HI From Victoria,

[Bob Nelson]

I played Baritone sax in high school (badly), played again for about 18 months in a 50/60’s rock & roll band in the 70’s and then didn’t play again until 3 years ago when I decided I wanted to learn to actually play and be able to improvise. I also play guitar, but mostly I’m a singer. Until recently I have always been the bass singer in a group. About the time I took up the sax I decided I to start doing a solo act & started learning only songs that I liked, transposing them into keys that work for my voice. Learning to play some nice sax solos during the instrumental portion of the songs. It works really well… it’s amazing how many people love the sax. I started by spending about 3 hours a day for 6 months mostly playing scales. I do a lot of old jazz standards as well as some more edgy stuff but I have hit a plateau in my playing… doesn’t feel like I’m moving forward much any more. So time to switch my approach I think… so here I am.

[Charlotte Stephens]

Welcome! wow six months of scales 3 hours a day, that’s dedicated. But I guess that’s the base to improvise from huh? I need more patience – I just bought a scales and arpeggios book and have just learnt all the notes via Johnny’s videos. It’s tough slog sometimes, but starting to get a good sound now. Are you still doing baritone sax? I play tenor – which is hard enough given I’m only 5’6″ so can’t even imagine baritone!

[Bob Nelson]

Hi Charlotte,
No I play Tenor sax – I have a older Yamaha YTS62 (purple logo) It’s a great horn. Keep at the scales. Once you have them learned you’ll find improvising opens up like magic… I play guitar as well and I sing quite well… I wish I played keyboards… it’s much easier to understand the theory looking at a keyboard.

[Richard Chew]

Greetings from Malaysia. I am Richard. I play the Tenor sax. I am 59 yrs old. I played the saxophones in my younger days from age 18 -35 mostly in night clubs from 1977 – 1990. It was mostly playing the Chinese songs backing the Chinese singers from Taiwan, Hong Kong & Local Chinese singers. After that I stopped playing and changed my job to office works until today. I started to pick up playing the saxophone sometimes last year in August.

due to work schedules & don’t have a private room, I am unable to practice everyday. I only practice as and when I have time at home.

I hope through this forum here, I will be able to get more tips on improvising & improve my playing.

I fully enjoy Johnny’s style of playing & his tones.

[john]

can’t stress enough the importance of playing scales fluently.
but it’s not enough to just be able to play them, we have to “know” them….meaning not just reading them off the paper but really knowing them from memory where you fingers just fly over them.
This will advance you in having more control over your sax as well as taking the first steps to be able to improvise because it’s all about scales and chords (and chords are found within the scale)

[Author]

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