fly me to dah moon

[Anonymous]

just uploaded today – trying to improve the sound of my recording
from my i-touch (can’t afford to buy a better setup just yet – moneys needed on decorating)
If i can get it clearer than the previous recording, then i can make do with
the i-touch for another 6 months or so.

tried to get a mix of low notes and high notes (at 1:42) to get an overall picture of
the recording (ignore the out of tune notes, and the wrongly played notes – kept forgetting
it was in A major, and not D major).

Asisde from that, any comments would be welcome – perhaps the i-touch is too close to the
mike ? etcc. (play better would probably be more appropriate) lol

[Kevin]

James, I listened to your upload on my I-pad with and without headphones. The clarity and volume of both backing track and sax were for the purposes of uploading were in my opinion good. It would be hard to improve on those results, and the results were good. I think you achieved what you set out to.
Now give us your best effort- prepare this piece and upload like your judging panel exam- you want to hit on all cylinders- intonation, starting/stopping the notes cleanly, timing-coming in at the proper beat, dynamics!, musicality, performance(?posture, entertainment!)(hoping no elephants, or dying fish video loops…). If you ascertain your video before it’s upload and deem it a passing grade, then we will all cheer you on and enjoy the participation! Looking forward…

[Anonymous]

Thanks Kevin – currently got the i-touch about a foot away from the bell, but positioned above the bell about my shoulder height in relation to the bell. I was actually singing in the mid part quite loud & yet it was barely picking up my voice from a foot away. So somethings not quite right, because the i-touch is physically slotted into a small pair of speakers box shape, i cant move the speakers away from the i-touch, i can only lower the speaker volume on the i-touch. Its a catch 22 situation, if i lower the volume anymore then i cant hear it when i play the sax.

I need to get a pair of active speakers, connected to the i-touch by bluetooth to play the backing track, and fill the whole room with the backing track instead. Then i can have the speakers further way, and bring the i-touch closer to the sax to record both sounds. But i beed to make do with what i’ve got.

As to a polished upload – grade 3 alto sax exam is 11 weeks away, so i have to concentrate on polishing the 3 grade 3 songs for that.
But thanks – i don’t want spend hours tinkering with mic positions at this late stage. The only only other option is to record with a video camera – but last time i did that i had to get the backing track speakers about 6 inches from the camcorder and stand 6 feet away from the camcorder. In the end it took me over an hour to set everything up with the pc – not an option.

[Anonymous]

just sat down for an hour and worked out my grade schedule.
I’ve got 11 weeks to the exam, and 8 weeks to put in for the exam (cant afford to waste $90 doing it, includes paying the piano player).
Lots of tactics in exam marking – out of 150 marks.

3 songs each carry 30 marks (total of 90 marks) one song is a solo piece not accompanied by the piano.

1 sight reading song, allowed 30 seconds to practice 21 marks (total of 111 marks)

play some scales & arpeggios from memory 21 marks (total of 132)

Aural tests in 4 parts 18 marks (total of 150 marks)

i need 100 marks – pass
or 120 marks – merit
or 130 marks – distinction.

When i did grade 2 last year i only got a merit.

If i did the grade 3 today i would get roughly about 40 marks in total. So for the next 8 weeks i have to up my game in each of the 4 areas – just to get enough marks for a pass mark. 8 weeks is a long time, but in terms of lessons its only 8 lessons with the teacher to judge/correct.

To practice/play the sight reading part, would be the equivalent standard of the upload i just did, but it would only be 3 lines of music (max 24 bars) – id get 30 seconds to run through it, and like kevin says everthing would be marked on correct speeds in the bars, dynamics, articulation, tone etc… sight reading tests are very challenging, compared to playing 3 pieces youve spent months on.

The downside of doing grades is for those few months everything else gets put on hold and it does take the fun out of playing an instrument. As no one wants to hear practing.

I look at it from the point of view if your playing is at different levels (novice, amateur, pro etc) you should have no problem passing the different grade levels if you find playing stuff at a specific grade level quite easy.

Its quite common to work through the various grade levels, and just do the final grades.

Working through the grades is a nice progression of learning – you then get to judge sheet music whether or not you are expected to be able to play it properly at the grade you have completed. The upload i did would be classed as the grade 4 above me, so i wouldn’t be too concerned about the playing standard of it, but i would expect certain areas of it to be a lot less sloppy.

When i do grade 4 next year, if i pass it with a merit, then if i played that upload like that, i wouldn’t deserve to be in possession of a grade 4 cerificate. I should be able to play that perfectfly after an hours practice.

[Anonymous]

Hi James

Watch this young chap give it a go.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4FNjQJpJR4

Do you know of a good backtrack for this number?

What music piece have they given you to play for your exam James?

There is no shortage of people here to give you feedback on your progress.

[Anonymous]

Hi Jeffrey

yeah he’s a great player, watched most of his videos sometime ago.

The backing track i used is the one from JF’s site, well worth the money as you can get the sheet/sheets, track/tracks that work for alto and tenor. Unlike music books – you often may have to buy one book for each instrument.

out of 25 pieces the 3 pieces i’ve selected are ‘waltz for Emily’, ‘thoughful sax’ & ‘morning’. I can play all 3 of them now in terms of notes, but i shall have to spend a lot of time getting in time, correct dynamics, expression, correct speeds in the bars etc..

in terms of progress the pro that teaches me is the first port of call for grade exam feedback, he knows all about the grade marking system, and what the examiner is looking for in terms of marks (makes a huge difference when you know what they are looking at when they mark you).

But honestly the higher up the grading system you get, you become less dependent on people correcting errors, as you should
start to notice them while you’re playing.

one of the things that surprises me is you don’t get any extra marks for playing from memory.

I now mainly putting my uploads up to encourage other learners to put their stuff up in case they are holding back if they think they aren’t worthy of listening to. A rough diamond isn’t of any use until its cut & polished.

[Anonymous]

James, could you give me more information on the 3 pieces, ‘waltz for Emily’, ‘thoughful sax’ & ‘morning’.

I would like to see where I can acquire the music.

Emily is an interesting piece – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKXZbdQKQdU

I also sat for a number of exams when I was playing the piano, both theory and practical.
Unfortunately I’ve forgotten most of what I learnt way back then 🙁

[Anonymous]

Hi Jeffrey

Morning
http://shop.abrsm.org/shop/prod/Classic-Experience-Alto-Sax-Piano/595433

Waltz for Emily
http://shop.abrsm.org/shop/prod/Rae-James-Blue-Saxophone-for-alto-or-tenor-saxophone-and-piano/615951

Thoughtful Sax
http://shop.abrsm.org/shop/prod/Bullard-Alan-Sixty-for-Sax/904956

A fantastic grade 3 song practice book is
http://www.amazon.com/Grade-Alto-Saxophone/dp/0851629830

I would recommend this to anyone thinking of doing Grade 3,
If you are struggling to play any of the songs in this book,
or if you can’t play any of them with these with ease,
then i would safely say you’re not quite ready for grade 3.

Bear in mind, the tunes in these books could be rewritten,
for someone doing grade 3, and the original tunes may even be harder.

[Anonymous]

James, I have actually acquired a copy of 60-4-SAX and played ‘Thoughtful sax’. I think I went as far as 30, mind you it was more a sight-reading exercise. I haven’t spent time really polishing the tunes. At this stage I am only interested in playing the notes smoothly and in tune. I will concentrate on the more technical points later. Our local book supplier doesn’t have the other two books. I bought the killer blues and altissimo courses from Johnny. After studying the killer blues info all evening I woke up the next morning with a tune in my head! I wrote it down and I’m practicing it daily. Perhaps I will be able to record it by the end of the week. I’ve called it ‘Pent-up Blues’, but I’ll have to wait for the comments to see if I’ve given it the right name.

[Anonymous]

In the exam, you would only 8 marks out of 30 just for playing ‘Thoughtful sax’ all the way through without stopping, even if the timing was out, and the dynamics were wrong, and it was expressionless. Obviously it’s important to get all the other stuff in order, to get the full marks.
So if you played all 3 songs like that, you would be lucky to get 24 marks out of a possible 90 marks. But it’s not something to make a big deal about, couple of weeks practice and you would soon bump it up to 75 marks out of 90.

[Author]

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