sharing sax practice

[Anonymous]

then once you’ve mastered that, repeat for all the major scalea. Just going up and down a scale is very beginner baby steps playing. by doing the above exercises its a better workout, if you cant do the above exercises smoothly & quickly, then you will have the same problem playing music in different keys.

After that you can try going up in 3rds –
1 3 1
2 4 2
3 5 3
4 6 4
5 7 5
6 8 6
7 9 7 8
and down
8 10 8
7 9 7
6 8 6
5 7 5
4 6 4
3 5 3
2 4 2 1

Five Bakers Eating Apple Donuts Growing Cherries (F-B-E-A-D-G-C)

then go up on 4ths – proper scale exercises –
1 4 1
2 5 2
3 6 3
4 7 4
5 8 5
6 9 6
7 10 7 8
then down
8 11 8
7 10 7
6 9 6
5 8 5
4 7 4
3 6 3
2 5 2 1

so you think you know your scales, if you can play the above smoothly and reasonsbly fast – then yes, i aggree you do know yoyr scales.

try rearanging how you play them, slur, jazz time etc.

[Marc Justiniano]

Wow!sxpoet, will have to print what you wrote down for me and start practicing and mastering those scales. It does get boring when just playing up and down the scales but playing the 3rd ect should make it more challenging and hopefully make my playing much smoother. Sxpoet, thank you for taking the time for writing it down for me!
Johnny, I remember in one of your videos you mentioned that learning your scales up and down was a must. Thank you Johnny. Michael, you have a good sense of humor, thank you for your comments. Johnny just to let you know, your website has really helped all of us who need to get on the right track to becoming a better sax player, alone with your sheet music/backtracking and your lessons!Thank you!

[Marc Justiniano]

I don’t know if this is the right form but I wanted to share an email from my good friend Jim Scimonetti prosax player about mouthpieces. I copied and pasted his comment to me.
Here’s his take on the subject.

Marc, sorry, I sold the Theo Wanne I had to a friend who really wanted it.

If I were you I’d go to the Hollywood Sam Ash and play through some mouthpieces. I don’t think that Berg is a good fit for you.

Surprisingly, the best sounding mouthpieces are not the expensive ones for most players.

Players looking for a “deal” on a mouthpiece usually spend and waste a lot more money. They usually buy the wrong one simply because it was “a bargain,” so now that need to start all over and do it again. It’s better to do it right the first time so you only cry once about spending the money.

When I sold mouthpieces I kept many players from buying the wrong mouthpiece by not telling them or discussing the price at all. I’d send them in the practice room with a tray full of mouthpieces, and I’d say “You mission is to simply find the one you send the best on.” THEN I’LL TELL YOU THE PRICE. 

The players always left my store with the perfect mouthpiece FOR THEM and I never had returns. Moreover, they never had buyers remorse and they sounded great. They were also surprised the ones they usually sounded the best on were not the super high end expensive ones. You really need to not think about the money when you buy a mouthpiece. If you buy a $500,00 mouthpiece because you got a deal on it for say  $275.00. You just wasted $275.00 if it is the wrong mouthpiece. It is as stupid as buying a pair of shoes that are not your size but you bought them anyway because they were discounted on sale. 

Mouthpieces are different form all the other gear (including the saxophone). When you find “THE ONE” you need to just open up your wallet and buy it. Fortunately, almost everyone discounts them anyway, but the hard this is finding THE RIGHT ONE. 

The other reason you never walk away from THE ONE when you are playing through mouthpieces is that they are all hand finished, so the all play and sound a little different. As an example: If you play a Berg Larson 130/0, you love but then you go down the street to another place because the other guy is selling a Berg Larson 130/0 for $20.00 less. That is only a deal if it plays as good as the other – but it might not. Each mouthpiece sounds and plays different. My point is simply buy the one that sounds and plays the best. you will enjoy playing a lot better when all this shit is RIGHT.

Have a great day. PLAY OUT!    

  Jim Scimonetti Sr. 🎷

Keyboards & Woodwinds

iPhone (661) 713-3238

Email: jim.scimonetti@icloud.com

Website: http://www.jimscimonetti.com

[Marc Justiniano]

Jim Scimonetti, use to own a music store in Lancaster CA. Now he is retired and plays gigs with different bands locally. I took a few private lessons from him and should of had continued those lessons with him. Don’t know if he is still teaching so i may have to find another private teacher when I save up for lessons. $30 dollar per half hour per week. We would usually take about an hour and he would not charge me more. Jim, also commented on a previous email that learning online has good things but that in order to really get better you need a coach (private lessons) to excel in one’s playing. Jim told me to make the commitment and that I can not afford not to take private lessons for myself and the art that I enjoy and love. Johnny what is your take to investing in private lessons? I already know online help does make a difference but is it limited compared to private lessons which can get expensive in time. When I first started taking private lessons from Jim, it was more like just practicing along with his tips, so that is the reason i stopped and thought it made more sense learning online and less expensive? I think I know the answer but what is your take on it Johnny?

[john]

I agree with Jim on pretty much everything he’s telling you. Having more resources is beneficial for all of us, online or off.
No good instructor will ever say that you don’t need private coaching because of all the available online stuff.
This is more so important at the very beginning stages where the sax student has no idea what the proper embouchure looks like or doesn’t know how to breathe into the horn. Doing this stuff wrong can start bad habits and so getting the proper insights right from the start is very important.
Does this mean that going through an eBook or online lessons like the ones I offer doesn’t help? of course not. what I offer is what I would teach you if we were getting together privately, it’s just not quite the same because I can’t see how you are doing the exercises…some may do them perfect and be fine but others won’t so I could never guarantee success as I would if I was standing in front of you for a few months.

When I took private lessons I did so once a week because i was putting in many hours a day practicing but if you’re only practicing 30 min or an hour here and there you’re not ready for another lesson in 6 days because you haven’t had enough time to make any difference in your playing yet so the lesson may be a waste of time and money. I saw this all the time with young kids who were forced to come to a lesson by their parents. I knew they hardly put anytime in to it that week because everything sounded the same.

Online there can be too much noise not only in what we’re talking about but in just about everything. Everyone with a website is all of a sudden an expert so many people can be taken in the wrong direction.

Jim is also right about mouthpieces… I played Beechler, Berg Larsen, Dukoff, Otto Link etc until a guy named Dave Guardala made a name for himself by revolutionizing the industry and working with the amazing Michael Brecker. The minute I played the Guardala MB model I new I found the best mp in the world. Mind you, at that time this was a smaller world! I haven’t tried anything in the last 25 years that pulled me away from my mp yet. I have tried a couple of Wanne’s pieces and they came the closest.

The mp’s I mentioned above are in the medium to medium low price range and will stay there because they are a step up from the cheaper ones but just don’t compare with the med high priced ones like Theo Wanne and Dave Guardala. Like Jim said, if you spend 200-300 on one it’s not going to be the one you spend the next 25 years playing like mine. But if you spend somewhere between 400-700 you just might not have to ever think about another mp again.

This is timely for me because I just ordered a couple of mp’s last week… first time since 1990 (seriously) but I’ll have to wait to try them before I can say anything more.

cheers
Johnny

[Anonymous]

i agree with the point made that you should try out the mouthpieces and pick the one you think sounds the best – up to a point, i think that holds true for an experienced sax player, but not entirely true for a player with a few years experience.

in my case i was playing a bright mouthpiece but my teacher wanted me to change it to mouthpiece more suitable to classic music to play in a classical music exam.

He pulled out a box of his mouthpieces all suitable for classic music and got me to play each one, i found a couple that i personaly loved the sound of, but he said they still didn’t sound right, in the end he picked out one that to me sounded dull and i would certainly not have picked it, but i went along with his judgement. Then he told me right you’re using that one for 2 weeks and then you can use it in the exam.

by the end of 2 weeks i got a lovely classical tone out of it, and after the exam i went and bought the same mouthpiece. Due to my lack of experience what i thought sounded good wasn’t sounding right to someone who new what the right mouthpiece for me should realy be sounding like.

thats my 2 cents

[Jazz Cat]

good discussion….mps/reeds have such a big impact on sound and playability it’s smart to test as many as possible to find the best personal fit. In a way I wish they wouldn’t have such a major impact on sound because you need to invest Time in testing various ones, in addition to finding a good horn. It would be nice if it didn’t much matter, but it does. I have 26+ mps for my various horns (soprano, c-mel, alto, tenor), most are just ok/so-so.

The most expensive one is the best, my otto link super tone master 6.
http://www.amazon.com/Otto-Link-OLM-404-6S-Master-Mouthpiece/dp/B0002DW5K8

For alto I really like the vandoren AL3: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002D0KR8

reeds: vandoren java reds/greens 2.5

[Marc Justiniano]

Johnny, you made some great points! Specially, that your lessons you teach us online our given as if you where sitting in front of us in person, unfortunately you can’t be there to see how we are practicing and if we are spending quality time practicing each and every lesson. I am guilty of that and perhaps also not spending must time on the basics (scales,long tones etc) because they are not as fun as learning songs with back tracking. I guess there has to be a balance between spending quality time memorizing our scales and working on our long tones and also taking some time to just enjoy playing sheet music. I guess it all comes down to making the time to practice everyday and to make everyday a constructive practice session (scales, long tones) first for sure as you mentioned and then perhaps having fun with what I think most of us enjoy (playing sheet music w/backtracking).
Question Johnny, how must time should we spend working (hours) on the basics each practice session as a rule? The reason I ask is because it would give me a time schedule not to get side tracked and start playing enjoyable things like playing sheet music. As an example, is one hour enough on scales/long tones each day or is two hours the minimum. I know it may sound like such an easy question for myself to answer by myself but I get distracted easy when it’s not so fun,,,lol lol. Then I get side tracked and start play Samba PA ti, Harlem Nocturne, pickup the pieces, hotel California ect… lol..lol Either way, what do you suggest?
As always sxpoet, thank you for your take on the subject!
Jazz cat, thank you as well for the mouthpiece links.

[john]

Many have wrestled with this and asked me to put together a “Saxophone Daily Practice Routine”
which I did and you can purchase it on the Courses section.
It gives you several of the most important exercises to practice each day so you don’t waste time.
It breaks down like this:
10 minutes on exercise 1 and 2.
10 minutes on exercise 3 and 4.
10 minutes on playing your favorite music.

Of course 10 can be turned into 20 but you get the idea, as long as you’re dividing your time properly
you will move ahead faster than when you’re flipping from this to that with no plan.
We all love to play our favorite songs and music etc and so we should. But to play those songs better
and better we must invest the time into the other things that will increase our technique.

[Marc Justiniano]

That is great Johnny, will search for it. I guess I am not the only one who does get distracted and flip flop from one thing to another while practicing.
Thank you Johnny.
You are the man !

[Author]

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