i can relate to that, it took me 3 months to play a song in time to a backing track – it had a lot of embellishments.

Here’s the thing, playing sheet music is funny business.

There’s two types of sheet music, if you think back to your teens when you used to listen to the latest music, and you sang along to it, and you new all the words in the songs? That’s the 1st type.

The second type is later on in life, where you hear a tune, sounds great, you don’t know hardly any words in the tune but it rocks.

Out of those two types, sheet music for the 1st type is lot easier to play along to, as you are familiar with the music, you already know where the lyrics fit the tune. Most cases, the sax sings the words, so the playing is a lot easier in terms of timing as you know it from singing to song, you instantly know when you’re out of sync with the track.

The 2nd type, is difficult, timing is harder, you can hardly tell when you’re ahead or behind, you have to rely more on your internal timing.

This is why if you are working on the 2nd type, it pays to sing the lyrics to familiarise yourself with where you are in the track. The backing track is just like a visual landscape, the songs in your teens, you know the landscape, type 2 is like being in a new town, you got to get your bearings as you ain’t got a clue where you are.

Try listening to the backing track while humming the notes, so you can hear your notes in time with the track, if you do this several times, then you start to recognise parts of the music when certain notes are played.

I still have counting in problems with some tracks, and i learnt to listen for when a certain note in the track was played, then i knew when to come in on the sax.

The more familiar with the song and the words, makes it a hell of a lot easier to play along to…

That’s performance pressure.

You can play without a mistake, the problem could be the minute you switch the mic on and start recording, you increase the pressure on yourself not to make any mistakes.

It’s similar to playing in front of a crowd of strangers.

i’ve found this ap useful, i often use it before a music lesson with my sax teacher – it chills me out.

My sax teacher from experience says – if there is a section on the music sheet where you keep making mistakes, it’s a common practice to TENSE up when you approach that section – this results in increasing pressure on your mind. The trick is to do this – when you are practicing the difficult section, train yourself to RELAX just before the difficult section. By doing so, reduces the pressure on you to make a mistake.

IF a section is really tricky, do what concert musicians do.
Start practice 4 notes from the 1st note until you make no mistakes.
Then start on the 2nd note and practice 4 notes until you make no mistakes.
Then start on the 3rd note and practice 4 notes..
keep starting on the next note and practice 4 notes, until you get through the difficult section.
Then slowly play through the whole section – they swear by this.

The hypnosis ap – really does work, it completely calms me down.

i can remember practicing 3 tunes on the sax for 6 months for an exam, i could play all of them perfectly in front of my sax teacher.

On the day of the exam, i turned up 15 minutes early and went into the practice room to warm up before the exam. i was so tense i couldn’t play any of them properly, i was going to walk out the building and not do the exam as it seemed a complete waste of time.

Then my sax teacher arrived in the room, and calmed me down, if i remember right i got several marks below a distinction for playing the 3 pieces in front of the examiner.

stress and pressure is a real killer. So i have to completely chill out.