-Hello Saxophone
-Universal Sax Method..... and so on

Overall I want to be able to strengthen my chops, really develop my sound/tone and eventually sound how I want to, gather and improve upon skills (like tonguing/double tonguing, altissimo, etc.), and read and improv jazz (and where this should hopefully translate to other music forms as well). Possibly in that order too. Who knows. It sounds like I'm looking for a beginner->intermediate/advanced pipeline šŸ˜‚ Obviously the practice takes lots of time, so I don't expect anything quick when it comes to me working with whatever resources I find.

Such sources I mentioned above interest me since they have that structure and seem to cover a lot of these bases I am looking for, though I am unsure of what routes other members might recommend and what other experiences might be. Maybe a mix is best, maybe there are resources I haven't seen, etc. etc. I appreciate any feedback as I restart my saxophone hobby!
See less See more
  • Like
Reactions: 1
1 - 1 of 4 Posts
I agree with all of the above. Individual lesson with an individual instructor.

If there is nobody local to you, or withing your budget locally...then doing a skype or zoom sorta lesson setup where the instructor on the other end actually hears and sees what you are doing....isn't a bad alternative.

A decent teacher can ascertain where you are at and formulate a lesson plan accordingly.

Much better alternative than pre-packaged, pre-recorded online lessons where there is no back-forth between pupil and teacher.
1 - 1 of 4 Posts
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top