Toot Your Horn

What a great prompt for a music teacher, especially one who teaches the saxophone! I of course like to think that music in general is what I excel at. I think I’m a good sax player and pianist and I hope that my students get as much from their lessons ass I do teaching them.

I wonder sometimes though, if anyone else finds they tend to go a bit over board on what they excel at? Take the other day, a new student called and mentioned that he was buying a sax. I was immediately intrigued asking what he planned to get and happily sharing expertise on which saxes play well and which, in my opinion don’t. Before I knew it I’d been on the phone forty five minutes and hadn’t got around to booking a lesson time. Fortunately my new student didn’t show any signs of being worried and I hope found the discussion helpful. I was rewarded a few days later when he called again for more information.

So maybe besides the playing and teaching I can add ‘useful opinions regarding saxophones’ to my list of musical things I excel at. Of course it could just be that I excel at talking…

Saxophone confidence. Playing the Blues

Here’s a good way to gain loads of confidence playing the sax after only a few lessons.

Have you started your scales yet? If not don’t worry just try a C major scale now, it’s quite easy, all you have to do is play C,D,E,F,G,A,B,C on your saxophone. It is often easier to start on the C in the middle of your sax (3^rd finger, right hand) and work backwards descending down the sax.

Now a little music theory. Try think of your scale like this:

C = 1

D = 2

E = 3

F = 4

G = 5

A = 6

B = 7

C = 8

Why do this? Because numbering your notes will not only help you remember where you are in blues, but it can then be applied to any key signature whilst playing blues. To apply it to another scale just remember that if you are in the key of C then the note C is the first one you play and so becomes note 1. If you were in the key of F then F would be the first note you play and so F becomes note one, G note two, A note three etc.

Next question; what is the twelve bar blues progression? This is a series of chords which form a style of music used in many jazz and rock n roll numbers. You’ve probably heard it and not realised, but if not then YouTube it and you’ll find thousands of examples. A good place to start is C Jam Blues by Duke Ellington. The original videos of this are a little difficult to follow so look for a school jazz band version.

You’ll notice the same melody being played interspersed with solos. Now listen to the rhythm section (Piano, guitar, bass and drums) even during the other instrumental solos they’ll be playing the same thing, again and again. That’s the twelve bar blues progression and it goes like this:

Bar Number	Chord Number
one	1
two	1
three	1
four	1
five	4
six	4
seven	1
eight	1
nine	5
ten	4
eleven	1
twelve	1

 

Now compare that to the way we numbered the notes in the C major scale and you have a key for playing the beginnings of a blues progression.

In bar one you need chord number one. Chord number one is based on the first note in the C major scale so in bar one you begin by playing C. Skip to bar five; in this bar you need chord number four in the C major scale. Chord number 4 is based on the 4^th note so in bar five you play an F.

Using this guide you can try and play along to many blues based songs using the basic notes of the progression. Be aware though that saxophones are transposing instruments. To keep things nice and simple we need to find songs that let you play in the key of C major so if you are playing an alto you want to search for blues in Eb and if you are playing a tenor, blues in Bb.

(Eb and Bb are the concert keys or the notes as they would sound on a piano. Because a saxophone has a different range than other instruments we have to play in different key signatures in order to sound correct with everyone else.)

If you have any question please leave a comment and I will answer you/

Quick Lessons – Don’t Be Good, Be Lucky

It’s the most obvious part of being a gigging musician, especially if you’re a soloist.

ALWAYS SIGN A CONTRACT!

Whilst I was in Africa I set up my own solo act. I’ve been doing it for three years and I have always drawn up my own contract. If the client doesn’t sign it, then there’s no sax at their wedding. So how did I manage to forget that this time?

Now it looks like the gig will be cancelled, meaning hours of practice and music hunting have gone to waste. I cannot emphasise just how much I was kicking myself. Until I got a little email from my client.

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience.  We will, of course, forward you a cancellation fee of 50%”

It helps to be good at what you do. It also helps to be a jammy little bugger.

 

So, take my advice, and remember that contract!

Today’s Musicians have to be Computer Nerds

I don’t consider myself to be computer illiterate; also I don’t consider myself to be a computer nerd. Recently I brought myself a new laptop. I installed Office, Sibelius, ITunes and all the other software I need with no help. I regularly create CD’s for my bands and students to use to learn from, so I am familiar with burning programmes. So why the hell can’t I get my own sample tracks to work?

I saved them to a multi-use CD off the old dinosaur laptop, thinking I could then simply add them to the new pc. Nope. They have converted to Audio CD Files and nothing wants to admit they exist or play them.  When I go on the net to convert them the downloadable converters don’t want to know as it’s a multi-use cd and the online converters all insist they don’t support that type of file.

This leaves me stuck.

It also got me thinking. Since when did I have to understand formatting in order to pick up a gig? I can’t imagine Mozart (or more likely one of his scribes) saying: “oh hang on a moment; this is written on the wrong type of paper, therefore I can’t go any further.” But, because my file is in the wrong format that is exactly what has happened to me.

Hopefully someone will read this post, think I’m a computer moron, and provide an answer. If you’re out there, please do that. If it reduces me to the rank of computer idiot, that’s fine. Usually I don’t need a pc in order to blow down a saxophone.

Altissimo – Not for the faint hearted

Its loud, screechy and bloody hard to do.  It will take hours of practice until you feel like your back to the days when you first started to learn to play the sax – you remember those days right?  When the cat refused to come home and the dog wailed constantly.

You can buy any number of books telling you how to perfect this skill.  There are thousands of webpages dedicated to it.

http://tamingthesaxophone.com/saxophone-altissimo.html is a good one to get you started.

Every article I have come across has four main points to it.

• Practice, practice, practice
• Strengthen your embouchure
• Learn the fingerings
• Hear the notes you want to play

I first came across this last point at a masterclass by Snake Davis.  He advocates a teaching game which increases your awareness of what you’re actually playing and develops your ear tonally.  It’s surprisingly simple as well.  All you have to do it sing something random then try to play it on the sax.  Easy right? Well, yes if you have perfect pitch but just getting the notes right is not the point of the game.  You have to get the intonation right, you have to duplicate the way the notes bend or slurr and you have to play with real feeling.

So, how does that help with altissimo? Once you can hear the note you want to play in your mind you will have a much more stable bench mark than the usual woolly “I’d like it to be high” that we all start with.  So they say.  I play sax professionally and I still struggle with this, I have a real mental block over it.  So, I’m going to stop writing now and go practice.

Disinfecting a Saxophone – Part 2

Thanks to everyone who responded via facebook or twitter.  There were some great ideas and a few unusual ones (I’m not sure Listerine would have really worked but thanks for the thought.)  The overwhelming response was one that, now I think about it, makes perfect sense, but it’s something I never would have thought of. Milton baby bottle steriliser.  However, it wasn’t a one hundred per cent success.  I am sure that my saxophones have been cleared of flu so in that regard (which is really the only important one) everything is good. But, it did have the rather unfortunate side effect of dying my Vandoren T75 Jumbo an alarming shade of snot green.  This looks particularly stupid with its still back mouth piece cap.  It must be something to do with the resin composite because the Keilwerth Jazz I use on my alto stayed back.  It hasn’t effected the tone, though, so its not the end of the world.

So here’s my brief ‘To Do’ list for disinfecting your saxophone after an illness.

• By baby bottle steriliser.
• Boil kettle and allow to cool to luke warm.
• Remove any mouth piece pads and throw them away and decide whether to keep or throw the reeds.
• Using a mouth piece brush scrub the mouth piece and ligature (if metal).
• Add steriliser to kettle water and submerge the mouthpiece, ligature, cap and reeds for the length of time recommended on the bottle (usually around 15 mins.)
• Take all equipment out and rinse under the tap.
• Dry and replace mouth piece pad and reads.

You probably don’t have to but I also sterilised all my pull-throughs and other general cleaning equipment.

Disinfecting a saxophone

I have the flu. Or something similar. Either way its not nice and because I was recording all last week I have probably given the virus to all three of my saxophones. Obviously I must clean them and then wash all the cleaning gear but I was wondering if anyone reading this had any new ideas on making my saxes sanitary again.

Unfortunately I’ve already learned that hard way that resin mouthpieces and boiling salt water isnt a good idea. If you haven’t tried this yet, don’t, all you’ll do is turn your C* a mossy shade of green. I’ve thought about disinfectants such as dettol but do I really want to have to taste that? Because you know that no matter how much you wash it, it will still taste horrible afterwards. Also those bottles come with large ‘do not swallow’ notices.

Boiling water will only do so much, cold salt water wont do much good at all. What else am I missing?

Recording the new Goldstars album

It’s been a while since I found time to write my blog and that a shame because quite a lot has been going on that coul have been shared.

I’ve mentioned the Goldstars before. They are an Andover based rock n roll group that I play sax for. About a month ago one poor venue got terribly confused when tying to book us for a rock n roll show and ended up with a metal band called the Goldstars instead. I’d have loved to be a fly-on-the-wall at that gig. As a result we renamed ourselves and are now Shorty Kennett and the Goldstars. The name seems to be our good luck charm as two weeks later we were signed by Foot-tapping Records and booked to play the two day Jukebox Jive rock n roll festival.

So here we sit, in the studio trying to put Andy (or Shorty as he’s now known) off his vocals and generally marvelling at Big Boy Bloater as he mixes our sound to perfection.

This saturday we are at the Roffay Sports and Social Club in Horsham where we will be pleased to announce preorders for the forthcoming album. You can also follow the band on facebook at www.facebook.com/ShortyKennettGoldstars