Sound check with a mobile & Alto Sax done spur of the moment..

[Anonymous]

Michael – if its any consolation i’m having serious problems with my timing.

Kevin & JF pointed that out in the past on practically all my uploads in the past, and probably got tired of commenting about it.
Check all the comments on my previous uploads if you don’t believe me.

My own personal teacher is aware of my bad timing and we are currently working on improving it.
Being out of tune and out of time sucks, especially to people who play professionally.

So as far as i’m concerned – it’s pointless me doing any more uploads, until i’ve improved my timing, as i’ll only
get the same repeated comments.

If i did do an upload, i’d have to say excuse my timing, and i hopefully i wouldn’t blame it on my equipment.

anyway good luck to you pal

[paddy jordan]

some great great advice and comments here, this is how we progress so long as we take it on board, its easy to cherry pick what we like to hear, and make excuses for this that and the other. but most of here are beginners just getting started or maybe a little way down the road with it 2 or 3 years, so none us are going to play stuff thats not going to attract advice and comments that in any event is going to make us better players it we listen!

[Dazza]

Hey Michael. There are so many songs out there and so much to learn and experiment on. You speak a lot about the array of songs you are working on and I wonder if you have given that some thought. I developed a three inch thich folder of the music I was trying to learn all at once and realised I was doing a lot of things not very well. This is the raw reality of learning this instrument alone and why so many give it up I guess. My scatter-gun approach made me think I could hit many more targets but it was to my detriment. Some advice given to me was to dump all the peripheral stuff and get back to basics in a narrow and defined corridor of skills development. I was told to play slow, play loud and play often (by others including JF) and to make sure you take a minute to write down your goals and review them like it’s a job. And then and only then, let rip and have some fun. Anyway, I have refocussed and embarked on that journery and I’ll let you know in a few months if it worked!!

[Michael]

Guys, guys, guys…..
Thanks for the tips 🙂 With all sincerity, I know what the proper timing is for songs like Take Five, Sway, etc.. is and I was simply doing NOTHING more but TOTALLY messing around with them in my mind and I was NOT being so serious about thinking about things like Staccato, legato, timing, tonging, and so on. My goodness…..this was just nothing more than a quick, totally impromptu thing that I did literally just spur or the moment and I wasn’t thinking, at all, about technical things. For goodness sakes…the sax was just sitting there and I just picked it up. I practice those technical things all the time …..doesn’t ANYONE just loosen up and have fun once in a while?!? Good grief guys…..had I of known that a simple, super-quick fun, light-hearted, funny, fun, totally blown-through 1:30 mobile/low-frequency video was going to get critiqued like this, I would have waited until next month when my portable USB Interface/high-quality mics arrives from Amazon……makes me feel like not uploading anything, at all. I do believe this is what can make people quit the Saxophone…learn to loosen up once in a while.

[Kevin]

Michael,
The Vandoren A55 Jumbo Java MP is one I would like to have tried, but haven’t yet. I think your lower notes were sounding better, and with some amount of that “buzz” we like to hear.
OK, so we’re looking forward to your next upload. It would seem that all are expecting more from one another for those of us that have held a sax for perhaps more than a year(and been part of Johnny’s Forum), which is I think a good thing. So do us all proud, pick a song that you can “nail”, and do your due diligence. Don’t upload until it meets or exceeds your expectation. We want to cheer for a job well done, but not use up Johnny’s bandwidth on controversial equipment deficiencies…

[Anonymous]

Rock on Michael – i get a lot of fun out of playing the sax.

But when i’m playing in front of my teacher – fun or not – my
teacher does it for a living & if i act & play the fool on the sax,
he treats me like a fool & thinks i’m wasting his time, when he could
be teaching more passionate students.

The same thing applies to the people you play in front of.

[Author]

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