Playing for two months and lovin' it!

[Leo Jr]

dont quit before the miracle happens.

I got a tenor sax for Christmas. I couldn’t even blow a note. If you’ve just picked up I have some great advice.

1. Email a music professor at the local university and ask for them to refer you to a woodwind student who may be willing to teach. What college kid couldn’t use and extra $30 an hour.

2. Buy a fingering chart.

3. There’s a ton of stuff on the web, particularly you tube. I found that the best app to get is “saxophone lessons- learn to play the saxophone” That’s how I found Johnny Ferreira. This appointment condenses and categorizes all of the videos that you will ever need.

4. Practice every day for only 5-10 minutes at first. You will remain focused and not get discouraged.
5. Practice scales and long tones to develop fingering technique and get your wind. Those muscles need to be conditioned.

6 pick two songs. I picked John Coltrane’s Spiritual and Rolling Stones can’t you hear me knockin. (Bobby Keys sax solo is at 2:42 – 4:42)

7. Lastly get a good neck strap that’s easy to adjust. Often the sax is too low or too high which will effect your sound.
8. I bought a Fibracell 2.0 synthetic reed because I like its consistency. As I get better I will move to a natural Rico 2.5

It’s Leo Dube from Massachusetts and I’m glad to be here!

[Anonymous]

hi leo – you need to repost your 1st message as i can’t see it!

Theres a problem with the forum – its nit showing anyones 1st post & in my case its completely failed to show a post i made ‘drop in sax prices’ so had to repost it as ‘a drop in sax prices’ which then showed up!

Follow up replies to posts seem to show ok- but one of mine was moved to a different topic posted by someone else which was a bit disconcerting!

other than that welcome to this site!

[john]

Hey James, I copied and posted Leo’s 1st message below which is visible to me… did you not see it?
I’m trying to figure out what this problem is with my tech helper and he is making new test posts and they are all coming through fine.

Johnny

leo’s post:

dont quit before the miracle happens.

I got a tenor sax for Christmas. I couldn’t even blow a note. If you’ve just picked up I have some great advice.

1. Email a music professor at the local university and ask for them to refer you to a woodwind student who may be willing to teach. What college kid couldn’t use and extra $30 an hour.

2. Buy a fingering chart.

3. There’s a ton of stuff on the web, particularly you tube. I found that the best app to get is “saxophone lessons- learn to play the saxophone” That’s how I found Johnny Ferreira. This appointment condenses and categorizes all of the videos that you will ever need.

4. Practice every day for only 5-10 minutes at first. You will remain focused and not get discouraged.
5. Practice scales and long tones to develop fingering technique and get your wind. Those muscles need to be conditioned.

6 pick two songs. I picked John Coltrane’s Spiritual and Rolling Stones can’t you hear me knockin. (Bobby Keys sax solo is at 2:42 – 4:42)

7. Lastly get a good neck strap that’s easy to adjust. Often the sax is too low or too high which will effect your sound.
8. I bought a Fibracell 2.0 synthetic reed because I like its consistency. As I get better I will move to a natural Rico 2.5

It’s Leo Dube from Massachusetts and I’m glad to be here!

[Anonymous]

Thanks Johnny – i can see your post.
I don’t know why i cant see any of the 1st posts submitted by you & the rest of the crew?
cheers
sxpoet

[Leo Jr]

Thanks for the re post Johnny

[jake]

I am having the same problems as James. Loving the upgrade but the forum is so different. I can’t see original posts either. When I click into some of the forums they are blank. Hopefully your tech guys will tune this up. Everything else so far is working well.
Jake

[Z]

I saw Johnny’s comment and thought that was all cool advice for a beginner I guess but holy crap $30 an hour for a lesson??? Do people actually do that?? That’s absolutely insane. I would stay away from doing that. You can get all your beginner tips from Johnny and then develop your tone and all that stuff yourself. It’s really not that hard to get a tone established especially if you watch Johnny’s stuff. I actually never watched his beginner stuff (I found him when I was looking for improvising stuff) but when I first started playing the sax I just messed around and figured out what worked for me and I’ve sounded pretty good ever since. Once you get more serious you could start paying for lessons but not right away that sounds like a complete waste of money for a beginner.
Welcome to the site 😉

[Anonymous]

funny how everyone has different views on learning!
For me i would get lessons from day one especially with a complex instrument like the sax.
Saying that i never had a guitar lesson in my life 40 years ago, self taught from guitar books, 40 years ago youtube didn’t exist to help me out, yet i could play well enough to play in church bands, improvise freely etc..

[Anonymous]

i pay $24 for a half hour sax lesson with pro, so $30 an hour is cheap!

[Dazza]

I have been progressing well this past year but have just found a teacher that comes to me and will now get lessons once very two weeks for 45mins at $45. I think weekly is overkill. Maybe alright for absolute beginners but I really want a mentor, motivator and guidance counselor through the next stage of learning that will see me on playing to an audience, even if it’s only friends and neighbors for now. This is such a complex piece of machinery the last thing you would want to do is learn and cement in bad habits. Teachers can’t provide what great sites like this do though so you definitely need both I reckon.

[Author]

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