Killer Blues Updates, Improvements?

[john]

good points guys. yes, knowing the theory isn’t enough or else everybody would be improvising because theory is no harder than math and we can all do basic mathematics learned in grade school.

Simon, yes you should definately feel very confident in your fingering technique. the best way to do that is get all the major scales and practice. play them up and down all day long for a few weeks.

also, The free blues improv video lessons I put up on the site do start with just 2, 3 and 5 notes. this is for the very beginner. this is what I recommend prior to getting the Killer Blues.

[john]

I also used the Aebersold stuff many years ago when I was learning improvisation. it’s mostly (if not all) jazz tracks and music.
also, going through this stuff on your own, at a beginning to intermediate level is hard….you still need instruction because they just give you the backing tacks with the corresponding chord progressions. There’s a lot more to it than that.

I will probably be adding onto both those courses as required….that’s why I’m asking you guys what you think

[Anonymous]

In my spare sax time, i try to fit in improvisation practice when i can, after i’ve done all my sax practice related to my music lessons (that comes first). I can’t afford to waste my cash on private music lessons by not taking them seriously, and being too distracted by doing too many other things on the sax, not enough time in the day.

I am slowly progressing through the ‘Major improvisation’ course, and when i’ve done that , i’ll get back on the ‘Killer Blues’.

So from my point, of view, if and when i get through these courses (bearing in mind, improvisation on my own, is a journey of fun, that never ends).
So if i turned up at your house for a lesson, the first thing i would ask is “What next?”. You would then stick on a backing track, you might tell me the key the backing track is in and say “Ok, lets hear you improvise along to that tune”.

Now if i can’t come up with anything at all, then i’ve failed. There’s no way round it. Thats what improvisation is, you have to go away and experiment. If you find you are too slow in finger movements, then for goodness sake, SLOW down the music track and improvise at a slower speed (this is as good as practicing long tones). Slower track speeds, give you more time to use your brain to hear and think, not only that, you hear the changes in the backing track better, you hear better in times of where you have to come in with chord changes, and also you hear your own mistakes better in terms of ironing them out.

If you’ve failed, look at the course, and point out the areas that you dont understand, these need expanding. Most music tutor books are very condensed in terms of providing practicing exercises, and i would say for every exercise they provide, you could possibly find another twenty similar varying exercises to do. Its just like i practiced three songs in a year to pass my grade 2 abrsm exam, so i got a grade 2, yet after that, there was loads more grade 2 songs i couldn’t even play – what im saying is, its the same with improvisation books, just nailing that one exerice, doesn’t mean you can do play any other exercise at that level. The better the course, the more exercises you’ll find in it, which will give you a better overall grasp
of the subject.

However, if you find, you can manage to play along to the backing track, with your own ideas or Johnny’s ideas, no matter how feeble it sounds.
Then Johnny would probably say “Right we need to go over certain areas or expand on certain areas, of what you need to be doing” – you can ONLY get that by teacher student interaction.

So what you as a student of improvisation, should be doing, is uploading your improvisation work with a backing track (and i haven’ heard many people doing improvisation uploads). This will give Johny a better idea of where, if any, the parts of his improvisation course can be improved. There is no way around it, the student doesn’t have a clue, we need to hear your performance to assess the course.

Like my teacher tells me, performing a piece of music for assessment is just like bearing the soul, you are standing there playing, exposing all your faults to the world (guess what? at the end if the day, no one give a monkeys, thats the funny side of it). So upload, upload and upload…feedback, feedback, feedback.

If on the otherhand i played an outstanding improvisation performance in front of Johhny, the. Johnny would problably say “Well done, in that case you can try out some of my more advanced stuff, that i play in gigs”. etc.

Basicaly by uploading your stuff, tells us more about what you can do, otherwise we can only take your word about you claim you can do.
Harsh but true.

[Anonymous]

Hi Johnny, theres a bug in your forums, it’s failing to show the last comment someone makes, when it starts on a new page.

[Anonymous]

Hi Johnny, theres a bug in your forums, it’s failing to show the last comment someone makes, when it goes onto a new page.

[Simon]

I’ll try free blues. I didn’t see it before. I’m hungry for more sax stuff, but I realized that thing can’t be learned by night. It takes time and patience. I practice 2 hours a day, I learned alot in a year and a half, also with help of this forum and members and Johnny’s videos. Anyway i love blues stuff and for sure my goal is to play and improvise in blues. At this moment I’m trying to play my own solo in rock around the clock. It’s great tune, and when i play it i feel like I’m a real saxophonist. Also people when hear it they say wow thats a real stuff. I just need to make solo section more simple, coz I can’t handle johnnys version- technically too complicated for me.

Did i say that this is great site yet? Well it is, i check it few times a day if there is anything new😀

[john]

I have all those Aebersold books. I couldn’t get anywhere with them. The CD plays a simple chord, blang blang and so on, two bangs a measure and I’m supposed to improvise over the blangs. At that time I could read the story but I couldn’t tell the story.
The books have gotten better e.g vol 100 and vol 133 which volumes I’m currently using. Johnny’s improve course and blues course are a lot better than the Aebersold stuff.

[john]

Like sxpoet says, sometimes what we post does not show up in the forum

[Carl Robinson]

I bought the Blues course after only a couple of weeks of owning a Saxophone so was a total beginner. I found it easy to follow and gave good examples of where the exercise could be used,I still consult and use it nearly every day. The backing track is great and allows you to try improvising the notes learnt. I still can’t get that little “flourish” at the end, it would be great if you could do those things in SLO-Mo actually showing the fingers. Imho well worth the price.

[john]

test post

[Author]

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