Killer Blues Backing Tracks

[Saxfella]

For those of you enjoying the eBook I need a clarification. The backing track for Basic Blues Scale Exercises works, but I can’t seem to play the Pentatonic Major Exercises with it, nor the Pentatonic Minor Scale Exercises. Have I missed something, am I brain dead (don’t answer that!) or do I need more Skype lessons?

[Michael]

Hey Saxfella, I’m getting ready to start How to Play Killer Blues coming up here very shortly. While I haven’t actually started the ebook yet, Johnny gave me the green light to go ahead and start browsing in it; to get familiar with its contents and all. Let me ask you a 2 questions; have you learned the Major Scales for the Saxophone yet? If you have, then go to the home page an look under “Saxophone lessons” under “Improvisation” and you’ll find some great beginner’s Blue lessons on how to Improvise correctly, using a simple Pentatonic scale taken from one of the major Scales. Once you’ve mastered that exercise, you can go on the the 2nd half of the Improvisation lesson that follows there and it takes Improvisation 1 step farther. That’s what I’m doing right now and when I have finished the lesson on the home page then I’m starting the How to Play Killer Blues ebook, as this lesson helps you to see what the basis of the ebook is. If you haven’t learned the Major Scales for the Saxophone yet, then you will have to learn those first before even thinking about attempting the Improvisation lessons found in how to play Killer Blues ebook. Without knowing the Major Scales, you will have no idea what Johnny is even talking about in the Killer Blues ebook, nor would a player have the fundamentals Saxophone playing skills to tackle/benefit from the ebook How to Play Killer Blues. This ebook is designed for the player who has mastered the fundamentals of the Saxophone and is ready to take is playing to the next level, v.s. learning the fundamentals of the Sax. Johnny teaches all of the major scales in the ebook “How to play the Saxophone–a beginner’s guide”. The Minor Scales is a whole different set of scales entirely on their own that need to be learned too, and those come after learning the Major scales; and the Minor Scales is what I will be starting to learn very soon. From reading your post, it doesn’t sound to me like there’s a problem with the links Johnny provides with the ebook; all the links are working fine for me. It sounds to me like you need to learn your scales first? Don’t skip/miss ANY steps at all, your Sax playing will hurt because of it. And remember to just have fun with it all; if it’s about fun then the mental aspect of learning to play the Sax, like learning the major scales, will come with a modest amount of effort and you’ll be so glad that you did 🙂

[Saxfella]

Thanks Baboon. Perhaps I should ask a more direct question. Is there in the Killer Blues… eBook separate links to backing tracks for the Major and Minor Pentatonic scale exercises? These scale exercises are different than what is presented in Johnny’s separate three-part series on the pentatonic scales. In my eBook edition it seems as if the backing tracks should be there but they appear as grey/blue rectangles and can’t be activated.

[john]

Yes, let me check on that and get back.

[Author]

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