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Home Alt Forums General Questions Question about Smooth fingers, Altissimo course.

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  • #9588
    Michael
    Participant

      😎 Hey Johnny,
      Going over/working on video 2 in Lesson 1 today of the Altissimo course (being honest, didn’t skip the first video LOL) I have always LOVED chromatic scales for sure from the first time I learned about them 🙂 To warm-up properly and get those fingers really smooth like you talk about, does warming up the muscle in the forearm come into play? An example of what I mean: If I hold my forearm with the opposite hand and wiggle my fingers, I can feel the muscles in my forearm contracting/relaxing; seeing how they’re connected to my hands and fingers. *Fantastic Beatles Music for the Saxophone, man that sounds so good! You’ve got to do more of it 🙂

      #11967
      john
      Keymaster

        I don’t feel those muscles when I do it… you know what they say, if you’re using muscles that you don’t normally use you’ll feel them if all of a sudden you start using them so maybe this is what’s happening with your forearms?

        #11969
        Michael
        Participant

          That’s probably what it is, been doing chromatic scales for about 30 minutes a day just because they’re so much fun….and I know I’ve gotten a lot more smooth over the past few months with them, but still got a long way to go. What blew my mind about Chromatic scales, when I first learned about what they are- (it’s now been a year I’ve been learning how to play the saxophone here on your site–time flies!) is that I could literally make an entire practice session doing nothing but chromatic scales! It’s endless but I love it 🙂

          #11970
          john
          Keymaster

            They’re one of the best things to practice because you’re playing every note of the sax and it helps you to “get around” it in a smooth way.
            Pay close attention to the points I make on the altissimo video though regarding the problem areas and how to fix them…this is key and many people will not do this and then always have a problem spot they can’t smoothly play over.

            #11971
            john
            Keymaster

              recently i was trying out the 12 major scales, and found a few of them quite tricky to play smoothly, especially in swing time. If memory serves me right i think Dflat major is a bit of a finger twister.

              #11972
              john
              Keymaster

                It all depends… let’s say I take a brand new student who’s never played a saxophone before. After a while of learning the basics of embouchure and breathing etc we get to fingerings. We cover all the notes of the sax and the young student is now very confident on every note. The first scale I decide to teach him/her is the C# (Db) major scale. This is one of the toughest for many people as they work their way through the scales. So, the student takes the next week to work out the scale, practicing it very slowly for the first day or 2, then building speed and ironing out any stumbling blocks along the way. After a week of working very hard at mastering this scale it can now be played smoothly and fairly quickly. This was the very first scale the student learned. Now it’s time to teach the 2nd scale and I’ve decided it to be the C major scale… how difficult do you think this one is going to be?

                #11973
                john
                Keymaster

                  it’s all in the mind! lol

                  #11974
                  Michael
                  Participant

                    Thanks Johnny and believe me, I won’t cut corners/miss any steps as I would only be hurting & fooling myself. I would rather take my time and learn things the right way v.s. rushing and developing bad habits; regardless of how long it takes to learn. One of my biggest problem areas when I learned the major scales was the Bb major scale. I don’t know what it was (and sometimes still is LOL) but it took a lot more work for me to learn than any of the other major scales.
                    I think the temptation for someone learning to miss/skip over those important areas they’re having trouble with is because they want to sound so badly like the player who turned them on to the Saxophone without realizing the time & endless hours that very player HIMSELF had to put in to addressing these problem areas you talked about that they themselves had to overcome. And when they don’t sound like the person that turned them on then they’ll just give up and stop playing the saxophone 🙁 An example of this is a video I shared in the blog on the post for Alto Saxophone of three world-famous players on stage together improvising….all of them were on Alto Saxophones. It’s INCREDIBLE to see what they do with 7 notes or less!!! But were talking YEARS to get to that point. The one thing these guys didn’t do was to skip problem areas they themselves had; but rather they addressed those problem areas. In fact, here’s that very video LOL The Improvisation starts at 3:30. Listen to these guys hits those Altissimo notes!!!

                    #11975
                    john
                    Keymaster

                      very true that! the practice makes perfect has stood the test of time.

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