Here's my friend Glayson Hilton playing "Your Beautiful" on Soprano Sax

[Michael]

Here’s my friend Glayson Hilton playing the song “You’re Beautiful” on Soprano Sax. He and his wife just celebrated their 15 year anniversary so he played this for her; he gave me permission to share this too. He’s been playing the Sax for years and he reminds me that contrary to what others may say, it takes YEARS to master the Saxophone. He made a great point to me when we get discouraged (as he brings out all Sax players get discouraged from time-to-time) and his advice not to look at how much we have yet to learn, but rather to look at what we have learned in the time we’ve been playing.

[Michael]

The youtube video came out kind of ‘shaky’ when it processed, not sure why. I uploaded it straight from my cpu. The video is a home-made recording, I don’t think sent it to me in HD or anything; that may have something to do with it. On my cpu it looks/sound crystal clear.

[Anonymous]

Hi Michael, thanks for the video, you are lucky to have a friend who can play really well and give you advice.

How long has Glayson been playing the Sax?

[Michael]

@ Jeff, he’s been playing 20+ years, one of those people who started out really young and grew up with it, that’s why he makes it look so natural/easy 🙂 I met him a couple of months ago, was blown away by his playing. He plays Tenor, Alto and Soprano. I asked him which Sax he likes best and his reply was “all of the above”; his view is what ever Sax you like/enjoy playing, pick it and play it. He made an interesting point to me when I asked him about how there’s lot of Sax players who aren’t fans of the Soprano, his reply was that it goes the other way too; there are players out there who love the Soprano. When he plays somewhere for the general public, they all love the Soprano. But he admits that there’s lots of music he doesn’t like to play on the Soprano, he called it a ‘two-edge sword’ LOL I asked him about how difficult is the Soprano to play v.s. the other Saxophones and he said each Sax presents it’s own challenges but it’s not anything that with practice you can’t get over…he reminded me to think back about our first attempt to even just blow a note on the Sax LOL With practice we got over it, same thing here with the Soprano.

[Anonymous]

Michael, one problem I have with my Soprano is because it looks like my Alto and Tenor (same shape) the keys are closer together than on a straight Alto which IMHO makes it a little less comfortable to play. I spent last week on my Tenor and Soprano, and when I picked up my Alto it was an “Aaaaaahhh” – comfortable position moment!

Yes, each Sax voice has it’s place – but blues has to be played on a Tenor. Right?

I am just beginning to get my first two overtones on the notes from Bb to D# – drooool making stuff! At last some real progress!!!

[Michael]

@ Jeff: Blues can be played on any Sax, but right away everyone thinks of the Tenor. I’ve seen some folks do some killing blues stuff on Bari Sax recently. We don’t see to many folks playing the Blues on Soprano, most people prefer the Soprano for those “sweet” melodies, ballads, etc.. There’s also cool funk-style of music that sounds great when played on Soprano Sax, but like you say we’re all different. Look at the recent uploads Johnny has done on Soprano Sax, fantastic stuff. I preferred his version of “Mercy, Mercy, Mercy” on Soprano over the Tenor–I loved the Tenor version, it was awesome 🙂 But to me it just had a rhythm/feel that was better on Soprano, but others prefer it on Tenor; which is fantastic too! 🙂 Again, we’re all different, but it’s all good stuff.

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